Although regular readers of TLT may have a sense of my liberal politics, I generally try to keep this forum neutral and nonpartisan. (Except when I’m talking about Rush Limbaugh. Or the Heritage Foundation. Or conservative pundits who want to end the school lunch program and let poor kids fend for themselves. Or right wing crazies who demonize Michelle Obama for her Let’s Move! initiative. OK, maybe I’m not so good at hiding my biases.)
But this morning it took all of my self control not to just title this post “OMG, GOP – WTF????”
The Associated Press reports that late Tuesday, the House Appropriations Committee approved an agriculture appropriations bill which would essentially gut all of the recent, hard-won legislative victories to improve the health of Americans, especially children.
Remember how hard it was to get the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act passed, the law that will for the first time in fifteen years meaningfully improve the nutritional quality of school food? Sorry, says the House GOP. Too costly to implement, not to mention that Representatives from potato-growing states aren’t pleased with the fact that french fries and tater tots can no longer stand in as the daily vegetable on school lunch trays.
And remember the recent, landmark inter-agency effort to issue voluntary guidelines on the marketing of junk food to kids? Nanny-state overreaching! says the GOP. The AP quotes a spokesman for the Appropriations Committee’s agriculture subcommittee, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga):
“Our concern is those voluntary guidelines are back-door regulation,” he said, deploring the fact that kids can watch shows that depict sex and drugs on MTV, but “you cannot see an advertisement for Tony the Tiger during the commercial break.”
But as the always-incisive Melanie Warner writes, the real reason the packaged food industry is fighting tooth and nail against those new guidelines is because, lo and behold, they might actually work, as compared to the current, utterly toothless self-regulatory scheme:
. . . the proposed rules are so good (from a health standpoint, anyway) that food manufacturers can’t easily reformulate their products in order to make them OK to pitch at kids. The FTC, which is spearheading the crackdown, doesn’t want to admit this, but the guidelines are actually a blueprint for a world where most highly processed fare isn’t marketed to kids at all.
Meanwhile, as we’re watching people falling ill and dying in unprecedented numbers in Germany from an E Coli outbreak, what does the House GOP want to do to the FDA? Cut almost 12% of the the agency’s budget, seriously undermining its ability to implement the Obama administration’s newly passed food safety rules.
And at a time when over 17 million American children are growing up in food-insecure households, the House GOP proposes a cut of “about $650 million — or 10 percent — from the Women, Infants and Children program that feeds and educates mothers and their children.”
As Tom Laskawy writes on Grist, the House GOP’s moves are more than just political grandstanding; rather, the situation is “deadly serious”:
On the one hand, this is just the House, which, in the iron grip of the Tea Party, is spitting out one destructive piece of legislation after another. The Democrat-controlled Senate will have no interest in much of what the House disgorges. But the two houses of Congress must ultimately agree on spending legislation. The question is how the houses can meaningfully meet when one side has gone so far afield.
Now don’t get me wrong. I may be a liberal, but I understand the need for budgetary constraints and the desire for fiscal responsibility. It’s just that these proposed spending cuts are, pardon my French, utterly ass-backward.
For example, according to this report, the Congressional Budget office estimates that the FDA will need $1.4 billion to implement the food safety law, but a recent Pew Trusts report estimates that the annual health-related costs of food-borne illnesses is somewhere between $75 and $150 billion. Similarly, the GOP’s own estimates of the costs of requiring more fruits and vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy in school meals is $7 billion over five years, but the direct cost of obesity-related diseases in this country is pegged at $147 million (putting aside the other benefits of feeding children well, apart from curbing obesity.) And when it comes to cuts in food assistance programs, do we really need to discuss the long term societal costs of letting children going hungry, let alone the morality of doing so?
So I guess the jig is up — my bleeding heart liberal biases are now on full display.
But I’m curious to hear from politically conservative TLT readers — presumably you support many of the legislative programs discussed above or you’d be unlikely to follow this blog. What do you think of the House GOP’s latest move? Let me know in a comment below.
[Ed Update: You can read a summary of comments and my thoughts in response here: “As the Dust Settles, A Follow-Up to Yesterday’s House GOP Post“]
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Timmi says
Well I’d say I’m more conservative than liberal, but use my common sense and think this is bullcrap! I am really hating politicians right now and have been for awhile, they have no sense in the real world and only want to get in bed with the big corporations that line their pockets not giving a crap about the people.
Kristi says
I’ll bite. 🙂 I’m not your typical foodie conservative. I truly believe in voting with my dollars and I abide by that. Most of our food is locally grown and organic or grass fed and bought from the farmer’s market. I do not buy certain brands because company practices (ie Kraft). We’re also living paycheck to paycheck and spend a lot on food and budget wisely. Just a little back story before I go on.
