Government to allow more meat, grains in school lunches
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Agriculture Department is responding to criticism over new school lunch rules by allowing more grains and meat in kids' meals.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told members of Congress in a letter Friday that the department will do away with daily and weekly limits of meats and grains. Several lawmakers wrote the department after the new rules went into effect in September saying kids aren't getting enough to eat.
School administrators also complained, saying set maximums on grains and meats are too limiting as they try to plan daily meals.
"This flexibility is being provided to allow more time for the development of products that fit within the new standards while granting schools additional weekly menu planning options to help ensure that children receive a wholesome, nutritious meal every day of the week," Vilsack said in a letter to Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D.
The new guidelines were intended to address increasing childhood obesity levels. They set limits on calories and salt, and phase in more whole grains. Schools must offer at least one vegetable or fruit per meal. The department also dictated how much of certain food groups could be served.
While nutritionists and some parents have praised the new school lunch standards, others, including many conservative lawmakers, refer to them as government overreach. Yet many of those same lawmakers also have complained about hearing from constituents who say their kids are hungry at school.
Though broader calorie limits are still in place, the rules tweak will allow school lunch planners to use as many grains and as much meat as they want. In comments to USDA, many had said grains shouldn't be limited because they are a part of so many meals, and that it was difficult to always find the right size of meat.
The new tweak doesn't upset nutritionists who fought for the school lunch overhaul.
Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says the change is minor and the new guidance shows that USDA will work with school nutrition officials and others who have concerns.
"It takes time to work out the kinks," Wootan said. "This should show Congress that they don't need to interfere legislatively."
Congress has already interfered with the rules. Last year, after USDA first proposed the new guidelines, Congress prohibited USDA from limiting potatoes and French fries and allowed school lunchrooms to continue counting tomato paste on pizza as a vegetable.
The school lunch rules apply to federally subsidized lunches served to low-income children. Those meals have always been subject to nutritional guidelines because they are partially paid for by the federal government, but the new rules put broader restrictions on what could be served as childhood obesity rates have skyrocketed.
School kids can still buy additional foods in other parts of the lunchroom and the school. Congress two years ago directed USDA to regulate those foods as well, but the department has yet to issue those rules.
Sen. Hoeven, who had written Vilsack to express concern about the rules, said he will be supportive of the meals overhaul if the USDA continues to be flexible when problems arise.
"This is an important step," he said. "They are responding and that's what they need to do."
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told members of Congress in a letter Friday that the department will do away with daily and weekly limits of meats and grains. Several lawmakers wrote the department after the new rules went into effect in September saying kids aren't getting enough to eat.
School administrators also complained, saying set maximums on grains and meats are too limiting as they try to plan daily meals.
"This flexibility is being provided to allow more time for the development of products that fit within the new standards while granting schools additional weekly menu planning options to help ensure that children receive a wholesome, nutritious meal every day of the week," Vilsack said in a letter to Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D.
The new guidelines were intended to address increasing childhood obesity levels. They set limits on calories and salt, and phase in more whole grains. Schools must offer at least one vegetable or fruit per meal. The department also dictated how much of certain food groups could be served.
While nutritionists and some parents have praised the new school lunch standards, others, including many conservative lawmakers, refer to them as government overreach. Yet many of those same lawmakers also have complained about hearing from constituents who say their kids are hungry at school.
Though broader calorie limits are still in place, the rules tweak will allow school lunch planners to use as many grains and as much meat as they want. In comments to USDA, many had said grains shouldn't be limited because they are a part of so many meals, and that it was difficult to always find the right size of meat.
The new tweak doesn't upset nutritionists who fought for the school lunch overhaul.
Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says the change is minor and the new guidance shows that USDA will work with school nutrition officials and others who have concerns.
"It takes time to work out the kinks," Wootan said. "This should show Congress that they don't need to interfere legislatively."
Congress has already interfered with the rules. Last year, after USDA first proposed the new guidelines, Congress prohibited USDA from limiting potatoes and French fries and allowed school lunchrooms to continue counting tomato paste on pizza as a vegetable.
The school lunch rules apply to federally subsidized lunches served to low-income children. Those meals have always been subject to nutritional guidelines because they are partially paid for by the federal government, but the new rules put broader restrictions on what could be served as childhood obesity rates have skyrocketed.
