“Ensuring Healthy School Meals And Maintaining Local Flexibility”
The National School Lunch and Breakfast programs help provide healthy, nutritious meals to more than 31 million children around the country. Sadly, for many children, these are the only warm, wholesome meals that they’ll have all day. Studies have shown that children who eat a healthy breakfast and lunch are more focused and able to learn better.
Recently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a final rule that would boost the nutritional quality of these meals, a good and appropriate goal. I support USDA’s goal to increase the availability of all fruits, vegetables, and whole grains in these programs and to ensure the foods served in our schools are prepared in a way that meets the nutritional needs of children.
I want to clarify some confusion, however, with the final rule regarding certain vegetables including white potatoes, green peas, lima beans, and corn.
Last year, USDA proposed a rule that would have limited servings of these healthy vegetables to a total of one-cup per week in the National School Lunch Program. The original proposal would also have banned these vegetables from the School Breakfast Program altogether. School food services directors in Maine told me that if this proposed rule were allowed to go into effect, it would have meant a school that served a medium baked potato on Monday could not serve corn or potatoes, in any form, for the rest of the week.
This kind of regulatory overreach by Washington bureaucrats just didn’t make sense. That is why I offered a bipartisan amendment to the Department of Agriculture funding bill that would prevent USDA from moving forward with this arbitrary, maximum limitation, while keeping the current requirement that school meals be consistent with the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Our amendment passed unanimously in the Senate, and was signed into law by the President.
I am pleased that USDA’s final rule, with regard to the school lunch program, reflects my amendment. Because of my amendment, the final rule does not place arbitrary, maximum limits on the servings of vegetables. This will help ensure that schools are able to continue serving healthy vegetables, including the white potato, at lunch throughout the week.
With regard to the School Breakfast Program, it’s important to note that USDA will not ban certain vegetables, such as white potatoes, as the Department originally proposed to do. This is the result of my amendment blocking the ban. However, I do share concerns with the overly prescriptive nature of the breakfast portion of the rule. It will still limit the flexibility of local schools by allowing them to serve potatoes for breakfast but only after serving other vegetables for the first two days of the week. This is arbitrary, overly complicated, and biased against the white potato.
When USDA first proposed rules to limit certain vegetables, including the white potato, I was immediately concerned that it would send a message that the white potato is not healthy. This simply is false. In fact, the white potato is cholesterol-free, low in fat and sodium, and has more potassium than bananas. A medium, baked white potato is a good source of dietary fiber, vitamin B6 and vitamin C. USDA itself says Americans need more of these nutrients. That’s why it makes sense for the Department to promote good sources of these critical nutrients. Instead of limiting their availability, USDA should be encouraging their healthy preparation.
School children should be eating healthy, nutritious meals that are low in fat, salt and added sugar. I am hopeful that USDA’s new rules will help improve the overall nutritional quality of our school meals; however, USDA should continue to work to help ensure that local schools have the flexibility they need to meet students’ needs at an affordable cost.