I think the GOP isn’t doing enough to cut spending and force personal responsibility. The FDA should be cut even more, maybe 100%. Then they won’t be raiding Amish raw milk dairies and small time rabbit farmers. The FDA or USDA is not in place for food safety. If they were, then Monsanto wouldn’t of just been approved GM alfalfa. GM products wouldn’t even be on the market, pesticides wouldn’t be in and on all our food, HFCS wouldn’t be in everything, animals wouldn’t be pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones, and people wouldn’t be betting sick from CAFO meats and a bag of spinach. I wrote my Texas representatives about voting against the farce of the food safety bill. It will only hurt the small farmers that we all need to be supporting. And help the mega farms.
If WIC is cut, then people will have to be more responsible because they will have to take care of their own children, not my tax dollars. And don’t think it matters who feeds the kids. One of my cousins just had her 3rd kid with her 3rd daddy, has no job, and is ok with it all because she doesn’t have to pay for medical expenses or food and even gets a check in the mail. I know there are people out there with real problems that have a hard time feeding their kids, but the system needs to be changed. Maybe time limits. But something.
The healthy school lunch bill was a joke. It still promotes too many US subsidized grains and CAFO low fat milk, low fat foods in general, and no real food. Only whole milk should be served in schools and real food like butter on the veggies. But the gov cut fat and not sugar. It was only a tiptoe forward and made things seem better without actually improving anything.
The government caused many of the current problems. How can we expect them to solve them? Budget cuts are only the first step. I can only hope that they’re willing to take it further. But am not holding my breath.
heather says
well good thing to know. i guess we were just lazy baby making butt wads at my house. i mean my husband and i both had 2 jobs (that is all we could get) and still we needed the assistance from WIC to help make ends meet. we had no cable, no cell phones an old used paid for van, shopped thrift stores, paid all our bills on time, didn’t use credit (didn’t have a credit card). yes we had a few kids, i suppose i could have just sold one to a family who could “afford them” and so i didn’t have to “use your tax money” but we kept them.
i know we are just sucking the government tit and are losers. but hey, i have to say i am more than grateful it was there to help when we needed it. and i would not in a million years deny a child good food, or hell even a whole family. but that is me, i would rather help those who need it help a big business get some tax cut.
Gaye says
Very interesting article. I am neither a Republican or a Democrat, although I do find myself to lean towards the conservative side these days. While I agree that obesity is a major problem among *all* Americans, I question some of the initiatives taken by the Obama administration where food reform is concerned.
When I was in middle school and high school we had several different options. In middle school we had hot lunch lines and snack lines, while in high school we also had a frozen yogurt bar, soup and salad bar, and hamburger/chicken sandwich line, too. Tater tots and french fries were always available in the hamburger line – they were never staples on the hot lunch tray. Today, the middle schools and high schools seem to be doing the same thing. That in itself makes me curious as to why there is so much fuss over school lunches. With so many options given to kids, how will this reform change anything other than what’s offered in the hot lunch line? (Which no one eats – no one! lol)
I completely agree with Kingston that the initiatives have gone too far. Every channel on TV has sex, drugs and alcohol, even in primetime. Yet Tony the Tiger or Ronald McDonald is too much? Where is the personal responsibility in all this?
Can you really equate the $147 billion spent annually on healthcare for obesity-related diseases to what’s served at lunch in schools? School lunches account for only five of the 21+ meals eaten a week. That’s not even a quarter of the food kids consume in seven days. Although one could argue that poor children rely on the hot lunch the school serves, I predict their homes are filled with cookies, chips, candy, and Kool-aid. I think obesity in kids is more related to zero movement combined with junk food. As a kid, I was rarely in front of the TV and almost always outside. I never see kids playing outside anymore.
I agree with Kristi that not enough is being done to cut spending and force personal responsibility, although I think both parties should be doing that, not just the GOP. I was one of the IP paralegals for Monsanto at Howrey. I won’t even go into the things I saw in their research production.
WIC *definitely* needs to be cut. Kristi is right on that, too. I knew of several students who had children (albeit with the same father) but refused to get married because they would lose their funding. With WIC, Medicaid, food stamps, free nursery schooling and more being thrown at you, why lose it all for a marriage license? It’s one thing to fall on hard times and need assistance and something else entirely to know the funding is there and use it to your advantage just because you can. Also, the mere fact that illegals benefit from these programs infuriates me to no end.
If we really need to cut spending, why not start with all the benefits illegals get? After being on county healthcare and seeing what I have, the spending on them alone is what is breaking this country. I can guarantee that cutting benefits to them will free up billions!
Mali says
Ok, there are way too many things you’ve said that I strongly disagree with, but i’ll try to address a few of them:
You say that when you were in middle school, you had options at the lunch line? When was that, 30 years ago? Things have changed quite a bit since then. As a teacher in an elementary school, I’ve seen that there are very few options for lunches- to the extent that students with nut allergies(which today are very common) have no option at all. The foods that are made from these companies are highly processed, loaded with corn sugar and preservatives because corn is subsidized and extremely cheap.
