huffpo: New USDA school food standards

[karla cook]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bettina-elias-siegel/new-usda-school-food-standards_b_1234239.html

New USDA School Food Standards: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Posted: 01/27/2012 1:25 pm

Bettina Elias Siegel
Huffington Post

On Wednesday First Lady Michelle Obama, accompanied by Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack, released the final federal nutrition standards
for school meals, representing the first major overhaul of school food
requirements in over 15 years.

As with most products of the legislative process, the end result is
messy and flawed but not without redeeming value. Here's my bullet
point summary of the best and worst aspects of the new regulations:

THE GOOD

While you may read a lot of carping in the blogosphere about where the
new regulations fall short -- they still allow chocolate milk, for
example, which displeases those who oppose the beverage, and pizza is
still a vegetable (more on that below) -- in reality there is much to
be happy about. Here are the positive highlights:

Abolition of "Nutrient Standard Menu Planning"

This is a wonky, in-the-weeds aspect of the new regulations that
you'll likely hear little about in the mainstream press, but from my
perspective it might be the single most important improvement to
school meals.

Here's the background. Under prior regulations, schools could choose
to meet USDA nutritional requirements using either a "food based" or a
"nutrient standard" approach to their menu planning. The former
method is pretty much what it sounds like: districts had to serve a
certain number of items from the basic food groups (breads and
cereals, fruits and vegetables, meats and meat substitutes, etc.), the
same way most humans approach the task of putting together a balanced
meal.

But under the "nutrient standard" system (used by my own school
district, Houston ISD, and many others), districts could focus instead
only on whether individual nutrient requirements were being satisfied,
regardless of where those nutrients came from. This myopic,
"nutritionism" approach led to some truly bizarre results, like the
regular inclusion of animal crackers (aka, cookies) in our school
breakfast program, added to meet the USDA iron requirement via their
fortified white flour. (My discovery of this particular practice --
and my resulting confusion and anger about it -- is actually what led
me to start The Lunch Tray blog in the first place.)

Despite the fact that "some school advocacy organizations, trade
associations, food manufacturers, nutritionists, and other commenters
suggested that NSMP [Nutrient Standard Menu Planning] be allowed as an
option," (and, by the way, is it any surprise that food manufacturers
loved this approach?) USDA did the right thing and abolished it for
good.

Sensible Caloric Requirements

The National School Lunch Program was started at a time when childhood
malnutrition, not obesity, was the concern du jour. As a result, for
decades districts have struggled to meet calorie minimums (you read
that right -- minimums) while not exceeding limits on fat. The result
was the inclusion of lots of sugar in school meals, often in the form
of multiple-times-a-week, or even daily, desserts and sometimes sugary
beverages. The new regulations bring caloric requirements down, a
common sense move in an age of childhood obesity.

Improved Nutrition

And now for the purely nutritional improvements you've probably
already read about: schools are going to be required to offer
students fruits and vegetables every day, including a wider variety of
produce that includes yellow and green leafy vegetables; the amount of
whole-grain-rich foods will be increased; only fat-free or low-fat
milk will be offered; and the rules reflect an increased focus on
reducing saturated fat, trans fat and sodium.

THE BAD

So, what's wrong with requiring schools to provide better, healthier
food? Nothing. But what is bad is that these regulations are an
unfunded mandate; the Congressional funding increase provided to
school districts -- a mere six cents more per free meal -- is woefully
inadequate to pay for the better food. (For more on the funding
issue, check out school food reformer Dana Woldow's excellent piece on
how the new nutrition requirements will effectively force many
districts, especially those in which labor and food costs are high, to
start (or continue) dipping into classroom funds to pay for school
meals.) While other countries pay far more for their school food
programs -- no doubt recognizing the long term benefits of such an
investment -- the United States continues to lag woefully behind in
this regard.

THE UGLY

As these regulations were hammered out, nothing was more disheartening
than watching as our elected representatives -- from both parties, by
the way -- cave in like cheap suitcases in the face of Big Food's
lobbying efforts.

The USDA, at the behest of Congress, sought recommendations from the
Institute of Medicine on how to bring school food standards into
alignment with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. But after the
IOM recommendations were released, Congress backpedalled furiously
when the food industry asked it to. So when potato growers objected
to limits on servings of starchy vegetables, that idea was tossed.
And frozen food manufacturers, long benefitting from a quirk in the
old rules that treated pizza as a "vegetable" (due to its tomato
paste), fought successfully to maintain this counterintuitive status
quo.

For those of us who care deeply about kids and nutrition, episodes
like these were ugly indeed.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Are the new school food standards ideal? No. Are districts being
given enough money to really get the job done? No, again. But do we
have some cause for celebration? Absolutely. Initial, positive
reactions from several leading nutrition advocates are here, and I'll
share with you on The Lunch Tray more responses, positive and
negative, as they come in.

Follow Bettina Elias Siegel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thelunchtray