Michelle Obama: School Lunch Should be a Lesson
Legislators and USDA officials are slowly starting to talk about school meals as a health initiative. They see school meals as an opportunity to ensure that students are getting the proper nutrients in the proper amounts — at least for one meal of the day — and they say an ...
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May 30, 2009
National School Boards Association Opposes Federal Regulations at Hearing (Again)
By Deborah Lehmann — You'd think school boards would be one of the biggest supporters when it comes to promoting student health. Think again. The National School Boards Association made another appearance before Congress today to speak against federal regulation of foods sold in schools. In March, Reginald Felton, director of federal ...
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May 14, 2009
New Legislation Would Bring Calorie Counts to Cafeteria Menus
By Deborah Lehmann — School food service directors openly admit that they keep their eyes on fast-food restaurants, monitoring what's popular with kids and offering similar items in their cafeterias. Turns out legislators are also using fast-food as an example in thinking about how to improve school meals. The trend they're trying ...
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May 14, 2009
The Harkin and Woolsey Bills: What they Will and Won’t Do
By Deborah Lehmann — There are now bills in both the House and the Senate that would require the USDA to regulate all foods sold in U.S. public schools. That means the USDA will be able to set standards for snacks and drinks in vending machines, cafeteria a la carte lines ...
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May 7, 2009
Harkin Introduces School Food Bill in Senate
By Deborah Lehmann — Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) introduced legislation last week that would tighten the regulations on foods sold in schools. The bill parallels Lynn Woolsey's Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act of 2009, which was introduced in the House in March. Both bills would give the secretary of ...
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May 6, 2009
Some White House Chef Action on School Meals
By Deborah Lehmann — White House Assistant Chef Sam Kass, who has spoken out about the state of the National School Lunch Program, will cook up a meal for Congress next week to focus attention on the child nutrition reauthorization. On May 5, he and a group of high school culinary students ...
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April 30, 2009
School Food Legislation Update
By Deborah Lehmann — A number of bills addressing school food have been introduced in the House and the Senate. Here's a summary of the most important ones, along with some commentary: The White House Conference on Food and Nutrition (HR 1869): This bill, co-sponsored by James McGovern (D-MA) and Jo Ann ...
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April 24, 2009
What does the Latest USDA Appointment Mean for School Lunch? More Chicken Nuggets
By Ann Cooper, with Kate Adamick and Beth Collins — We’ve been asked numerous times over the past few months what we think about Obama's Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack. At the onset, we were critical. Vilsack had supported many agribusiness practices that we abhor, such as promoting GMOs in the ...
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April 15, 2009
Another Senate Hearing on Child Nutrition
By Deborah Lehmann — The fight over a la carte foods is back, but this time around there's some good news. The Senate Committe on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry held a hearing this morning with a focus on foods sold outside of the National School Lunch Program — in vending machines, snack bars ...
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March 31, 2009
Highlights from the Senate Child Nutrition Hearing
By Deborah Lehmann — I have mixed feelings about what I heard this morning at a Senate hearing on improving child nutrition during tough economic times. First the good news: Senator Tom Harkin, who chairs the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, has really connected the dots between school meals, obesity and ...
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March 4, 2009
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