Fattening up the kids: the School Lunch program

Last week's "lunchbox" menu at ISD166 looked a lot like a trip to the food mall at the Minnesota State Fair: tacos, buttered corn, chili, chicken nuggets, corn dogs, french fries, muffins, cookies and cakes, fruits in sugary syrup. Nothing whole grain was on offer and the closest things to healthy foods were the ubiqitous milk (rgbh free? fat free? not), lettuce and tomatoes on the tacos, the carrot and celery sticks with the chili and cheese biscuits, and the juice or fruit with breakfast.
This week was distinguished from the usual fare only by the absence of macaroni, spaghetti, white buns and tater tots.
Yet with its usual myopia the MSM (main stream media to the innocent) has been kicking up a big fuss about healthy SNACKS for kids. Ho hum, sugary soft drinks are bad for you, yes; but is gingerbread cake any better? What about pancakes and bacon?
Get real, America. The fattening of kids has been going on steadily ever since the onset of the school lunch program where the USDA dumps excess commodities on the schools. Only lately it is much worse because the subsidies now go to produce white-flour products, high-fructose corn syrup, and fats from soybeans. Another piece of the puzzle is that most people really don't know anything about nutrition. If they cared, they would find out, despite the MSM's focus on the smallest piece of the problem so the big agribiz takeover of American diets is, like impeachment, "off the table."
True

Here's an excerpt from the New York Times article, "You are what you grow," which is also linked below.
A public-health researcher from Mars might legitimately wonder why a nation faced with what its surgeon general has called "an epidemic" of obesity would at the same time be in the business of subsidizing the production of high-fructose corn syrup. But such is the perversity of the farm bill: the nation's agricultural policies operate at cross-purposes with its public-health objectives. And the subsidies are only part of the problem.
The farm bill helps determine what sort of food your children will have for lunch in school tomorrow. The school-lunch program began at a time when the public-health problem ofAmerica's children was undernourishment, so feeding surplus agricultural commodities to kids seemed like a win-win strategy. Today the problem is overnutrition, but a school lunch lady trying to prepare healthful fresh food is apt to get dinged by U.S.D.A. inspectors for failing to serve enough calories; if she dishes up a lunch that includes chicken nuggets and Tater Tots, however, the inspector smiles and the reimbursements flow. The farm bill essentially treats our children as a human Disposall for all the unhealthful calories that the farm bill has encouraged American farmers to overproduce.

You are what you grow:
New York Times