What is congress thinking? Making tomato paste legally a "vegetable" so that it can be left on school lunch menus? Simply ridiculous. As the article says "poor nutrition in school lunches [is] a national security issue because obesity is the leading medical disqualifier for military service". How scary it would be if our nation was too obese to defend itself? Congress wants to make it legally acceptable to leave fatty and unhealthy foods in school meals because they are cheaper and more easily made than whole grain or organic foods. Children eating school lunches don't have much of a choice on what they eat, and if all they are offered are junk foods, then obesity is sure to follow. Children are easily manipulated to do things, and if congress passes this bill, it only reinforces the idea that these foods are healthy and acceptable to eat on a daily basis. Congress should do the right thing and impose stricter laws and regulations on foods served to children in the public school system. Fruits and vegetables may be a little more expensive to provide for public school meals, but the high cost of medical bills and possibly losing national security outweigh the temporary budget fix.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45306416/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/pizza-vegetable-congress-says-yes/
I've somewhat been following the controversy over school lunches and the language that Congress used to establish the tomato paste used on pizza as a serving of vegetables. It floors me that a so called "reasonable" group of people could say the ingredients in a rectangle school pizza would count as a serving of veggies. I found an additional article today in the LA Times that gave the whole story about the controversy and the reactions to the decisions. One of the points made in the paper was about the language being changed to count pizza as a serving of vegetables under the pressure of major frozen food distributors like Schwann's and the American Frozen Food Institute. I don't think that anyone can deny that big business played a part in having legislation changed to benefit them. The article also stated that politicians in the states where those businesses were based wrote letters and used their political persuasion to make sure the interests of the businesses were protected. No telling how many millions of dollars every year are donated to these politicians on the behalf of business interests.
ReplyDeleteI think one of your best points was our country being too obese to defend itself. I hadn't thought about it like that, but I am now. Stuffing children full of junk food from the lowest bidder has got to be the quickest and easiest way to keep our society obese. Hopefully people will come to their senses soon and we can start to educate children on the importance of nutrition.