The House Education and the Workforce Committee’s draft Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR) bill has yet to make it out of committee, but its proposals are so controversial that the committee is already feeling the need to respond to critics.
Of specific concern are provisions in the bill which would: gut existing curbs on campus junk food; broaden the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program to include “all forms” of produce; raise the threshold for the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which would lead thousands of schools to lose their CEP status and make it harder to get free meals to needy kids; and cause evidence-based science to take a back seat in determining school nutrition standards. (Read more in my recent Civil Eats recap of the bill, as well as my Civil Eats article specifically examining the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program controversy.)
A petition is already circulating against the House bill, which has also been roundly criticized by anti-hunger and child health advocates. So last Wednesday, the House committee issued a press release defending H.R. 5003, claiming that these attacks are “partisan” in nature and arguing that the bill merely seeks to fight “fraud, waste, and abuse” in child nutrition programs, while ensuring that nutrition standards “reflect the input of school leaders.” It also argues that even though the bill would limit the reach of CEP, it would somehow “better serve students in need.” You can read the entire committee statement here.
On Friday, Matt Herrick, Director of Communications at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) responded in a statement sent via email to media outlets, including The Lunch Tray. As it’s not available online, I’m sharing here the USDA’s statement in full:
On Wednesday, the House Education and Workforce Committee Republicans responded to withering criticism of its child nutrition proposal. As has been chronicled by nutrition, hunger, medical, national security, education and community organizations across the country, the bill is harmful to children’s health, heaps administrative costs on schools, and plans to bury parents in more bureaucratic red tape, all while subsidizing well-off children at the expense of our less fortunate kids who need help. Let’s break it down:
First, the House Republicans’ proposal will raise the threshold on the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP, causing school meal participation to fall dramatically and causing schools to have a harder time balancing their cafeteria budgets. The Congressional Budget Office projects the House bill would cut $1.6 billion over 10 years from the school meals program. How? Kicking children out of the program is the only way to achieve this magnitude of savings.
Second, raising the threshold also undercuts the cost share model of CEP, where schools pick up costs for the very small percentage of their students who would not otherwise qualify for free or reduced meals. As schools are forced out of CEP by the House proposal, they lose economies of scale. That’s because, in reality, CEP leads to higher participation, and higher participation saves schools money as they can produce meals at a lower cost per meal. CEP has been shown to increase school breakfast participation by an average of 9 percent, with some school districts seeing participation increase by as much as 37 percent. Many schools may stop offering breakfast altogether without CEP.
Third, by eliminating the paid meal equity provision, the House Republicans’ bill does exactly what it falsely accuses CEP of doing–it puts taxpayers on the hook for subsidizing meals for children from well-off families at the expense of children from lesser means.
Fourth, by raising the CEP threshold to 60 percent from the current 40 percent, the House Republicans’ bill will raise administrative costs and burdens on schools and bury parents in unnecessary paperwork.
The Senate’s bipartisan bill to reauthorize child nutrition programs offers a viable, positive step forward. The Senate’s bill is a win for children, parents, schools and for our country’s future. It maintains our commitment to science-based nutrition standards for school meals and protects the advancements we have made in children’s health since the passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Rather than diminish the progress made since the changes were implemented in 2012, the Senate’s bill ensures progress will continue improving our children’s diets, and it promises to end partisan battles about the future of our kids.
Since passage of the bipartisan Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010, America’s children have benefitted in the following ways:
-Data show that obesity rates are falling among young kids;
-Over 98 percent of schools have embraced updated, healthier meal standards;
-Kids are now eating at least 13 percent more of their entrees, at least 16 percent more vegetables and 23 percent more fruit at lunch;
-More low-income children are benefiting from breakfast and lunch programs;
-Nearly 4 million children have access to healthy food in the summer when school is out and meals are scarce; and
-8 million low-income women, infants and young children now receive an improved variety of healthy food through WIC.
Now is not the time to go backward or compromise the future of our children.
Matt Herrick
Director of Communications
USDA
I’ll share any new developments in this brewing school food battle here on The Lunch Tray.
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Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2016 Bettina Elias Siegel
bw1 says
“and cause evidence-based science to take a back seat in determining school nutrition standards.”
Yeah, right. Shouting “because science” doesn’t magically invoke alignment with real science.
Yesterday NPR reported on a sudden FDA initiative to update their nutritional guidelines after it was observed that they effectively classify avacados, almonds, and salmon as junk food. The problem being that most government nutritional recommendations are based the scientific wisdom of a time when climatologists were warning of an impending ice age.
Bettina complains about the rising incidence of diabetes, while still promoting outdated government thinking on nutrition that has, for three decades, served to raise the glycemic index of most American diets. And still, Bettina fights to have these buffoonish federal food mandarins dictating top-down what your kids are allowed to have for lunch.
What we know about nutrition is still a fluid and evolving, but government doesn’t “do” fluid and evolving. Government is about dogmatic intertia. Government is about blind obedience. Government imposition is the last refuge of those who fail to persuade others to voluntarily buy in to their propositions.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
As of March, 2016 I no longer respond to comments from this particular Lunch Tray reader: after several long years of debating with him/her, I’ve decided life’s just too short. But others can and should feel free to respond if they like.