Mark Bittman on food and all things related.
Thirty-two million kids — 10 percent of the American population, and the future of the country — are about to start eating better. That’s the bottom line of the new Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) guidelines for government-subsidized school meals, announced last week. The new rules are the first changes to the program in 15 years, and come as part of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act.
The guidelines are imperfect (what isn’t?) but worth celebrating: this is the single most significant improvement the Obama administration has made in the realm of food. The rules will double the amount of fruits and vegetables served in schools, set limits on damaging trans fats and salt, increase the amount of whole grains served, make low-fat milk the norm and establish suitable ranges for daily caloric intake.
And, incredibly, the U.S.D.A. moves will cost less than half of the agency’s original proposal. Even more stunning is that it’s doing this by scaling back on meat — abandoning requirements that
schools serve meat or “meat alternatives” at breakfast. That is perhaps most commendable; teaching kids that nutritious meals don’t necessarily center on “protein” is one of the
most important steps we can take in creating a sane diet for generations to come.
Yes, the Obama administration has disappointed many of its enthusiastic supporters by reneging on campaign promises,
a number of them food-related. But these particular changes deserve praise.
Of course, there are limitations: advocates for good food are correctly disappointed that the U.S.D.A. ultimately let corporate interests deter the agency from pursuing an even more aggressively healthy set of rules. Following recommendations made by the Institute of Medicine, the U.S.D.A. originally proposed limiting the amount of starchy vegetables in school meals — which up until now have been unlimited — to one cup per week.
Lobbyists for the potato industry made a fuss and the Senate stepped in to make sure that didn’t happen, and that concession is integrated into the new rules: Potatoes will still be unlimited[1]. Similarly, you might remember that Congress and industry worked together to make sure that the tomato paste on pizza would continue to qualify it as a vegetable.
Undoubtedly, it’s infuriating that sound science and nutrition policy can still be trumped by the interests of Big Food, especially when the health of kids is on the line. And yes, good food advocates should be making noise about further improving these guidelines.
But let’s remember that a Republican administration likely would have moved school lunches even more in the direction they were headed: inferior versions of bad fast food. Read this article from 2003 about the desperate state of school lunches and you’ll appreciate how much progress is being made. (In short, the story is that the U.S.D.A. long purchased “surplus” beef and dairy and loaded school lunch menus with it. This was considered a win-win situation, because it gave farmers a safety net while schools got free food. But left out of the equation was what this actually meant for kids’ lunches, which became beefier and cheesier.)
Of course, the U.S.D.A. still supports (and makes unacceptable concessions to) industry, but these current guidelines are a major step away from that.
So their importance can barely be overstated: this is movement in the right direction.
The fact that industry lobbyists are griping demonstrates that; compromise, by its nature, can leave everyone dissatisfied. But after taking a beating for generations, advocates of good food should see the new guidelines as a real victory.
As should everyone else, because in food, as in most other arenas of our lives, corporate interests have long enjoyed disproportionate and increasing influence, and shifting that balance of power is among the biggest challenges facing Americans right now. Government can be an ally or an enemy in that fight, and the new guidelines are a welcome example of it using its weight to benefit most of us. The school lunch program is at the forefront of the uphill battle to feed kids well in this country, and — one way or the other — it will set an example for them five days a week, probably until that example spreads to society at large.
[1] Giving school districts the option of serving potatoes at every lunch is undesirable not only because “potatoes” often means “fries,” which pack a triple-whammy of unhealthy fat, near-useless carbs and a missed opportunity to serve a healthier vegetable or whole grain. It’s also because even non-fried potatoes are a less-than-ideal food; a Harvard study named them as the single worst food you can have in your diet if you want to control your weight.
Still, as Ron Nixon reported in The Times, potato lobbyists aren’t entirely happy: “The National Potato Council, which had opposed the attempts to limit the serving of potatoes, said that it was pleased with the new rules but that it still had some concerns.
“’Despite the fact that Congress said the U.S.D.A. could not limit potatoes in school lunches or breakfast, we still feel like the potato is being downplayed in favor of other vegetables in the new guideline’ said Mark Szymanski, a spokesman for the council. ‘It seems the department still considers the potato a second-class vegetable.’”
Actually? It is a second-class vegetable, one that, generally speaking, is best enjoyed occasionally, not daily.
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