Make School Meals Healthier, Experts Say
Excerpt by Maggie Fox, Reuters Health

Soggy canned vegetables and gluey white bread have no place in school meals and ought to be replaced with fresh produce and whole grains, experts told a recent Congressional hearing.

They championed a pilot plan under which the government paid for free fruit and vegetable snacks in schools and called for it to be expanded.

"The Department of Agriculture has two major objectives in its mission to provide food products to schools. One objective is to purchase products as part of the Department's price-support and surplus-removal programs," Republican Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, told the hearing.

"The second is to provide schools with high quality, nutritious foods so that children have access to meals that are both healthful and appealing. These objectives are frequently at odds," he added.

Several experts noted that the U.S. Department of Agriculture subsidizes and distributes products like cheese and meat, which it advises people to eat in small amounts, but does less for the fresh vegetables that can protect against heart disease, cancer, obesity and other ills.

"We tell WIC (the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program for single-parent families) recipients to eat more fruits and vegetables, but the WIC food packages don't include these very products," said Thomas Stenzel, president of the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association.

"We tell schools to serve more fruits and vegetables, and then supply them with heavily processed foods and surplus commodities."

Joanne Slavin, a professor of nutrition at the University of Minnesota, speaking on behalf of the Wheat Foods Council, said American children and adults alike strongly prefer white bread and need to be encouraged to switch to whole grains.

"Schools will need pilot programs, similar to the USDA's pilot fruit and vegetable program, along with educational, classroom and marketing resources to help students increase their intake of whole grain foods," Slavin said.

In the 2002 Farm Bill, Congress gave the go-ahead to a pilot program to provide free fresh fruits and vegetables as snacks to children in 107 schools in Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New Mexico and Ohio.

USDA Undersecretary Eric Bost said his agency had teamed up with the Department of Defense to supply fresh produce to schools and spent $50 million on produce last year.

Other experts called for children to have the option of choosing soy milk instead of dairy with their school meals.

Reference Source 89

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