“Tale of the Red Tape #21: USDA’s Affirmative Action for Vegetables,” Heritage:
First they came for the donuts, and few dared to defend partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Then they came for the soft drinks, declaring high-fructose corn syrup verboten. Now they’re after lima beans, peas, and corn, moving us ever closer to a national diet of tofu and kale.
“They,” in this latest case of dietary despotism, is the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). As required by Congress, the agency recently proposed stricter nutrition standards for school-based breakfast and lunch programs. More than 98,000 elementary and secondary schools will be affected—at a cost exceeding $3.4 billion in the next four years.
One among the proposed cafeteria mandates will undoubtedly leave many a lunch lady scratching her head (beneath the net, of course): No more than one cup per week of lima beans, peas, corn, or potatoes will be permitted each student.
Not that there is anything nutritionally unsound about these items, and most moms would be thrilled if their kids consumed more than a cup of peas each week. It’s just that Washington wants our children “to try new vegetables.” (That’s verbatim.) Consequently, schools would be required to provide more dark green, orange, and dry bean varieties in their place.
Obviously, the FNS is moving far a field of its original mission. When established in 1946, the National School Lunch Program was intended to address nutritional deficiencies in children’s diets. Now they are meddling in menu options in pursuit of palate diversity.
I’m sorry. Explain to me again why even the GOP insists that more revenue for government is a good thing?
KEEP YOUR HANDS OF MY UTERUS WAFFLE FRIES, WASHINGTON!
the Food and Nutrition Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is gayer than twin shirtless putins in a pink camaro
I’m pretty sure that many proggies believe that introducing teh kiddiez to the full spectrum of veggie goodness will ultimately lead to them to being more receptive to a glorious vegan future. Save the animals! I’m at least half serious here.
tofu and kale
I would just like to observe that tofu and kale (and broccoli and cabbage and brussels sprouts) contain goitrogens, which diminish the efficacy of thyroid hormones.
Granted, cooking destroys the goitrogens, but who is going to eat boiled kale or fried tofu?
Not schoolchildren, mind you.
Janitors will be collecting Workers’ Compensation out the wazoo for the increased need to empty the garbage cans full of all that gross stuff that kids won’t eat at home under threat of being grounded for life, never mind at school.
How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your stitchwort?
All the better to blow up brown people with, my dear.
Well, this doesn’t affect my kid because he eats breakfast at home and he brings in his lunch.
So, the only question I have is: when will they restrict students from bringing in a sack lunch and force all public school students to partake in their generous gift of free (hyper-controlled) school lunch?
Move to Chicago where your child will be barred from bringing his lunch, citizen. For his own good!
what is this even
I am all about kids getting introduced to new varieties of foliage, fruits, roots, and whatever instead of fried meat and starch in a school environment, but if they’re already eating one green vegetable, leave them be. Most parents are bad as it is about nutritional variety with their children; throwing too much at them is stupid.
stupid
STUPID STUPID DUMB
It’s all just a sop to powerful lobbyists; this adminstration is in the pocket of BIG ARUGULA.
France bans “vegetable” in school cafeterias.
Before I become a vegetarian I’ll become a humanitarian….