You say that school lunches provide only 5 out of 21 meals that kids get on a weekly basis. What dream world are you living in? In many instances, the food that kids get at school are the only meals they get. Report after report shows that k-12 students, particularly from poorer economic backgrounds, frequently come to class without eating breakfast, and that school is the only place where they can get a balanced meal, because their families can’t afford to buy nutritious food. And yet you advocate cuts to WIC. Brilliant.
You also suggest that it’s a lack of exercise over their exposure to highly processed, sugary foods like Tony the Tiger and McDonalds, that has led to such rampant obesity. You say that kids spend too much time indoors, and ask why they can’t go outside and play like you did when you were their age. Well, let’s see. Back when you were their age, Physical Education was still part of the curriculum. Back when you were their age, both parents didn’t have to work outside the home to eke out a survivable income. Back when you were their age, parents could let their kids hang out at parks, or on the streets without having to worry about their kids coming home in body bags from friendly fire from the overabundance of guns we have in our society, or some nutcase kidnapping and or molesting them because he was released on parole from an overcrowded prison with severe cutbacks to parole officers. But the way to solve all these problems is to cut even more funding and blame the victims. I wonder how you sleep at night.
Vicki the Lunch Lady says
I’m a conservative LUNCH LADY and I agree with Kristi. I work with a group of extraordinary cooks. Give them just a few incredibly CHEAP ingredients and they can whip up very HEALTHY & TASTY meals. Too bad the government puts so many rules & regulations on us that we can’t serve those meals to the kids.
I work in a high school where we (mostly) reheat prepackaged CRAP (pizza, burritos, hamburgers, etc. & one reimbursable meal on our menu is a bag of “whole-grain” chips with nacho cheese sauce!!) Why?
1) Because it’s “cheaper”. They say the labor cost of preparing fresh food is too high.
2) Much of the crappy food we serve are commodities which come from the government… we add them to our menu for no other reason than because they are FREE. The commodities are almost always things like frozen chicken nuggets & steak fingers which we reheat.
3) It’s “safer”. The school is afraid of the liability – namely, e. coli & salmonella – that comes with cooking fresh foods such as chicken or beef.
I saddens me to see the horrible (awful tasting, unhealthy) foods we are forced to serve. I really believe the kids in our school district would be better off (healthier) if we stopped serving lunches altogether and had all the children bring lunches from home. I would happily donate time/money to a charity (such as a church or other NPO) that supplied brown bag lunches to the kids who can’t afford to bring a lunch from home.
Working as a lunch lady for the last year has been an eye-opening experience. When I tell people some of the STUPID things that go on (mostly due to federal regulations & ignorant local officials) they don’t believe me. For instance…
We are not allowed to give our leftovers (food that has been prepared but not served) to charities such as soup kitchens or homeless shelters. It ALL goes in the trash every day. Yes, there are places in my town that would LOVE to have it, who have begged to be allowed to come pick it up (so there would be NO cost to the school district). So, WHY won’t they let us donate the leftovers? ‘Liability’ is the pat answer. Never mind the Good Samaritan laws that cover us… Can’t take the chance, it’s too much trouble, someone might find out we’re “wasting” too much food, etc. No real GOOD reason we can’t donate it… just a bunch of bad ones.
And while I’m on this lunch lady rant…
Why is it the kids get milk for free but they have to pay (75 cents) for water? Does that make sense to anyone? There are kids who just might prefer water instead of milk. Too bad for them! If they want water they’ll have to PAY or get it from the water fountain (outside the cafeteria). Oh, and they’d better remember to bring their own cup (if they want to get water from the fountain to drink with their lunch) because we aren’t allowed to furnish them with a paper cup… it’s too expensive!!
Renee says
The reason that schools are forced to use those commodities is because the GOP has decided that corporations are more important than people. Why do you think the government has all those “free” commodities? Because of corporate welfare. I’d be okay with getting rid of individual welfare if we got rid of corporate welfare first. But the people who speak of “personal responsibility” are the same people who vote for corporate interests that keep corporate welfare going. Usually they are voting in ignorance, but given the amount of information available, that’s no excuse.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Vicki – I always especially welcome readers from food services as I really value your real world perspective. I have just a few things to say about what you’ve written:
On the issue of food vs. labor costs, definitely check out this post if you have time and let me know what you think.
On commodities and the use of fresh protein vs. processed, I just posted an encouraging interview with School Food FOCUS, a group that’s helping districts get “naked protein” and the protocols for safe food handling, among other things. Here in Houston we now have baked drumsticks on the menu and I’m told by food services that they’re quite popular.
On the donation issue, I feel your pain. We encountered sort of the same thing here. The Good Samaritan laws protect the district but there’s a city ordinance that won’t let us donate food if it’s been “served.” So if a kid takes a milk carton, a piece of whole fruit or a packaged item and doesn’t open it, it still has to go in the trash.
