FTA: "Responding to concerns that students are throwing away the healthy food on their cafeteria trays, the U.S. Department of Agriculture acknowledged that adapting to the changes "may be challenging at first, as students are introduced to new flavors and foods in the cafeteria.""

FTA: "We know it is important that students get the calories and nutrition they need to stay alert and energized through the day, and schools are doing a number of things to make sure this happens," wrote Dr. Janey Thornton, USDA's deputy under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services."

And they thought they could meet those needs by setting a limit of 850 calories for every high school student! Aided by putting food on the menu that kids won't eat.

Meanwhile, if you're on food stamps you can buy all the cookies and chips you want.

I've always wondered about that. Some variation of the WIC program makes so much more sense, where the recipient is restricted to certain (nutritious) food items.

My cafeteria food was throw in the garbage eat just enough to kill hunger food. So to blame parents of not cooking healthy good food is crazy. It sits on those hot trays tasteless over cooked stuff. The string beans were mushy all the nutrition cooked out. Not at all like my blanched string beans my mom cooked. Cafeteria food is nasty did they ever consider that reason?

Jersey, no just obsessed and ........

It was a PBJ crustless pita-like white bread thing.

They also serve milk in bags now. Anyone ever seen that?

My DD10 fixed her lunch for tomorrow. It's two slices of bread, mayo, thinly sliced bangers left over from dinner, grapes, and sharp cheddar cheese. No veg, but you can't win every one.

If they don't know how to make the healthy food tasty the kids are not going to eat it and I can only imagine what is being served up to them. Good food takes time to prepare and I seriously doubt that kind of time is being invested in a public school cafeteria.

The economy and cost of food I do not think they are being honest about how that the food is great. silversword has a point it is prepared. The heated up frozen meal stuff is nasty.

When our daughters eat some of the school meals, they throw out much of their meals since they contain things they don't eat, or only consume limited quantities of - dairy, gluten, beef, pork, mystery meat, mystery fish, greasy foods, rubbery/tasteless vegetables etc.

Some schools only allow students to opt out of X amount of menu items, so much of what they're forced to take is thrown out.

They're currently serving 620 to 720 calories, with three meals slightly over 900.

Thats the official lunch. They also have a salad bar 3 days a week, and in the high school, you can get an Arbes Roast Beef sandwich or a slice of Pizza Hut Pizza, along with a coke from the vending machines, so conveniently located by the door. Actually, I was pleased to see that the machines now sell fruit juice and water.

That's exactly what the government said! Just because it DOESN'T WORK, creates waste while creating hunger, and costs MORE doesn't mean government is wrong. The defect is in American kids and their parents.

But help is on the way. The government wants you stupid parents to look at school lunches as a "model" of what's for dinner. That's right. Give kids MORE of what they don't want.

No word on when chips and sodas come off the food stamp menu. And no, there's not a thing wrong with this picture. Your government is doing a bang up job of running your life and don't you forget it!

Take some personal responsibility and fix your own dang lunch. Sheesh. You're right, the defect IS in the kids and their parents if they don't take responsibility to handle their own lunch.

There is another reason they are throwing it in the garbage. The menu includes junk food.

Am I living in a dream world and all poor kids eat is chips?

When my kids were in school they would look at the menu and decide if they wanted to "buy or bring".

No, Chase, the problem has nothing to do with defective American parents or defective American children. But thanks for sharing your negative opinion of Americans from up there in Canada.

Our kids are getting more meals than ever at school, and some schools don't even allow students to bring food from home. Packing lunches won't fix bad menus. Many families prefer the convenience of buying lunch at school, and there's no reason to give that up. In America, eating lunch in the school cafeteria goes back for generations and that's not going to change.

But the menus have to. Government screwed up. It didn't do its homework. It created menus somebody thought looked "healthy." As if that were the only consideration.

Had govt tested its skimpy menus on living, breathing children, it would have quickly realized that those menus were nowhere near ready for prime time. Aside from being more expensive, they resulted in twice as much wasted food as last year, and kids are going hungry.

For rushing to impose its untested ideas on every public school in America, the government looks every bit as foolish and incompetent as its own actions prove it to be.

Even fast food chains test new menu items to see how they sell. Professionals in the food industry find out if people want what they're selling BEFORE they change the menu! Duh!!!

Esh must be one of those clandestine Canadian liberals currently flooding gardenweb that Nik has found "interesting" .

She's getting really good at spotting us.

But it wasn't even a lefty foreigner talking, it was an American, and nowhere in the sentence did it single out "American children" or "American parents".

