Congress pushes back on healthier school lunches

From Bloomberg Businessweek.
By MARY CLARE JALONICK

Congress wants to keep pizza and french fries on school lunch lines, fighting back against an Obama administration proposal to make school lunches healthier.

The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year, which included limiting the use of potatoes on the lunch line and delaying limits on sodium and delaying a requirement to boost whole grains.

The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. USDA had wanted to prevent that.

Food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools, the salt industry and potato growers requested the changes, and some conservatives in Congress say the federal government shouldn't be telling children what to eat.

And:

The school lunch proposal was based on 2009 recommendations by the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said they were needed to reduce childhood obesity and future health care costs.

Nutrition advocate Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said Congress's proposed changes will keep schools from serving a wider array of vegetables. Children already get enough pizza and potatoes, she says. It would also slow efforts to make pizzas -- a longtime standby on school lunch lines -- healthier, with whole grain crusts and lower levels of sodium.

"They are making sure that two of the biggest problems in the school lunch program, pizza and french fries, are untouched," she said.

And:

Specifically, the provisions would:
-- Block the Agriculture Department from limiting starchy vegetables, including corn and peas, to two servings a week. The rule was intended to cut down on french fries, which some schools serve daily.

-- Allow USDA to count two tablespoons of tomato paste as a vegetable, as it does now. The department had attempted to require that only a half-cup of tomato paste could be considered a vegetable -- too much to put on a pizza. Federally subsidized lunches must have a certain number of vegetables to be served.

-- Require further study on long-term sodium reduction requirements set forth by the USDA guidelines.

-- Require USDA to define "whole grains" before they regulate them. The rules would require schools to use more whole grains.

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