January 28, 2012, Dayton Daily News, Cornelius Frolik

About 78,000 people in the Miami Valley live in poorer areas that lack markets that sell affordable and nutritious food, and low-income residents and those without post-secondary educations have some of the highest obesity rates in the state.

Experts said the struggling economy is likely contributing to bulging waistlines, because consumers are spending less on food and some are sacrificing nutrition for the sake of cost. Health experts said obesity is an “epidemic” that often has grave medical consequences.

“A lot of people are digging their graves with their forks,” said Dr. John Maguire, medical director for the surgical weight-loss program at Miami Valley Hospital.

In 2010, about 34.3 percent of Ohioans earning $15,000 or less were obese, which is defined as having a body mass index of 30 or more, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.” Similarly, 35.5 percent of Ohioans earning between $15,000 and $30,000 were obese.

But among Ohioans earning $50,000 or more, only about 27 percent were obese.

Disparities also exist among Ohioans of various education levels.

In 2010, about 35 percent of adult Ohioans who had not graduated from high school were obese, and so were about 33 percent of adults who had a high school diploma or a general equivalency diploma, according to the CDC.

In contrast, only about 24 percent of Ohioans with college degrees are obese.

Healthier food is more costly

In general, people with less education earn less, and people with low incomes live in poorer neighborhoods, which are rife with obstacles to staying fit and eating well, said Jeffrey Levi, executive director of the Washington, D.C.,-based Trust for America’s Health.

READ MORE via 78,000 area residents live in food wastelands.

January 25, 2012, Houston Chronicle

School lunches, long saddled with an unhealthy reputation, are getting a makeover.Instead of salt-doused fried foods, highly processed white bread and sugar-laden desserts, cafeteria trays will be carrying whole wheat pizza, leafy green and orange vegetables and fresh fruit.The changes, announced Wednesday by first lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, mark the first major nutritional adjustment to the $11 billion school meal program in 15 years.

Under the new guidelines, which were directed by the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, schools must limit calories, trans fat and sodium, while serving students a wider variety of fruit, vegetables and whole grains.The nutritional overhaul reflects both a societal shift toward a more health-conscious diet and a growing concern about childhood obesity, which affects 17 percent of the countrys children.”When we send our kids to school, we expect that they wont be eating the kind of fatty, salty, sugary foods that we try to keep them from eating at home,” Obama said in a statement.The updated regulations were first proposed a year ago, giving school districts the opportunity to make comments and revamp their menus.

After opposition by potato growers and food companies, Congress blocked proposed changes that would have limited starchy vegetables to two servings a week and required pizza makers to increase the amount of tomato paste to qualify as a vegetable serving.

Local districts effortsThe new rules, which will affect 32 million children, will be phased in over the next three years.Many Houston-area school districts have already taken steps to raise nutritional standards, instituting changes that mirror many of the new USDA requirements.

Read more via School lunches get a healthy makeover – Houston Chronicle.

January 12, 2012, Harvard School of Public Health

Boston, MA — Dozens of studies, many from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers, have shown that low-fat diets are no better for health than moderate- or high-fat diets—and for many people, may be worse.

To combat this “low fat is best” myth, nutrition experts at HSPH and chefs and registered dietitians at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) have developed five new muffin recipes that incorporate healthy fats and whole grains, and use a lighter hand on the salt and sugar. Their goal? To “make over” the ubiquitous low-fat muffin, touted as a “better-for-you” choice when in fact low-fat muffins often have reduced amounts of heart-healthy fats, such as liquid plant oils, but boast plenty of harmful carbohydrates in the form of white flour and sugar.

Other low-fat processed foods are not much better, and are often higher in sugar, carbohydrates, or salt than their full-fat counterparts. For good health, type of fat matters more than amount. Diets high in heavily processed carbohydrates can lead to weight gain and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

“It’s time to end the low-fat myth,” said Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition and chair of the Department of Nutrition at HSPH. “Unfortunately, many well-motivated people have been led to believe that all fats are bad and that foods loaded with white flour and sugar are healthy choices. This has clearly contributed to the epidemic of diabetes we are experiencing and premature death for many. The lesson contained in these healthy muffins—that foods can be both tasty and good for you—can literally be life-saving.”

A regular blueberry muffin from a national coffee shop chain has 450 calories on average and most of those calories come from carbohydrates, primarily white flour and sugar. However, now that national chains have eliminated trans fats, a regular muffin does have heart-healthy fat, usually from soybean or canola oil. A low-fat muffin has about the same amount of calories, but contains more carbohydrates and sugar—and about 60% more sodium (700 milligrams)—than a regular muffin.

