Posted on 09/29/2013 3:36:51 PM PDT by Olog-hai
The Agriculture Department says 524 schools—out of about 100,000—have dropped out of the federally subsidized national school lunch program since the government introduced new standards for healthier foods last year.
The new standards have been met with grumbling from school nutrition officials who say they are difficult and expensive to follow, conservatives who say the government shouldn’t be dictating what kids eat and—unsurprisingly—from some children who say the less-greasy food doesn’t taste as good. But USDA says the vast majority of schools are serving healthier food, with some success.
Data the department is planning to release Monday shows that 80 percent of schools say they have already met the requirements, which went into place at the beginning of the 2012 school year. About a half percent have dropped out of the program.…
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
I am old enough to remember school lunches pre-federal program and somehow, we had nutritious and delicious lunches. Monday was hamburger day and Friday was soup made with leftovers. The rest of the week was always a different menu.
I went home and cooked lunch. Then back to school.
We didn’t have places to eat at school.
In most states, school districts do not have a choice. Only a few have passed laws allowing them to “opt-out”, if they calculate they can feed the students just as well or better on their own.
Importantly, for decades the feds have piggybacked all sorts of regulations and requirements on top of the SLP, so if schools leave it, they might actually have *more* money to spend, not just on food, but other things. The threat was unless the schools obeyed, they would lose their funding.
And with the added bonus that they no longer have federal leftism forced down their throats any more. No more wasting the students time filling out federal surveys and mandating 1st grade sex education, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
state leftism in places like Kalipornia and MA can be worse than the federal leftism
It’s all about MONEY.
I talked to a lady that has worked in a school cafeteria for many years and she said many of the kids will not eat the food and it ends up in the trash, completely wasted. The portions set by the government are so small those that do eat the food do not get full. Her take is that most of the kids are hungry after lunch.
But USDA says the vast majority of schools are serving healthier food, with some success.
They are lying to cover for the Wookie.
When I was in school, 1952-1964, we always had good lunches except for Aztec NM, which had the worst lunches anywhere! It seemed it was always a bad plate of mac and cheese and kids were constantly throwing the food back up. I began to take my lunches.
Other school lunches in the area, like Kirtland NM were great! Farmington NM had no lunches as there were so many kids there we went only for half a day.
Best lunches were in the Denver CO schools. The Arkansas school lunches were also great!
Yes, but if they want to abuse their own children, they should be reasonably free to do so. It is when they want to universally abuse children that it becomes a real nuisance.
Schools run by hard left liberals who will, if they have to, shove the food down the kid's throats. Some schools are run by dedicated King Zero lovers and will do anything he says, even "cook the books" to make it look like the kids "love the food".
All I know is, my kids want me to make their lunches, and I do. They don’t want to waste what little lunch time they having standing in line waiting for “meh” food.
I have 3 kids — with minimal planning, I can have 3 mostly “healthful” lunches ready-to-go in less than 15 minutes.
Most schools don’t prepare breakfasts, lunches or dinners (yes dinners) on the premises anymore. Most have a crony capitalist contract with a caterer to provide the meals. They are generally brought to the school in large cabinets and require microwaving prior to serving. The prime objective of the contract is to maximize profits while meeting the cost and nutritional requirements. Technically, the nutritional requirements are met but lead to lunches of raw carrots and spinach/lentil soup, breakfast of sausage on a stick (breaded sausage on a stick) and a cinnamon roll, etc. With Moo in charge, it will soon be fried grasshoppers with squished garden slug sauce, etc.
As a kid in Indy many moons ago, we had wonderful home cooked like meals cooked right in the school kitchen. Great beef Manhattans, cornbread, apple butter, and beans, great veggie soup, chili etc. The cafeteria always smelled so good.
Once the feds got involved, the quality died.
Check the garbage cans...that will show what kids think of the new lunches.
My school district never participated in any fed lunch program. Last I knew they had never joined. We always had a variety of food and most students were healthy.
I never thought of 524 as a small number, but maybe AP is comparing it to 17 trillion.
Nanny State PING!
Thanks for the ping!
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