And on the very good point about milk and water, you should know that under the new school food regulations (the ones I don’t want gutted by the GOP!!!), schools will have to provide free water to all students. How they go about doing that remains to be seen.
Please come back to TLT often and share your thoughts as a real “lunch lady”!
Vicki the Lunch Lady says
Thanks for responding. The discussion here has been very instructive and I can actually see valid points on both sides of the issue (less government vs. more government intervention) when talking about children’s nutrition at school. Providing free water to any student who wants it is the perfect example. I tend to come down on the side of: Why do we need a federal law that says the school must provide free water with lunch?? I mean, come on people… that just seems like common sense. On the other hand, our school district does NOT provide free water. So, I can see why people say, “There ought to be a law!” BUT, as an ‘insider’ I know that if just one or two parents at each school in our district had complained and requested that all the kids to have access to water with lunch it would have been provided.
PARENTS are the key. Parents should be talking to the Child Nutrition Directors AND the school administrators. I have personally seen our Child Nutrition Director say “no” to things and then subsequently been overruled by principals and other high level administrators. Parents can and do make a difference. Sometimes it’s just a matter of talking to the right people or speaking up about an issue.
Lunch ladies on the other had, I’m sad to say, have NO influence. School administrators and Child Nutrition Directors do not value our ideas or experience. We are stereotyped (by parents, the people we work for/with, and the general public) as uneducated idiots who do this job because we have no other choice. The stereotype is often NOT true. (I swear, it’s the hairnet! Put a hairnet on a rocket scientist and people will perceive them differently.) I don’t want to blow my cover and risk getting fired so I won’t reveal too many details but I will tell you this: I have a college degree and I chose this job for the hours and benefits (not the pay). The people I work with are from all walks of life. Several are veterans (marines, navy, army). Some have years of experience running a restaurant. Some have retired from high level managerial or professional jobs. Most are like me, are doing it for benefits and the unbeatable work schedule, not for the pay. So, Bettina THANK YOU for valuing my experience. I will continue to read & share my ‘insider’ perspective.
On the donating food unused…
Again, so much of this is just ‘common sense’. There are two separate issues with ‘leftovers’. First are the leftovers that you mentioned that go in the trash such as unopened milk cartons or whole fruit. That opens up a whole ‘nutha can-o-worms! Every morning I see carton after carton after carton of unopened milk go into the trash. Same thing with whole fruit. I have had kids BEG me saying, “Please, Miss, PLEASE don’t make me take it. I’m not going to eat it. I’m just going to throw it in the trash. PLEASE don’t make me take a milk/fruit.” I tell them, “Honey, if it were up to me I wouldn’t make you take it. It’s a waste and with so many hungry people in this world we shouldn’t be wasting food but the GOVERNMENT thinks you need it. They are the ones who make the rules, not me. I have to follow the rules. You have to take it whether you want it or not.” And, every day I ask myself, “What are we teaching these kids?” The “lesson” they learn has nothing whatsoever to do with ‘good nutrition’. We are teaching them to be wasteful when their instincts are that wasting food is BAD. They know it’s bad to waste perfectly good food. It’s a sad, sad situation.
The other ‘leftover’ donation issue we have at our school has to do with food that is prepared/cooked but is not put on the child’s tray. We have leftover fruit, salad, vegetables, meats, bread, etc. that were prepared and put out on the line but not served (put on the plate). That unused food gets thrown in the trash. That’s the food that homeless shelters and soup kitchens could use & have offered to pick up. With hungry people right here in our own community it is a cryin’ SHAME all that food has to go in the trash. Common sense overruled once again.
Thanks for listening. It feels good to get that off my chest. See you in the lunch line!
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Vicki: I’m sorry, but after reading this delightful sentence — Put a hairnet on a rocket scientist and people will perceive them differently– all I could think of was, I need this woman to do a guest blog post for The Lunch Tray! Seriously, would you consider it? (E.g., Wilma, TLT’s resident school food professional, has provided a guest post in the past.) I promise complete anonymity. If you’re interested, contact me at bettina at thelunchtray dot com. And if it’s not of interest, do continue to stop by and share your thoughts.
Food Guy says
Couple of things to address on the “leftover” food and water.
Current regulations already address the water issue, it is just being given some teeth in new regulation most likely because some school systems weren’t following current guidance. We provide dispensers of water and cups in the cafeteria at elementary campuses (26) and all secondary (10) campuses have water fountains or students can purchase water. You’d be amazed the difference one year makes in what kids can think of to do if they are given “free” cups for “water”.
Leftovers are not allowed to be donated because the money for the food is intended for feeding students. Not donating to places to that feed homeless or the needy. Basically, if enough food is left over to supply one of these organizations with enough food to provide a meal for the needy then production needs to be reduced. The regulation is there because of past situations were some schools were intentionally over-producing and providing “leftover” product to another entity. The food was purchased with money intended for school children, not helping community groups feed the needy, therefore using money for purposes other than specified under regulations.