The new Blueberry Muffin recipe offered by HSPH and the CIA is less than half the size of a coffee shop muffin and contains just 130 calories. It is made with a mixture of whole wheat, white, and almond flour and uses canola oil, a healthy fat. (See “Blueberry Muffin Battle” for a nutritional comparison of the three types of blueberry muffins: www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/blueberry-muffin-battle/index.html)

See recipes for Blueberry Muffins, Cranberry Orange Muffins, Jalapeño Cheddar Corn Muffins, Lemon Chickpea Breakfast Muffins, and Whole Wheat Banana Nut Muffins: www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/muffin-makeover/index.html

“There are so many ingredients available to home bakers who want to offer their families healthful, flavorful baked goods,” says Richard Coppedge, Jr., chef-instructor at the CIA and a Certified Master Baker. “These five recipes not only include a wide variety of whole grain and nut flours; they also demonstrate how more unusual ingredients like canned chickpeas and extra virgin olive oil can be used in baking.”

The CIA and HSPH offer a dozen healthy baking tips that professional chefs and home cooks can use to build a healthier muffin. Here are a few of their tips:

Downsize the portions. The mega-muffins popular in bake shops are two to three times the size of the muffins your grandmother might have baked.
Go whole on the grains. It’s easy to substitute whole wheat flour for 50% of the white flour in recipes without harming taste or texture. And with a few recipe alterations, delicious muffins can be made with 100% whole grains. See the Lemon Chickpea Breakfast Muffin and the Whole Wheat Banana Nut Muffin recipes as examples.
Slash the sugar. You can cut 25% of the sugar from most standard muffin recipes without any negative impact on flavor or texture, and in some recipes, cut back even more.
Pour on the oil. Liquid plant oils—canola, extra virgin olive oil, corn, sunflower, and others—help keep whole-grain muffins moist and are a healthier choice than melted butter or shortening.
Bring out the nuts. For extra protein and an additional source of healthy fats, add chopped nuts.
Scale back the salt. The best way to reduce salt is to make a smaller muffin and to pair muffins with foods, such as vegetables and fruits, that are sodium-free.
Pump up the produce—and flavor! Fresh whole fruit and unsweetened dried fruit naturally contain sugar, but unlike other sweeteners, they also contain fiber and important nutrients. Using fruit in your muffins means you can have a lighter hand on the added sugar. Cooked or raw vegetables, such as caramelized onions, sliced jalapeños, and chives and other fresh herbs—together with a whole range of spices—can add interesting textures and savory flavors to muffins.
The muffin recipes and photos, baking tips, a Q & A on why it’s time to end the low-fat myth, and a handy chart showing how to find foods with healthy fats are all available on The Nutrition Source, a nutrition website from the Harvard School of Public Health: www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/muffin-makeover/index.html

“We need to make healthy fats and whole grains the new baking norm, at home and in the professional kitchen,” says Greg Drescher, Vice President of Industry Leadership and Strategic Initiatives for the CIA. “We call on restaurants and other food service providers to be leaders in promoting healthy fats—and in doing away with the low-fat myth.”
A Muffin Makeover: Dispelling the Low-Fat-Is-Healthy Myth – January 12, 2012 -2011 Releases – Press Releases – Harvard School of Public Health.

New Zealand, January 10, 2012, Voxy.co.nz

The national nutrition policy formulated by Labour and National-led Governments favours the food industry over public health according to new research from the University of Otago, Wellington.

The new findings result from a study of the 313 submissions to the Health Select Committee Inquiry into Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes held in 2006. This study compared the positions taken by submitters from the food industry and public health groups, such as the National Heart Foundation.

These positions were then compared with the 2007 Labour Government’s response to the committee’s recommendations and the resulting national nutrition policy.

The research focused on 19 recommendations in four areas of nutrition policy: the national obesity strategy; regulation of the food industry; regulation of marketing and advertising; and school environments.

The research found that the Labour Government supported the food industry position in 13 of the 19 recommendations, against 5 where they supported the public health position. Importantly, the Government sided with industry in rejecting key committee recommendations for front-of-pack labelling and restrictions on TV advertising of unhealthy food. Only in the area of school environments did the Labour Government agree with the public health position by requiring schools to sell and promote only healthy foods.

This school nutrition policy was subsequently overturned by the National-led Government, suggesting a strengthening of industry’s influence on our national nutrition policy, says study lead author Dr Gabrielle Jenkin.

“Allowing schools to profit from the sale of unhealthy foods to their students is personally concerning to me as a parent, and should send alarm bells to other parents,” says Dr Jenkin.

She says that the public needs to consider who benefits from the current epidemic in obesity.

“The continuing trend of policy favouring the food industry is dangerous as we’re now the third most obese country in the developed world according to the OECD, with 63% of adults either overweight or obese.”

Like many developed nations such as the USA, New Zealand has a multi-million dollar health problem with increasing type 2 diabetes, directly related to an energy-dense (high fat and high sugar) diet associated with highly processed and fast foods.

International research indicates that many governments support the commercial interests of major industrial sectors like the food industry, over strategies to improve public health. These industries are often large investors and employers, and in New Zealand, central to the economy.

However this does not take into account collateral damage, the huge future health costs for diabetes, and indirect costs due to lost productivity. The study notes that current policy tends to be based on industry self regulation, leaving the responsibility of good nutrition up to the individual, but in an environment which encourages obesity and weight gain (‘obesogenic’).

