Gov’t relaxes healthy standard for school meals

The Trump administration on Monday relaxed some rules aimed at making USA school lunches healthier, a move viewed by health advocates as a direct hit on former first lady Michelle Obama’s signature issue.

Newly-confirmed Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue signed a proclamation on Monday at a Virginia elementary school that targeted restrictions on nutritional standards in school cafeterias throughout the U.S.

Kansas Republican Sen. Pat Roberts joined Perdue at the Leesburg school Monday, and said that the new flexibility will help “ensure that schools are able to serve nutritious meals that children will actually eat”. Perdue also announced that 1% milk would be allowed again in schools, as now only non-fat flavored milk is permitted into school cafeterias.

The announcement is the first major move from Perdue, and complies with pleas from school nutrition directors who decried numerous standards under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act signed into law by President Obama in 2010.

According to reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, schools in the U.S. may be given new and more flexible standards on what children are served in schools.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration put a halt to another Obama-era regulation.

“[There are] 740 calories in this pecan roll”, she says, pointing to a pastry at a local café. The FDA said the delay will allow for “further consideration” of ways to reduce costs or make the rules more flexible.

Perdue said USDA would work on more permanent solutions but in the meantime would let school districts opt out of some of the requirements. That extends previous flexibililty the agency granted after schools complained it was hard to find whole-grain foods like pastas to meet the rule. “We are allowing 1 percent flavored milk in our school lunch program”.

The Obama administration rules set fat, sugar and sodium limits on foods in the lunch line and beyond.

With the lost food, Roberts said, comes empty stomachs, which can potentially result in more visits to fast-food restaurants. “This interim final rule by the USDA is a slippery slope that will completely undermine school breakfast and lunch programs and the USDA should immediately reverse course”.

They have also lobbied for more flexibility in rules that require kids to eat fruits and vegetables, saying those often get thrown away.

In the sodium requirements, USDA noted that for school years 2017 to 2020, schools will not be required to meet Sodium Target 2 and that Sodium Target 1 will be considered compliant.

SNA and the School Superintendents Association (AASA) said the “overly prescriptive regulatory requirements” of Michelle Obama’s school lunch program have led to school districts being “forced to financially subsidize meals at the expense of educational programs”.

The move also seems pretty tone-deaf.

We’ll have to wait and see what other changes come down from the USDA, but the announcement yesterday did not augur well for the food movement or America’s children.

“The current administration is planning to demolish years of hard-won improvements in food policy, school nutrition, food safety, labeling, content and more”, said Samantha Heller, a senior clinical nutritionist at New York University Medical Center in New York City.