Some items though can be donated from time to time. At the end of the school year, or before school breaks, perishable items (milk) that can exceed their expiration date before meals would be served again can be donated to local entities with proper documentation. But, again if it appears there is always a large amount donated reviewers can question inventory/production procedures that waste money intended to feed children at school.
Regulations aren’t always as silly as they seem when it is uncovered that somewhere in the past things weren’t spelled out completely and unintended situations occurred.
Barry says
Good post about left-overs. Proper planning and “just-in-time cooking” wold minimize the amount of left-overs to the point where there is not even enough to be worthwhile to give away. Most school kitchen managers, if they even have one, or lead cook do not really understand batch cooking, or how to properly time cooking foods for portion control let alone quality of food. And many of the left overs can be kept and either re-heated and re-served or incorported into other recipes. If a school has a HACCP plan in place, the health and safetly issues are not in question.
The little old lady with the mystery meat has left the building. School food services are not being ran by people with Restaurant management degrees, registered dieticans or food service managment companies (Sodexo, Host/Marriott, and others) and understand food production, food costs, labor costs, P&L, etc.
Stop blaming low-fat chocolate milk, kids meal toys and chicken nuggets for problems.
Barry says
Hi,
School food service is NOT what it use to be. Commodities are NOT the left over, scrap pieces like in the olden days. And the term “processed” in school food service is NOT the same as “processed” in the grocery store.
School Food Service Departments (SFSD) have been regulated by the USDA, using the Dietary Guidelines for Healthy Americans (DGHA) published every 5 years. SFSD have to analyze the menu to meet stricter guidelines than restaurants (sit down, fast food, and exotic) and are audited by State Dept of Ed. Others are not, but both are inspected by health departments. That is the end of the similarities. If schools are following the guidelines published by DGHA, how can the SFSD be blamed? If there are 21 meals in a week and EVEN if a child eats breakfast and lunch at school, this is still only HALF of the meals during a week. Consider that only 25% eat breakfast and 75% eat lunch, that is really more like 6-7 meals a week and this is more like 33% of meals. And schools are making children obese? What about the OTHER meals that are eaten away from schools (snacks, dinners and all meals on weekends, holidays, breaks and…summer). If the average elementary student attends school for 188 days, then during the course of a year the child will consume 25% of the meals from SFSD. (365 days @ yr x 3 meals = 1095. 188/ 5 days = 38 weeks of school x 7 meals a week based on national participation rates = 266 meals during ONLY the school time. Keep following: 266/1095 = 25% of meals). Amazing that school food causes SO much obesity?
Processed foods in schools are more than just chicken nuggets and steak fingers. But let’s just look at those a bit. Because school meals have to be analyzed for fat, saturated fat, calories, protein and 10 other items, the selection of chicken nuggets is VERY selective. USDA contractors have to produce an end product that meets the nutritional guidelines or else the Director will not buy them. And many districts are now even allowed to take the raw end product and have it diverted to the manufacturer and have a extremely high quality end product made. There are some states that have restricted deep fryers from being used in elementary schools at all! So if you take a whole breast, white meat, low fat, reduced breading and oven bake it, the chicken nugget that is being fed to children is better THAN ANY FAST FOOD OR RESTAURANT THAT DEEP FRIES THEIRS?
SFSD are also able to utilize the USDA dollars and buy fresh fruits and vegetables. Even if the SFSD receives the old fashion “brown box” of canned or frozen fruits and vegetables, these are NOT the highly processed food available at grocery stores. So you see, School food is ACTUALLY very healthy.
As for the cost of water, the water fountains are free, buying the bottled water costs money. Yes, the availability of water should be made more accessible to students that want to drink water. But the SFSD should not have to absorb the cost of bottles or cups.
Renee says
I feel that many conservatives see only the government part of the puzzle. So many people will say “I don’t want the government to tell me what I can and can not do” and “I don’t want my tax dollars to be spent on things that don’t directly benefit me” when it comes to all aspects of their lives. If you think your government has no place in telling you what to eat, but you’re okay with corporations telling you what to eat by offering toys with a happy meal, there is a problem. Do people really think its okay for the corporations to have influence, but not their community? We are not islands, and taking “personal responsibility” is not enough.
Government is supposed to be us, the people, using our power to make sure that corporations aren’t the ones establishing policy for gain, rather than policy for good. That is how we create communities we want to live in. This is what the happy meal toy bans were about. The fast food industry saw that some communities did want to protect their collective public health, so they’ve now bought conservative politicians in some areas to create legislation to stop the people of the community creating laws to protect themselves. How can people decry the community-created laws but not have a problem with the actions of the corporations?
If you have kids, you can make decisions for them for a while, but eventually they have to go out into the larger community, and I prefer a government that helps to protect that community from corporate interests. In the Democratic Party policies, I see some hope of that.
