This Is All Kinds Of Wrong of the Day: In a move to block important changes to the nutritional requirements of school lunches, the GOP-led House of Representatives yesterday voted to pass a bill that eliminates USDA-endorsed anti-childhood-obesity limits to French fries, while maintaining the status of pizza as a “vegetable.”
The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, signed into law by President Obama last year, set new standards for government-funded lunch programs, reducing the serving of white potatoes to one cup a week, and requiring that pizzas contain at least half a cup of tomato paste to constitute “a vegetable.”
The new spending bill keeps the status quo of two tablespoons in place.
“It’s an important victory,” said a spokesman for the American Frozen Food Institute, which represents such food giants as ConAgra, Schwan, McCain, Heinz, Kraft, General Mills, and McDonald’s supplier J.R. Simplot. “Our concern is that the standards would force companies in many respects to change their products in a way that would make them unpalatable to students.”
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack acknowledged the loss, but said the USDA would still do “everything it can” to provide schoolchildren with nutritious lunches.
“Clearly more pizza and French fries in schools is not good for kids, but it’s good for companies that make pizza and French fries,” said Center for Science in the Public Interest nutrition policy director Margo Wootan, noting that food manufacturers talk up the nutritional value of their foods while fighting regulations that require them to do better.