School kids can still buy additional foods in other parts of the lunchroom and the school. Congress two years ago directed USDA to regulate those foods as well, but the department has yet to issue those rules.
Sen. Hoeven, who had written Vilsack to express concern about the rules, said he will be supportive of the meals overhaul if the USDA continues to be flexible when problems arise.
"This is an important step," he said. "They are responding and that's what they need to do."
this isn't just in school food. HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP IS LIKE ,,,EVERYTHING IN YOUR HOME SAYS MADE IN CHINA. really its a chemical powder. like 400 calories to 1/4 cup ? bad bad. used as a preservative that's why the hamburger looks the same after being left out for a month on the counter top, cant be a good thing. take it out all together, the bread would go bad in about 4 days as for the looks.
I thought Michelle wanted them to eat carrot sticks, cabbage burgers and organic soy milk ?
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This will not go good for Barry. She will be cheesed.
"Government to allow more meat..." Another reason to abolish government schools. It is the parents who are responsible to determine what is best for their children AND provide it.
 @contraryjim That option is still available, always has been.
It's not surprising that the kids are packing on a lot of weight. They need more exercise to burn off the calories they are consuming. Playing video games and watching tv to the absence of exercise is going to cause overweight. Beyond that since the schools already have nutritionists why doesn't the government allow these people to do their jobs and quit interfering. It's what happens when the government subsidizes things.
Gawd, what a dreary country we have become when the federal gov even controls the calories the kids take in....my 8 year old grandson chose to buy 1 time a week and that is "glorious pizza day" when Pizza Hut brings pepperoni pies to sell at school. Since the 1st grade his mamma allowed him to buy 2 slices...yum....this year the school has limited the kids to 1 slice because of calorie intake....as if that wasn't bad enough there is no pepperoni because it adds to the calorie count. My grandson has trouble keeping his pants up because he's so skinny. Thanks, Michelle Obama. We are just too stupid to make food decisions ourselves.
@lin Couldn't agree with you more.
That is a lot of unnecessary individual packaging in that picture. We just had stuff slopped on a plastic tray.
Why is our tax money providing meals for children, dammit? We need to give more tax breaks to the "job creators"!
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All joking aside, there was a time in my childhood when the only meal I got was in school. Weekends sucked. If there was ever a good place for taxpayer's money, it is right here. It is an investment in our future.
 @Hagar If parents don't invest in their kids, why should the taxpayer? Kids like these often will not have a future someone else doesn't provide. There are enough parasites.
 @contraryjim What if the parents cannot? My father died when I was a kid. My brothers and I took over our family farm and our mother get a job in town. So what you are saying is that children should suffer because their parents cannot support them. It is the children's fault. And you probably are "pro-life".
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I think the taxpayer did very well helping me as a child. They got a serviceman who served in Vietnam, who is worth seven figures, employs up to seven people, and makes and pays taxes on between $200k to $350 a year. Not to mention all the 100's of thousands of other tax dollars my business pays a year. And I am a parasite, huh?
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Now we can agree on some things. Get welfare or housing assistance, then pee in a cup. Mess with children or senior citizens and we will disagree.
Okay, so now is corn a grain or a vegetable? Denny's sometimes calls it the vegetable of the day, but my agriculture teacher called it a cereal grain.
@krog You can think of it as both.  If it has been dried out or pulverized it is a grain. If it is fresh, frozen, or canned it is a vegy. If it has been creamed it is just yukky.
@timdogÂ
You hvae created a new catagory - the Yucky Foods - creamed ANYTHING, lima beans, sucotash, mixed vegetables, liver, ...what else should be included?
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;o)
Thank you oh sovereign lord government for bestowing your endless wisdom upon us. We will admonish that which you admonish, and praise that which you praise. Your quest for utopia is grand and we will march lock step in what ever direction you desire. All Hail The Endless Bureaucracy That Knows Better Than We.  Â
I like the way the guidelines are only for low income children. We're rapidly moving toward a separate and not-equal society of have and have-nots.
