|
|
The
views expressed
on this page are soley those of the author and do not
necessarily
represent the views of County News Online
|
Federal News Radio
Time to stick a
plastic fork into this federal program?
By Tom Temin
October 21, 2015
I never bought school lunches. My mom always packed mine into a metal
lunchbox. I would buy a little bottle of whole milk at the cafeteria
for 3 cents. Impossibly, I still have a Keds shoe box full of the
cardboard bottle stops, each illustrated with a sketch of a U.S.
president. The latest one was LBJ. Today the prosaic school lunch has
become an object of intense federal effort — and the evidence shows
it’s not working out too well.
This effort from the Agriculture Department, is the result of a 2010
law ostensibly aimed at reducing childhood obesity. The Government
Accountability Office’s Kay Brown told me it’s too early to tell if the
federal smackdown on school lunches has had any effect nationally, but
the whole grain pastas and bread, mandated peas and beans, and
evil-looking stuffed potatoes have had plenty of impact: kids are
staying away in droves. Nationally, GAO finds, participation in school
lunch programs has fallen 4.5 percent since the 2010-11 school year.
Brown says that in visits to eight school districts, she insisted
auditors buy and eat the chow themselves. That’s dedication! True to
the even-keeled approach of GAO, Brown says some of the lunches were
decent, others, well, not so good. Published reports have shown lurid
images of oddly-colored nuggets, piles of glop, and just plain meager
amounts. Whole web sites are devoted to this, driven by parental
revulsion.
The nation shouldn’t be choking over school lunches...
Read the rest of the article at Federal News Radio
|
|
|
|