Kristi says
But people have the choice. McD is not making anyone go in and buy food from them. We don’t ever eat there, but if I want to, I can. If you want to go there and feed that crap to your kids, then fine. No one has to protect me from their food. How does anyone have the right to tell a company that they can no longer provide a good (that is legal) and that others are willing to purchase? That’s how the market works. If “the community” really wanted McD to stop selling toys, then they would no longer eat there. If “the community” wanted to change the ways companies do business then they would use the powers that their dollar carries. But government should not step in and force laws “protecting.” It’s up to us to step in and demand change, not by wining for laws, but by not purchasing the good we do not want.
The law makers are basically telling everyone that they’re too stupid to take care of themselves and their children. The problem with this country is that people are believing them.
Renee says
True choice should involve equal influences. That means that everyone should have equal access to healthy food and crappy food, but that’s not the case. Crappy food is cheaper (because of corporate welfare, supported by conservative politicians) and more easily available in poor urban neighborhoods; therefore choices are being influenced by corporations. Do I pay the rent and get some food for my kids? Or just the more expensive food and forgo the rent this week?
I want the community I live in to support me in making healthy choices, rather than put obstacles in my way.
Kristi says
Crappy food is cheaper because of government farm subsidies. It’s not corporate welfare it’s public welfare. They give the schools free food because people like yall who say that the kids will starve without it. They then provide highly processed crap. And parents buy it. If all the parents banned together and stopped buying the crappy school lunch, then they would serve better food.
Everyone has equal access to food. Real food is affordable. If the person wants to go about buying and cooking it. We are on a very limited budget and eat only real food. Nothing boxed or prepackaged. It takes a lot of planning on my part. It also involves cooking. Everything. But it is possible. I’ve read several posts from other real food sites about eating real food on a way tighter budget than mine.
Many people don’t want to spend the time doing this or even care to. Several of my friends know about food dyes and how bad sodas are, but still give their kids Cheetos and a Coke. They just don’t care. And they have plenty of money to buy good foods.
So maybe we should have a law saying no sodas for anyone? Or you have to be over 18 to purchase Kool-Aid?
Renee says
Government farm subsidies are corporate welfare, not public welfare. If you look into it, you’ll find that the bulk of the money in farm subsidies is going to big industrial farms. These are not family farms, scraping by. These are corporate farms, and they are just as rich and selfish as Exxon and Monsanto.
In many school districts, the kids eating school lunch are not paying for it. That’s because they are living below the poverty line. Therefore, they can’t ban together and stop buying school lunch. They can’t vote with their dollars because they don’t have any.
Maggieq says
Cost, education, and time are almost entirely the case as to why people eat less healthy foods. If you get a to-go item from a restaurant or non-fast food location, the cost, per person can be anywhere from $7-$12 per person roughly (depending on what city). If you have to factor that cost per person, in a household of 4 people, 3 times a day for instance, that’s $84- $144 A DAY. So fast food is significantly more affordable if you are on a severely restricted budget.
Education is another factor. Not intelligence, but knowledge about food, cooking, and meals. Most people really don’t know how to cook much of anything anymore. Similarly to phys ed, home economics and cooking are gone from the curriculum. But they are extremely vital tools that could plausibly help people make better, more informed eating choices. If people actually knew how to prepare balanced, healthy meals in a reasonable amount of time, I bet they would!
Many people argue that that simply isn’t possible if you are a two-parent household, with multiple jobs, and I would agree. Many families that are struggling economically or even just barely staying afloat, don’t have the luxury of time to go to a grocery store (if they even have one in their neighborhood- food deserts are a whole different animal that I hope someone discusses here). If you are lucky enough to have access to a vehicle, you have to go to the store, but food, and then come home unpack it, and then consume it as fast as possible (if you buy fresh foods) before it goes bad. The other factor here is that once at the grocery store there is so much mis-information about foods that are still filled with crap but disguised as healthy that even the most savvy consumer can often find themselves wrought with conflict about what to buy.
For families where there is no access to a vehicle, relying on public transportation makes a simple trip to the grocery store as time consuming and arduous as a trip to the DMV. But could easily take as much as 3 hours to complete. Most people (regardless of socioeconomic status) don’t have that kind of time luxury.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Maggie – this is just where I come out, too. I don’t know if you’re new around here or not, but I’ve addressed some of these issues in the past (“Milk, Soda and Some Very Fuzzy Math” and “Rush Limbaugh, Heritage Foundation: Let Fat Kids Go Hungry.”)
Karen Frenchy says
I completely agree with you.
Leslie Parsley says
Let’s look at this “new” mandate.
“Under the new Federal mandate, each school will be required to adopt a Wellness Policy that includes:
(1) nutrition guidelines for all foods sold on school campus during the school day; (2) setting school goals for nutrition education and physical activity; (3) establishing community participation in creating local wellness policies; and (4) creating a plan for measuring implementation of these wellness policies.
