Congress should support, not block healthier school lunch (click title to entry - thank you)
Published: Thursday, November 17, 2011, 3:27 PM
Updated: Thursday, November 17, 2011, 3:34 PM
When Mom said eat your vegetables, she wasn't talking about pizza sauce. But Congress ain't Mom.
The final versions of the House and Senate's agriculture spending bills, released Monday, would block improvements to nutritional standards for school lunch that were proposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Among the blocked recommendations: New limits on sodium and starchy foods such as french fries and potato chips, and a move to increase the amount of pizza sauce, which counts as a vegetable, to a half-cup from its current pathetic standard – the schmear covering one slice.
If you're surprised by Congress' move, check out this recent "60 Minutes" interview with former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
It helps explain how the $5.6 million spent by food industry lobbyists to fight the improved standards could have done the trick convincing Congress to turn down these common sense fixes, backed by everyone from health experts to military officials....
Will Jack Abramoff become one of the best educators of the American electorate? One can only hope he can actually perform a public service that changes the seats in Congress to productive members interested in Americans and not money.
