school lunch

JAMA, November 14, 2012, - vol. 308, no. 18, pg 1849.

Meal programs questioned:

The ranking member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, Sen. Pat Roberts (R Kansas) has asked the USDA for its justification of the new nutrition guideline for the National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs.

The above was the actual title and first paragraph of the short article. First, agriculture/nutrition/forestry? I can see the agriculture and nutrition link, but forestry? That’s gotta be political.

Second, the article’s premise is Sen. Roberts’ questioning of the new nutrition guidelines for the school lunch program above as required by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which increased the availability of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free and low-fat milk in school meals. This was allegedly passed (this act, which took effect in March 2012) to meet the nutritional needs of schoolchildren. His concern is excessive ‘plate waste’ resulting from children not wanting to eat the new meals, especially the required servings of fruits and vegetables. OMG (that’s not a government office, nor is AYFKM, which is my wife’s personal favorite response to such BS –another nongovernment entity, though definitely something funded and encouraged by the government), if they were hungry, they’d be eating the food given to them. I strongly suspect/know that if these particular foods, however green and vegetable-y and whole grainy they were, were airlifted into Ethiopia or Sudan or (name your starving country), they would be fought over, and not by some fat and happy Kansas senator whose whiny baby constituents’ kids want corndogs and mac n cheese every day for breakfast and lunch…pass the mustard for my sausage biscuit.

This goes back to my 15 month checkup sheet where I specifically say, for the perusal and questioning of Senators and moms/dads/grandparents of the world, YOUR CHILD WON”T STARVE! If you offer good food and only good food (and that’s your choice, not the school’s or the government’s) and your child is truly needing to eat (not whining they’re hungry) then whatever you provide THEY WILL EAT.

Kids in the countries where there is truly hunger and starvation are eating out of the trash cans, licking cans, drinking rancid water from gutters, they’re not griping about having to eat veggies and fruit for lunch at school.

What’s next? ‘Transportation program questioned’ – Sen. Bla Bla reports that his constituents in Connecticut are appalled that children are forced to ride side by side in yellow (yellow? OMG!) public buses produced by some American company named Bluebird. The Senator recommends passage of the’Mercedes only’ school bus program. In this program, children are picked up in Mercedes limos and chauffeured to school while eating twinkies and ding dongs (oh wait, Hostess went belly up!). AYFKM?