It went into effect in July 2006.
http://www.wellnessjunction.com/athome/disease_prevention/hlthcamp.htm
Barry says
Yes, you are SOO right. At the time the last child nutrition re-auth was done, this was mandated. Every school HAD to develope this, adopt it and put it in place. So much for madated legislation, that didn’t work and now MORE restrictions: equal access to water, limit potato products and get rid of choc/straw milk. That outta do it. Never mind recess, PE, health/nutrition education that can ACTUALLY make a difference? nah…too simple.
Michael says
Well I don’t no much about this bill or much anything else about the previous laws. However I can give incite to those whose Mother was on WIC, and sometimes had to rely on school lunches.
I would have loved more than anything to have had more than one lunch line at my school, but it wasn’t till I got to High School where we got a choice between regular lunch and a salad bar (which in my Jr. year added soup to it also). The school was small so maybe thats why. but the quality of food (which was supposed to be safe for all students, like no peanut or spices) Sucked hard, but it was good enough for you. And I dont ever remember Potato derivatives being the “vegetable” . Maybe the main deal (baked potato day) but they generally had salad or some other vegetable to go with it. I would have loved healthy food but i dont think u can force kids to eat it. Like vending machines, they took all the coke and good snacks out but put in “diet”, or “zero calorie”. Which suck, now if they had left the other snacks and added healthy stuff then yah I would have been cool with that.
The FDA thing idk about so I wont say anything about it.
However WIC (and other things that help people) should not be cut. Should they maybe make it hard to get it, idk. Maybe its to hard to get. Either way without WIC my brother (and family) would be a lot less healthy. Because UN-healthy food is cheap. However because we had WIC, and Food Stamps we could eat healthier. And not everyone is on because they are Cheap ASSES. My step dad worked his ass off for shit wages and my mom worked off and on too, but we still couldnt make it. (5 kids, two adults) Should the people who abuse it be kicked off, HELL YAh, But should the services be gotten rid of. NO! Thats goes for Medicade, Medicare, AR kids First. (Arkansas Program that gives children Medical insurance)
And people who dont agree… well not my problem. I just wanted to put my two sense in.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Hi all! Just want to say that tomorrow is the last day of school in our district, which means I’m running around like crazy today. However, I’m very interested in these comments and will reply to many of them later in the day. In the meantime I’m using my phone (!) to approve them as they come in! – Bettina
AlphaSmith says
Renee, the sweeping generalizations and ad hominem don’t help.
I am a conservative. I believe in very limited government. I also do not want tax dollars spent to directly benefit ME. I want them to leave me alone to take care of my own family outside a very limited scope of what I think they actually should do and can do well.
As business owners, I want them to leave me alone to create real jobs rather than take my hard earned money to “create” fake jobs. (And I believe that anyone who makes tax law should have to run a business — and a payroll — for an entire year without help. They’d all fail.) I don’t want a government subsidy or payment for work I don’t do. But neither do I call tax deductions for reasonable business expenses “corporate welfare.” (If I sell routers for $100 and they cost $50 to produce, I don’t have $100 is profit.) I don’t want the government to pick winners and losers and decide who should be in business. I want to either succeed or fail based on the merits of the products/services that I offer and my ability to contribute something of value.
Caring for and feeding one’s own children requires very little money. I know, I have six kids. I have stayed at home with them (and fed them) since back in the day when we made about $1000 per month AND were paying for graduate school.
I would stand in line with my minimal cash and my coupons and rebates with dry beans, powdered milk, tough cheap meats to slow cook, ramen (oh, yes!), and on-sale produce. I’d watch the parents in front of me check out with WIC and food stamps. They had processed high-sugar breakfast cereals (heaven forbid they should actually cook some oatmeal), gallons of fresh milk (because powdered is “icky” and they won’t eat it), cheese (that was a luxury we couldn’t afford), frozen convenience foods, juice (which is much less healthy than fruit and expensive relative to nutrients), and soda, candy, donuts, cookies, cracker, ice cream and other treats we couldn’t possibly afford. Even food gift baskets!
Was it hard to eat “beans and rice”? Sure. It took more time than frozen lasagna, and it was pretty boring, and the fancy stuff looked good. Was it hateful for you not to rush over with steak for us and require us to live within our means? Of course not. We chose our path, we chose to have kids. We learned to budget, to be frugal, to spend wisely, to sacrifice. And it has served us well in the years that followed.
There is a place to help the down-trodden. (And while we’re making this political, please note that conservatives give vastly more of their OWN money to charity.) But the system as it stands is an absolute joke, and that includes the subsidized burgers and fries at school.