So was the accusation of anti-Americanism a wild shot in the dark or an attempt to fuel some patriotic indignation in a other posters? It kinda backfires when the intended target didn't even post in the thread.

I think a lot of kids are similar, if there is *enough* food in their lives.

The problem I see in our school is demographics. They are trying to serve kids who primarily eat beans and tortillas and carne things like lasagna and pizza.

If they fed our kids a couple of corn tortillas, some rice and beans, shredded lettuce, pico de gallo, etc... our kids would EAT!!! Including my blonde, blue eyed Jewish kid. Because that's what our family eats too.

We don't eat the white bread "American" diet, everyone here eats what Rosita down the road makes. We are stuck on the "kids menu" theory of feeding our children. Ever notice that EVERY kid menu has pizza/pasta/burger/chicken fingers??

THAT'S NOT KID FOOD, THAT'S MARKETING!!!

Turkey tacos at my kids school...ready for this? A blob of "meat" and sauce plopped on a compartmentalized Styrofoam tray (yes sryrofoam! green club is working on this) with a bag of frito chips, salsa and cheese. Not even lettuce and tomato...and no throwing on a "random" slice of whole wheat bread as my son says does not make it healthy.

Reform is possible and this is a start but the truth is school lunch only reflects our society and blaming it on the government or one political party is just nonsense and fails to address our real problems.

It's much better than it was when I was a kid. They eat on reusable trays, the packaging is WAY down from what it was (milk in a thin plastic bag anyone?).

But I agree, "The fact that the kids are throwing it away is not a failure of the government but a corporate take over of our food supply and shows how toxic we and it has become."

Keep the pink slime out of our food supply.

On a positive note, they are getting snacks of fresh fruit in the classroom. My boys do not eat everything offered every day but it is nice to see the opportunity being given to the children to try fresh pineapple, kiwi, plums, etc., even if the price is that some of it is being thrown away.

School lunches are terrible and have always been terrible. The fact that someone cares and is trying to improve that is a good thing. But, of course, that someone is a liberal, so we can't have that, now can we?

My son always preferred to purchase his lunch. I guess he thought it was cool. I don't know. I did like that they were serving a piece of fruit with the meal. Unfortunately for my son, he's allergic to a lot of the fruits they serve (mostly pears and apples). So, he brings it home each day. At least it didn't go to waste!

He did decide this week he wants to start bringing lunch instead of buying. I'm thrilled. Saves money and he'll eat better at lunch during the week.

I think the food in most cafeterias has to do with cheapness, ease of cooking(or not) ease of serving-that sort of thing. I dont think it is a conspiracy. Kids through away the fresh stuff because they are used to lots of fat and salt.

I think this wanting to feed the kids healthy was not thought out too well (another government idea in the toilet). I'd like to see the panel of nutritionists, parents and students who were on the committee to decide what the new healthy lunches should be. Oh wait, there was no panel was there? Anyone know if Michelle Obama, America's new mom, consulted with any professionals before having this new healthy food served to the kids.

So you are bashing the program yet don't know anything about it?

Who gets to chose what children eat-children or adults? You cant set the standard for the entire school lunch program based on the needs of spoiled darlings and a few student atheletes.

You spent all this energy criticizing Michelle Obama without a clue as to the history of the program or even who is responsible for it. Do you even know why you don't like it? I doubt it if you don't even know how the guidelines were set.

Clearly it is more about demonizing Michelle Obama, than criticism of the program itself.

REAL facts are out there if you would just look for them.

Here ya go. More hand-feeding for you. From way back in January...

First Lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today unveiled new standards for school meals that will result in healthier meals for kids across the nation. The new meal requirements will raise standards for the first time in more than fifteen years and improve the health and nutrition of nearly 32 million kids that participate in school meal programs every school day.
...

USDA built the new rule around recommendations from a panel of experts convened by the Institute of Medicine - a gold standard for evidence-based health analysis. The standards were also updated with key changes from the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans - the Federal government's benchmark for nutrit-on - and aimed to foster the kind of healthy changes at school that many parents are already trying to encourage at home, such as making sure that kids are offered both fruits and vegetables each day, more whole grains, and portion sizes and calorie counts designed to maintain a healthy weight.

USDA received an unprecedented 132,000 public comments on its proposed standards (available on the web at www.regulations.gov) - and made modifications to the proposed rule where appropriate. USDA Under Secretary Kevin Concannon said: "We know that robust public input is essential to developing successful standards and the final standards took a number of suggestions from stakeholders, school food service professions and parents to make important operational changes while maintaining nutritional integrity."

