The USDA Announced Changes-What you need to know
Today, the troops at the front of the lunch line gathered (virtually) to attend a webinar for the School Nutrition Association members. The SNA is the professional organization to which ‘lunch ladies’ all belong. Leading the presentation was a White House Chef, a Deputy Secretary of the USDA and lots of impressive-sounding folks who probably have never donned a hair net. They fielded strictly monitored questions. It was an interesting way to spend 90 minutes.
The webinar was meant to calm fears about the changes to school food that Ms. Obama announced last week. The general tone of the presentation was a cheerleading session, as if to say, “hey, we know thousands of you are really freaked out about having to make fundamental changes to how you do your jobs (this is the first real adjustment to rules affecting school food in 15 years! I was still in college then!) But, we are a team⦠this is all good stuff. Aren’t you excited?”
No one can argue that the new rules have important (dare I say, weighty?) and progressive goals. More fruits and veggies are required, slightly less meat, more whole grainsâ¦these are all great moves. For the first time, there are calorie limits based on a week’s average. It used to be that for public schools to get federal money to pay for food programs, schools had to prove only that they were supplying enough food: a minimum of calories for each meal. There was no max, since the idea was to prevent childhood hunger. Our world has changed and the USDA woke up to the fact that while childhood hunger is still all too prevalent, just as many, if not more kids, are vulnerable to overeating.
For Choicelunch parents, these USDA improvements are redundant. For years we have offered locally sourced fresh fruits and veggies that the kids actually eat and like. Our food is made in house, by real chefs. Each morning in our kitchens, you can smell sautéed onions, roasted turkey and crisp cucumbers being prepared and packed into your kids’ lunches. We have long offered whole grain breads, whole wheat pastas and have snuck pureed veggies into our house-made bagel dog dough. When you read Bittman in the NY Times about the new limit to trans-fat by the USDA rules, you Choicelunch parents know we haven’t had trans-fats in any of our lunches for many years. While many SNA members are concerned about the changes and how they will be expected to alter their offerings in a short amount of time with very limited funds, you parents can let your lunch fears go and think about what YOU are going to eat for lunch. Really- you can think about yourself, for once!:)
