President Obama's School Lunch Plan In Jeopardy
ANN ARBOR (WWJ) - A plan by the Obama administration to make school lunches healthier might not make the cut. A spending bill released Monday night would strip school lunch standards that had earlier been proposed by the Agriculture Department.
According to a report by the Associated Press, the bill would force USDA to pull back an attempt to limit potatoes on the lunch line, delaying limits on sodium
and delaying a requirement to boost whole grains.
The spending bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. The department's proposed guidelines would have
attempted to prevent that.
The University of Michigan's Dr. Elizabeth Jackson, who studies school eating habits, says setting too many rules on what schools can serve can be a problem.
"Should we ban all pizza and all french fries? I think a better tactic would be to help them make choices, so that if they're gonna eat pizza you do salty food in moderation," Jackson told WWJ Newsradio 950.
Jackson said finding the best solution will require everyone to come to the lunch table.
"We need to think about a policy from the grassroots level, the schools, the parents, all the way up to the federal level," she said.