Once again your assumptions are all wrong.

If you don't like the program at least know why instead of basing your opinion on your dislike of certain people, feelings and fallacies. It's called credibility. Shut off Fox and educate yourself with facts.

OMG OM GO OMG OGM!!!!! Death Panels have moved into Food Panels!!!!

This is even worse than all those Czars that the righties were in such a huff about.

Districts most certainly could have initiated and implemented healthier school lunch programs from within, the carrot being larger federal subsidies.

What an appropriate word choice. I agree, there is usually more oversight (flexibility AND control) at the local level. For example, a poster earlier suggested that more healthy lunch offerings such as rice and beans would be very palatable to a lot of the kids in some districts.

"If they fed our kids a couple of corn tortillas, some rice and beans, shredded lettuce, pico de gallo, etc... our kids would EAT!!! Including my blonde, blue eyed Jewish kid. Because that's what our family eats too."

patriciae, I think we are saying much of the same thing.

From what I understand a study was conducted that determined school districts were not in compliance with USDA recommendations (schools receive federal funding in addition to surplus food goods in exchange for said compliance). A task force was formed, led by Michelle Obama, new standards set and ultimately, those districts that don't comply will be penalized.

Part of this task force's agenda is to oversee compliance, a potentially expensive proposition. Would revamping standards on a local level by offering increased subsidies been more cost effective...probably.

The only thing being led by Michelle Obama is the national public awareness campaign against Childhood Obesity, not any taskforce.

She is the figurehead,and she adopted this intitiative so if there is a news conference or an event she will be there as their spokesperson. It doesn't take a genius to know that if she speaks she will get the press there.

The Taskforce on Childhood Obesity is led by the Chairman, the Assistant to the President on Domestic Policy, and is an inter-agency initiative. It also consists of many sub-committees and groups from across the government including the Dept's of Agriculture, Interior,Education, Health and Human Services, the OMB, and others. None of those are being led by Michelle Obama either.

Just like all government programs, this program entailed thousands of hours, hundreds of people and still it failed. Literally going in the garbage. More of my tax dollars at work. Seems all those "experts" didn't know a thing about what kids would eat or not eat.

Since when does it take all those people to decide what is tasty, nutritious and what a child will eat? Unbelievable incompetance for something so simple as feeding children. Gee, millions have been doing it for centuries, but let the government get an "initiative" on the subject and it's a big deal that fails miserably.

Next trillion please!!!

The bigger government gets, the dumber it gets. You don't force taxpayers to subsidize the chips, sodas, cakes and cookies that go into food stamp/SNAP recipients' grocery carts if you're serious about "fighting obesity."

And for chips and soda on food stamps, just get rid of food stamps?

Theoretically speaking, you don't think a government should try to improve the diet of their citizens?

I have no problem with governments coming up with minimum nutritional guidelines as part of the general welfare aspects of constitutional government. Just because individuals abuse whatever standards there are doesn't mean that the standards (or agencies or programs) ought to be abandoned. As David points out.

Government doesn't become dumber with size; only with its tendency not to confront special interests. Just look at the USDA food pyramid promoted for many years as the route to good health rather than the road to ruined health and obesity.

I do feel there is another way to approach this, that would be more cost effective and might allow school children to actually enjoy the food that they are served (incentives for districts to modify their meals). When kids start learning about and enjoying food, that's something they take with them into adulthood.

In the past, I worked with a regional HS with in-house food service, developing healthy, interesting, cost effective menus that were executed by the students. Something along those lines would be beneficial to all, instead of food service striving to barely meet guideslines (as in the past).

I touched on this on another thread and I believe you brought up the issue of cost. Are you so certain that costs will run more than what's currently on the table?

Just looking for a better way, that's all.

Our district has a single, central kitchen that supplies 6 different schools scattered around the county, and Lord only knows where they buy the stuff - but a safe bet is that if you hear of a massive meat recall on the national news, two days later you'll read about how our district had to throw out 300 lbs of hamburger or something.....

But we parents did get the district to force the Coca Cola distributor to get rid of the soda pop and put in water, juice and Gatorade in the machines, but he took down the Coca Cola scoreboard at the foot ball stadium as the kids were't drinking enough of the good stuff to make it pay. Such a loss. And my DD informs me that someone raised enough of a stink that they now have a salad bar every day at the high school instead of just two days a week.

But I agree completely that this should be used as a means of teaching kids the value of good nutrition and good food, not just stuff them full of calories for the rest of the day.