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Senate Agriculture Committee Approves Child Nutrition Bill
Posted on Thu, March 25, 2010 by Gordon Jenkins
5 Comments | Categories: Farms and Farming, Food Justice, Policy, School Food, Take Action,
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Yesterday, the Senate Agriculture Committee unanimously approved its bill to update child nutrition programs (the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act). The bill will now go to the Senate floor at a date to be determined, no earlier than mid-April.
The committee made no major changes, though we were excited to see Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas increase funding for Farm to School programs to $40 million (inching closer to our goal of $50 million over five years). The bill also strengthens nutrition standards for all the food sold at school, effectively kicking junk food out of school vending machines. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio passed an amendment for an organic food pilot program to get more organic food into school meals, though the amendment doesn’t yet have funding.
Overall, the bill invests $500 million per year in child nutrition programs, which falls short of the $1 billion per year proposed by President Obama in order to help schools serve healthier food. Senator Lincoln was hopeful about funding, however, saying:
“I am committed to working to identify additional resources for this legislation…. After reporting this bill I look forward to working with my colleague Senator Baucus and the leadership in the Senate to identify additional funding.”
Funding for healthier food will be paid for by offsets in other parts of the federal budget. Currently, the Child Nutrition bill makes a cut to conservation programs, which is a cut that Slow Food USA does not support – particularly when a much larger portion of the budget goes to farm subsidies that support unhealthy processed foods.
On the same day that the committee approved the bill, Slow Food USA’s Time for Lunch Campaign surpassed its goal of sending 100,000 letters and petition signatures to Congress. The momentum’s still growing—click here to learn how you can help out.
Member Comments
From John Turenne on Fri, March 26, 2010
Not one to be ungrateful. The $500 million per year is better than nothing. However I am afraid it won’t increase the per child/per meal amount in the end. If the math is right, this seems to be .06/per meal?
Be sure to push your schools to get back to simpler food…fresh food…whole food…Real Food. It can happen. And it doesn’t need to cost more. We’re doing it with the schools in Huntington, WV as we speak.
John Turenne
President
Sustainable Food Systems. LLC
From CynDee Novitch on Tue, March 30, 2010
Some of the money that is going to be spent on our new Health Care Bill I think it would be beneficial to start with the basics of getting our children a healthy meal at school and teaching more health and nutrition in the class room so that we are preparing our children for healthier futures. Our overall well being begins with eating well and getting enough exercise. Our country is becoming so obese and we should start by taking care of our children when they are young so that these nutrition values will stay with them as they grow into adults. This being said we need to get rid of all of the added preservatives in the school lunches and get back to simple healthy meals at school.
From Carla Davis on Sat, April 24, 2010
My kids love food such as rice and beans, macaroni and cheese, and pizza. Why should that be more expensive than frozen hamburgers and chicken that look like dried out shoe leather?
I have seen massive amounts of processed foods thrown into the garbage at schools uneaten. The food industry has got to be behind this nonsense.
Slow food also means time to eat lunch. Twenty minutes to stand in line, find a seat, and then eat, is not sensible.
My son is now at the School for Global Leaders middle school where he has a longer lunch period. He has time to even do his homework at lunch, and is an A student in all subjects. Interesting!
From Wendy Payne on Sat, April 24, 2010
Our cafeteria food lunch options are ridiculous. I wish Jamie would come to AL. Every Friday we have pizza, peaches, and corn as our lunch option for elementary children. It’s embarrassing. These are not food options, they are junk,all processed or soaked in sugar.
Our cafeteria does try to provide excellent options for middle-schoolers by offering a choice between subs or pre-made salads and the sad thing is the cafeteria usually runs out, because so many are choosing this but if you eat later you miss the opportunity to have a healthier choice.
One of the new regulations in AL is they have eliminated items with high fructose corn syrup. Awful stuff…I don’t know why we can’t make that stuff illegal like Europe. I agree with Jamie, it’s really just educating everybody.
We have excellent local produce in Northern AL and wonderful Farmer’s Markets. We have a hydroponic farmer less than 3 miles from our school and yet we receive nothing from them for our schools. Tragedy.
Thank you for affecting change, thank you for this show.
In appreciation,
Wendy Payne
From Karin Page on Sat, April 24, 2010
I volunteered at my church to cook for our preschool. At the time there were 70 children. I took over because of the lack of nutrition in their meals.
I made sure they had fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, home-made breads and cakes (made by me, and not with a mix). I substituted applesauce for part of the fat and could control the quantity of salt and sugar they were eating.
There was some problem getting the teachers to comply with healthy fruits and veggies for snacks rather than the cookies they were giving them. But the kids loved it.
I think part of the problem with our school lunch programs has been that cooks don’t cook - they just open cans, as it’s easier. But we need to get back to cooking from scratch, and adding fresh veggies and fruits to our children’s diets. We can cut way back on our sugar, fat, and salt intake by avoiding prepared foods.
