The new nutrition standards would not remove popular foods like pizzas from schools completely, but would make them healthier, using whole-wheat crust or low-fat mozzarella, for example. Vending machines could be stocked with less candy and fewer high-calorie sodas.
Decisions on what kinds of foods will be sold — and what ingredients may be limited — would be left up to the Agriculture Department.
I have long advocated action in this area and am hopeful that the Agriculture Department will draw appropriate and meaningful guidelines. This is a tricky area as the temptation to be overly paternalistic is an easy one and one that often gets the best of me.
Furthermore, what this move controls is only the food American students have access to for one meal a day. A breakfast featuring sugar loaded cereal (making students prone to crash in the morning and reduce focus and performance in the classroom) joined with some sugary drinks after school and a less than healthy dinner makes these lunchtime changes almost trivial.
Again, this is a move in the right direction, but it is a culture shift we need not just a dietary adjustment.
The disconcerning political part of all of this comes at the bottom of the story.
Part of the deal to move the legislation this week was to change the way it was paid for. While the committee bill partially paid for the legislation by reducing conservation subsidies paid to farmers for using environmentally friendly farming practices, the Senate-passed bill took $2.2 billion out of future funding for food stamp programs instead after some farm-state senators objected to using the subsidy money.
Hunger advocates who had previously supported the bill said they would now oppose it.
I don't know whether cutting subsidies to farmers or reducing food stamp benefits is the more prudent way to fund this legislation, but it just jumps out at me how these games are played.
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