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USDA gets involved because the subsidized corn/soy/wheat/rice agribusinesses want to sell, as subsidized prices, tons of their ty GMO carbs.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2003/01/unhappy-mealsAt a time when weight-related illnesses in children are escalating, schools are serving kids the very foods that lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. That's because the National School Lunch Program, which gives schools more than $6 billion each year to offer low-cost meals to students, has conflicting missions. Enacted in 1946, the program is supposed to provide healthy meals to children, regardless of income. At the same time, however, it's designed to subsidize agribusiness, shoring up demand for beef and milk even as the public's taste for these foods declines.
Under the program, the federal government buys up more than $800 million worth of farm products each year and turns them over to schools to serve their students. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the system, calls this a win-win situation: Schools get free ingredients while farmers are guaranteed a steady income.
The trouble is, most of the commodities provided to schools are meat and dairy products, often laden with saturated fat. In 2001, the USDA spent a total of $350 million on surplus beef and cheese for schools -- more than double the $161 million spent on all fruits and vegetables, most of which were canned or frozen. On top of its regular purchases, the USDA makes special purchases in direct response to industry lobbying. In November 2001, for example, the beef industry wrote to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, complaining that a decline in travel after September 11, along with a lowered demand for beef in Japan, was suppressing sales of their product. The department responded two months later with a $30 million "bonus buy" of frozen beef roasts and ground beef for schools.
"Basically, it's a welfare program for suppliers of commodities," says Jennifer Raymond, a retired nutritionist in Northern California who has worked with schools to develop healthier menus. "It's a price support program for agricultural producers, and the schools are simply a way to get rid of the items that have been purchased."
All in all, schools obtain almost 20 percent of their food from the commodities program -- and they depend on the handouts to meet tight budgets. "School districts are under intense budgetary pressure, and often-times nutrition is at the bottom of the priority list," says David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children's Hospital in Boston. School nutrition directors face increasing mandates from their higher-ups to break even, or even make a profit, and therefore have no choice but to accept surplus commodities. "They help shape our menus significantly, especially if you're going to run a program successfully financially," says Christy Koury, director of child nutrition for schools in Freeport, Texas, where menus run heavy on hamburgers, cheese-stuffed pizza sticks, and pepperoni calzones.
I agree with the emphases on federalism and personal responsibility, but ag subsidies and externalities like the impact on human health shouldn't be ignored.
USDA gets involved because the subsidized corn/soy/wheat/rice agribusinesses want to sell, as subsidized prices, tons of their ty GMO carbs.
Maybe we need to cite a reference to them:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Cons ution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
It's still a local issue. Not for the feds to decide.
Do you want to be their Nanny?
then the locals shouldn't take fed money
http://www.smcisd.net/files/filesyst...02011-2012.pdf
FWIW. Never really looked at my kids menu before. I don't particularly think it is overly healthy. No vegatables to be seen. No wonder they don't eat them when they come home.
Drives home some of the points that this guy makes:
http://abc.go.com/shows/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/
I agree, but how many people say no to more money?
Do you really think it's right for school districts to pros ute themselves? What example does that set?
At Schools, Making Pizza a Vegetable
Is pizza a vegetable? Maybe not in most homes, but in public school cafeterias it is.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/1...er=rss&emc=rss
The bigger question is why are we sending money to Washington DC just so they can rake off management/overhead and then send whats left back to us and tell us what we can and can't do with it?
How is your golf cart working out? Oh and did you go for the cash for clunkers or not?
So you follow your kids in the lunch line? They must be embarrassed as .
If you expect me to feel guilty for being smarter than you you are seriously mistaken.
nice change of subject though you ing idiot.
so when you were at the last school board meeting, what was their response to you when you told them that the school district shouldn't themselves out?
And for the record, they said I could buy golf carts and take a 100% tax credit for doing so. Stupid on their part but perfectly legal. I would have been stupid not to take advantage of it. Don't be jealous just because I had an income and could take the tax credit.
You were talking about the use of federal tax dollars so discussing your place in the use of federal tax dollars is very much part of the subject.
You about taxes but will use them every chance you get. That goes to the sincerity of your position.
Actions speak to sincerity much moreso than words.
I never said it was illegal. And the notion that you would be stupid to not give up your ideals for a selfish act is disgusting. Typical of your generation but disgusting nonetheless.
You sit here and tell us how its wrong all ing day long and then you go and do it. Integrity is not necessarily a legal issue.
They sure do. I had an opportunity to legally avoid flushing my tax dollars down that swirling toilet in DC and took it. That is highly consistent with my position and again illustrates just how ing stupid you are.
thanks for flushing our tax dollars into your go kart.
You can call me stupid all day long and its not going to make it any more true than your bull aobut the NYC Council.
You espouse an ethic but give it up the moment when you can get a benefit for yourself. Thats backed up by what you have told us. That you are proud of it just speaks more to your ethics.
But hey you got yours right? Behavior like that is what is dragging this country down.
Technically taking a tax credit doesn't use your tax dollars, it uses mine. Your tax dollars got flushed somewhere else. Probably into Fuzzy Lumpkins Lone Star card.
By the way, fuzzypube, the judge in New York ruled they can't camp in the park.
Useless, unproductive pussies like you are what is dragging this country down.
It's not really being jealous, but if you think that paying off the debt is of vital importance to our nation, taking the tax credit runs contra to that.
It's pretty much the prisoner dilemma. Sure, you could pay the tax, but it wouldn't do much unless everyone pays in. And since they probably won't, you figure that you might as well not either.
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