I’ll be backing out of the discussion now. I have to go cook dinner. From scratch. Oh, the injustice of it all! 🙂
mali says
So you say that since you were able to stay at home and find the time to find and cook healthy foods for your kids, everyone else should be able to. Just one question. Who was earning the pay check while you were staying at home to raise your 6 kids? I’m assuming when you said “we” that meant your husband or life partner. In many instances, children from lower economic backgrounds have only one parent, or if they are fortunate enough to have both, they spend all day working so they can earn enough money to take care of their kids because in this day and age, the job market being what it is, you can’t afford to live on one salary. Being a stay at home mom is sadly a luxury that most people of middle or low income literally can not afford.
Korey says
My politics lean pretty far left, but I also believe strongly in personal and fiscal responsibility. However…I think it’s dangerously simplistic to assert that cutting food assistance programs or repealing food-related legislation will force people to take personal responsibility for feeding their children nutritious food. I admire AlphaSmith for feeding her family a reasonable diet, without government assistance, while on a very tight budget during graduate school. That’s what I would do too. But, I will also acknowledge that I am a well-educated person with the right skills to make this happen. What about parents who don’t have enough education to read and understand nutritional data? How can parents make good decisions if they don’t have the information literacy skills to recognize the processed food industry’s aggressive and deceptive marketing tactics? How can parents who’ve never learned to cook make healthy meals from scratch? Without the knowledge to manage personal finances, how can parents devise ways to make their food dollars stretch? True, maybe some parents are just lazy and don’t care what their children eat, but I think we have to imagine circumstances beyond our own and acknowledge that many people face real obstacles and may need assistance to get to the point of being able to take personal responsibility. The playing field is not at all level. Maybe I’m too idealistic, but what I’d like to see are more programs that help parents acquire these types of skills. Maybe then food legislation and assistance programs would seem less necessary.
Aly says
Well said Korey!!
Gaye says
Mali, I am not that old to be 30 years since middle school. I am a former middle and high school teacher who continues to mentor students of those ages and frequent the schools often. Both the middle schools and high schools continue to have several lunch options, if not more, than I did as a teen-ager. You teach in elementary school – I never stated elementary schools have several options.
I absolutely do advocate cuts to WIC in certain circumstances. If you bothered to read my post instead of instantly seeing red, you would have read that I wrote, “It’s one thing to fall on hard times and need assistance and something else entirely to know the funding is there and use it to your advantage just because you can.” As someone who has been on government assistance before, I have seen the rampant abuse that occurs and is allowed to occur. You might advocate spending, spending, spending, but it is breaking our country. We cannot afford to pay for everyone’s mistakes or problems.
I do not believe that “in many instances, the food that kids get at school are the only meals they get.” Although this might be true in poorer schools among poorer children, this is not the case for the majority of students. Even then, even if you were to include the free breakfasts and lunches these students qualify for, it is still less than half of all meals and is not the only reason America has gotten fat.
Kids today spend too much time indoors. Period. PE is still a part of the curriculum in every school in which I have taught or mentored. I have no idea where you are teaching that it is not. Although kids in middle school and high school have choices (such as dance, tennis, archery, track, football, basketball, baseball, volleyball, swimming, etc.), it is still a requirement. Even if it isn’t the requirement where you teach, to suggest that kids must stay indoors otherwise end up in a body bag is ridiculous . There are so many activities available outside school (that are free!) that hanging out in the streets isn’t the only way to get exercise into one’s daily routine.
Not sure what parents working two jobs has to do with anything, but I had lots of friends growing up with two working parents and it never affected their ability to exercise or maintain a healthy lifestyle. However, if parents can’t afford having kids, they SHOULDN’T BE HAVING KIDS!!! (With your reasoning, you probably also advocate homeless people having pets!)
Just the mere statement “I wonder how you sleep at night,” exhibits the type of person you are. It’s a shame you are “teaching” elementary-aged children. You should be someone who encourages different viewpoints – it’s how we learn and grow. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn anything from you except how obnoxious you are.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
OK, everyone – deep breath in, deep breath out! 🙂 My round up of and general reply to all of these comments is here.
Barry says
Having been involved and around school food service for the past 17 years now, I just wonder where all of these activists were back then? The amount of discussion that is taking place now is more than what would take place in several years. So the fact that school food service is being discussed IS a good discussion. What I see as the problem is when ANY regulation either at a local, state or federal level goes too far. An often used line in education is that “only what is mandated, gets evaluated.” The school lunch program has been changed drastically over the past 15 years. Many of your followers who have been around from back in the mid 90’s (or even before) will remember the term “Type A” lunch that was based on 5 items from the 4 food groups. Go back and look at the number of obese children OR adults in the 60’s – 80’s. Food is healthier today than ever before, yet we have ¼ – 1/3 of children obese. What happened? Education changed, recess and PE were eliminated as well as lack of education of foods to parents. Did the 8 year old that is obese drive themselves to the fast foods and buy the food? Instead of blaming schools and food places of ALL types, how about the parents and government? Put recess back in schools, put PE back in schools, start adult nutrition education classes and see the difference this will make.