School Lunch Program in Trouble

The Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, the law, new federal nutrition is failing. But after one school year serving healthier meals, some school districts are having second thoughts because there is both too much waste and too many students complaining they are not getting enough to eat.

Amy Anderson, food service director for the Carmel Clay School District in Indiana, says she is tired of being “a food cop,” and her program lost $300,000 last year as students stopped using the school cafeteria entirely.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is spending $3.2 billion over five years to implement the Hunger-Free Kids Act, and its annual subsidies for local school lunches are expected to rise by another $1 billion. But school lunch price increases are being reported all over the map.

Food service directors are being pushed and pulled in every direction. They need to come up with meals that are satisfying enough that students won’t just throw them in the trash can or, worse yet, not even show up for a look at what’s on the menu.

While its called the “Hunger-Free Kids Act,” its prescription for fighting obesity appears to be why some kids are complaining about not getting enough to eat. USDA’s obesity solution for the schools seems to be to give every kid in the grade level the same amount of calories, be it a big kid or a small kid.

Kids are voting on all of this by dropping out the school lunch program and by tossing food in the dumpster in record quantities. So it’s not a happy time to be a school food director and its going to be hot in Kansas City this week.  The people who run our school cafeterias are going to have to decide whether they are going to be the nation’s obesity fighters or whether they are going to present their grievances to the powers that be in Washington, D.C.

In my estimation the big problem was decreasing the portion size of the food served. They needed to give larger portions of while reducing the fat content. Politicians control what is served because of the money they dole out  to the schools. It is time to let food professionals to run their own programs. If anyone knows what foods children like its cafeteria managers.

Too much politics is played on which foods are purchased by the FDA. The food is determined by who lobbies the Congressmen and representatives.  

Source Food Safety News