Congress Says "Screw Your Child's Health" Where School Lunch is Concerned

I have the option of preparing and sending my children to school with lunches I've carefully prepared. I know what's in the bag and what's going into their bodies. That gives me peace of mind on a daily basis.

That said, what about the parents who don't have the resources or the time to do the same? The parent(s) who actually relies on the school lunch program in their district to provide their children with meals, fuel for their developing minds, are most of them going to have the same peace?

Take a look at this excerpt from an article published this morning in the Decatur Daily:

...The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year. These include limiting the use of potatoes on the lunch line, putting new restrictions on sodium and boosting the use of whole grains. The legislation would block or delay all of those efforts.

The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. USDA had wanted to only count a half-cup of tomato paste or more as a vegetable, and a serving of pizza has less than that.

...food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools, the salt industry and potato growers requested the changes and lobbied Congress.

School meals that are subsidized by the federal government must include a certain amount of vegetables, and USDA’s proposal could have pushed pizza-makers and potato growers out of the school lunch business.

Piling on to the companies’ opposition, some conservatives argue the federal government shouldn’t tell children what to eat.

I've said it time and again, I don't advocate the government telling us what to eat—Uncle Sam has no place in my kitchen—but when you're funding an agency whose purpose is to be mindful of what is served to our nation's children, children who are growing up at a time when childhood obesity rates are staggering, shouldn't you do what you can to not add to the problem?

It seems to me that cutting back sodium content, limiting carbohydrates, and making the attempt to offer a healthier option would be a no-brainer in this case, but maybe I'm being too parental.

I don't think that congress can be about the dollars and cents where certain matters are concerned. The cost to treat juvenile diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, etc. is far greater than the cost of removing potatoes and frozen pizza from the lunch line.

At some point, you have to stop trying to appease the corporate juggernauts and just do the right thing.

Related articles

• Pizza is a vegetable? Congress says yes (msnbc.msn.com)
• More healthful school lunches rejected (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Food producers push Congress to relax school healthy-lunch standards (abclocal.go.com)

The FDA Needs More Money, Not Less, You Ridiculously Stupid Politiciains

Have you ever watched the documentary Food Inc? Well, I have—twice—and it's disturbing to see the lack of value the federal government appears to have in policing the quality of the food that comes across our kitchen tables every night.

So, when it came to my attention that some of the geniuses responsible for passing laws in this country were putting the wheels in motion to not only renege on the promise of more money for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) but to cut them back another $87 million, I was a bit perplexed—quite frankly outraged—by the sheer irresponsibility of it all.

Here is a snippet of an article published in the San Francisco Chronicle which explains the initial plan, the subsequent take-back, and the logic behind the new plan:

Budget cuts proposed by House Republicans to the Food and Drug Administration would undermine the agency's ability to carry out a historic food-safety law passed by Congress just five months ago, food-safety supporters say.


The legislation, passed in December, is the first major change to the nation's food-safety laws since 1938. It calls for the FDA to significantly step up scrutiny of domestic and imported food and devise a new system to prevent the kind of contamination that sickens 1 in 6 Americans every year.


The law, which received bipartisan support, followed years of cutbacks at the FDA and waves of national food-borne illnesses linked to foods as varied as spinach, peanuts and cookie dough.


To carry out the new law, President Obama is seeking $955 million for food safety at the FDA in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.


Last week, the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the FDA pared back that amount to $750 million, which is $87 million less than the figure the agency is currently receiving for food safety.

...the agency will not be able to meet many requirements of the new law, including increased inspections of food manufacturing plants, better coordination with state health departments and development of the capability to more respond quickly to food-borne illnesses to reduce their impact.

Richard D. Saunders, deputy director of Virginia's Division of Animal and Food Industry Services, questions the wisdom of passing the law " if you're going to turn around and cut FDA's funding ... FDA has never had enough funding to begin with."

I don't give a flip what party you belong to, you have to wonder about the genius behind any think-tank that feels we, as American citizens, can get by with less where food safety is concerned. It's just idiotic as all heck to believe we are okay with the status quo when there are increasingly more outbreaks of E. Coli, salmonella, and various other food borne illnesses around the globe.

If anything, they should be giving more to the cause, not less.

Perhaps the House subcommittee needs an outbreak to come there way at one of their lunch sessions so that they can grasp the urgency of this matter because it seems to me that they aren't taking any of this seriously enough.

Ay yi yi. Here's an idea for those morons we've entrusted to help "run this country", how about you actually start making laws that protect us, eh? I mean, I know that the money from all those big corporations help fund your yearly vacations, but I would like to be able to go into a supermarket, pick up some romaine lettuce or peanut butter and know that I won't die.

Just a thought.

Related articles

• Food Safety Overhaul Faces Defunding (opencongress.org)
• Be Smart About Food Safety (everydayhealth.com)
• You aren't what you eat: GOP challenges healthy eating rules (capitolhillblue.com)