More grains?! Wake up! Study insulin resistance and learn about the damage grains do! I cut grains in June. I have lost 40 pounds, dropped 60 points on my LDL, increased my HDL and my doctor literally cried when he saw my blood work last week because he was so happy! More meat... not so fast. I'm going to bet that these meats are not grass fed beef or cage free chicken. How about hormone free? Don't listen to the FDA, they're representing conglomerates that make millions off of our biggest export, diabetes.
 @makeadifference Not so much "grains" as "carbs without fiber."
 @RN1 Nothing out of a box or a bag
So, when was the last time the FedGov got things RIGHT about food and nutrition? They keep changing the food pyramid, fist fat's bad, so food product makers took it out, and replaced it with sugar, and mostly HFCS because it was cheaper than regular sugar (because of protectionist laws to save the sugar growers), and look where THAT got us. They should just butt out of school lunch programs, beyond perhaps block grants if they want to support it.
 @RN1 I am sure there plans to shift these Departments of Butinksi to the States. As we speak.
Nutrition is so political. For example, I was in Costco a while back and when a guy walked past the organic chicken he said, "We sure don't need any of that stuff". It was like he took that organic chicken as a personal insult. There are the organic only snobs too. I don't know how THEY manage to let their kids eat at the school cafeteria at all. Ideas regarding nutrition are changing so fast it's almost impossible to keep up. Now egg WHITES are bad. The yolks are very good nutritionally, in moderation (according to that health guru on PBS I watched this morning).
Reminder: some kids only get a good meal at school ! Nothing new about that ! or did WE forget them again?
When I was a kid, our wholesome food was at home, not at the school lunch room. Oh, and we exercised outside daily, most of the day actually. Ah, for the good ol' days... :)
 @Elaine2 you mean before pedophiles, child killers and single mothers?
 @chandler  @Elaine2 There have always been "pedophiles, child killers and single mothers". If these are new to you, you need to wake up and look MUCH deeper into our history/past as a species. Those have existed throughout time, along with slavery, genocide, war, and a myriad of other traits we as humans have.
There is 900 calories+ on that plate! they need to take the calories out of the food. that can be done. so kids can eat and stay in the safety of their own homes ---play the wii or sit on the computer---sit around is what is happening. nowa days.
 @maggie112 Not all kids need the same. Some on the sports teams are easily going through 3000 a day in HS. The problem, as it always, is that the FedGov has always got to do a "one size fits some" program for everything, and it ties the hands of states, districts, and schools to figure out and do what is best for THEM. If the FedGov is going to be involved in funding local schools at all, it should be block grants or vouchers. Everything else is social engineering.
 @RN1 just saying if they took half the sugar out of the bun half the sugar out of the beef they can put it on the fruit so the kids will eat the fruit
 @RN1  @maggie112 You know they have your IP address, right RN1? All your pompous talk of "freedom" and "rights" and "limited government!"  How can you sleep at night?
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At least your medical records will be kept OH SO confidential when the full implementation/coercion of  ObamaTaxN'Care is realized.
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"Oh, we are SO sorry Mr RN1, we had no idea about that sensitive  matter  being disclosed to the Ministry of Truth's MSNBC Division. Sorry."
 @RN1 I learned my style at the foot of the Master. I
 @Getov Mylon  @maggie112 Just remember - Orwell wasn't right. Huxley was. http://www.egodialogues.com/2009/aldous-huxley-george-orwell/
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But seriously, I like your style of commentary - dripping with sarcasm.
Setting limits on calories means active children will not be getting enough calories and obese children will be supplementing their lunch intake. Â A one size fits all approach fails to consider a number of individual variables including metabolism rate, family history of obesity and what children are eating at home. Â A useless, burdensome exercise at best. Â
 @opus8no5:Â
Another burden is the fact that few schools (if any) actually hvae a "real" kitchen & cooking staff on site. In order to cut costs, most districts have moved to a single centralized kitchen that prepares "heat-n-eats" for the whole district. There is much less flexibility this way, and "local" demographics cannot be easily addressed & adjusted for. It's a one size fits all approach that does not work.
This flexibility is being provided to allow more time for the development of products that fit within the new standards........ These new products sound tasty and profitable for the corporations that are going to develop them.