“It’s obvious this self-regulatory model is a failure. The food industry continues to make large profits on the back of deteriorating public health, with the subsequent burden on the taxpayer to fund the health system. An effective public health strategy to address the obesogenic environment is needed if we are to control the escalating health costs,” says Dr Jenkin.

The study concludes that solutions lie in regulating the food industry, regulating the advertising and marketing industries, and limiting the involvement of the food industry in policy making to ensure fair treatment of public health concerns.

This study has been published in the international journal Public Health Nutrition and was funded by the Health Research Council.

via Nutrition policy favours food industry, not public health – study | Voxy.co.nz.

December 21, 2011, Los Angeles Times, Shari Roan

Feeding young babies solid foods such as crackers, cereals and bread, which tend to be high in salt, may set them up for a lifelong preference for salt, researchers reported Tuesday.

The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggests that efforts to reduce salt intake among Americans should begin early in life.

It is even possible, the authors said, that infancy contains a “sensitivity window” in which exposure to certain foods and tastes programs the brain to desire them in the future.

Americans’ fondness for salt, a source of dismay for health experts, is well known. A 2010 report from the Institute of Medicine concluded that the average intake of 3,436 milligrams a day for Americans over age 2 is more than double what is recommended, and that new government standards are needed to reduce the salt content in processed and restaurant food.

But little is known about the biology behind our love affair with salt. Researchers don’t even know what receptors are involved in tasting it. And though babies are born with a clear preference for sweet foods and an absolute distaste for bitter foods, they appear indifferent to salt in the first few months of life, said Leslie Stein, the lead author of the study and a senior research associate at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.

“When you give 2-month-old babies salt water, they have no facial expression,” Stein said. “This could mean that the baby doesn’t detect the salt or just doesn’t give a hoot about it.”

To get at the issue, Stein and her colleagues first gave 61 healthy 2-month-old infants a mild solution of salt water: Based on facial expressions and how much they drank, the authors concluded the infants indeed were indifferent to the taste.

READ MORE via Giving salty food to babies may create a lifelong preference – latimes.com.

December 8, 2011, San Francisco Chronicle, Erin Allday

Santa Clara County’s ban on fast-food toys for kids has had no effect on the nutritional quality of the meals served there, but the restaurants are doing a better job of promoting the right food, or at least not promoting the junk, Stanford researchers say.

In a report published today, Stanford scientists found that Santa Clara County fast-food restaurants – unlike some of their peers in San Francisco, where restaurants got around a similar ban by charging a dime for toys – seem to have stopped promoting their fat- and salt-laden children’s meals with toys.

Parents can still buy the toys for a few dollars, but posters or other marketing materials in the stores have been stripped away. In one restaurant, a healthy children’s meal is now the only one that comes with a free toy.

“I was happy to see that the restaurants were taking steps in positive and meaningful directions,” said Jennifer Otten, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford’s Prevention Research Center and lead author of the study, which is published online in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

“They removed toy marketing posters from the doors, and the posters below the cash register at eye level for children,” she said. “At one particular restaurant, they removed signs of the toy altogether, so if you were a parent purchasing the children’s meal, you wouldn’t know a toy existed.”

The Santa Clara County ban, which took effect in August 2010, was the first in the country, and spurred similar legislation in San Francisco.

After San Francisco’s ordinance became law last Thursday, McDonald’s franchises started offering Happy Meal toys for just 10 cents – a move that irritated many local politicians and parents who complained the restaurants weren’t following the spirit of the law.

The Santa Clara ban so far seems to have gone off without a hitch. Notably, very few fast-food restaurants fell under the ordinance, because it only covers businesses in unincorporated parts of the county. The Stanford study, in fact, looked at only four restaurants that are affected by the ban.

4 months to comply

The study found that within four months of the ordinance taking effect, all the fast-food restaurants were in compliance. The restaurants were scored before and after the ban on the overall quality of their children’s menus – including not just the nutritional content, but how food is marketed – and simply removing the free toys and related promotional materials resulted in scores that were roughly three times higher.

Before the ban, only five of the 120 children’s meal combinations available on those menus met national nutritional standards, and that number didn’t change after the ban.

Supervisor Ken Yeager, who introduced the Santa Clara toy ordinance, said he hadn’t really expected the restaurants to improve their menus overnight. The fact that parents are aware of the toy ban, and perhaps questioning the nutritional quality of the meals they buy their kids, is good enough for now, he said.

“We’re not trying to come down with a heavy stick on the fast-food industry,” Yeager said. “If these type of ordinances bring attention to the issue and apply pressure to either do less advertising directly to kids, or change their meals, then it’s all for the good.”

Next: Eating habits

Still, it’s too soon to say whether the ordinance – either in Santa Clara County or San Francisco – has actually improved children’s eating habits.

Otten, the study’s lead author, surveyed roughly 900 fast-food customers both before and after the Santa Clara County ban became law, asking them what they had ordered for themselves and their children. She plans to release results from that survey early next year, along with results of a similar survey in San Francisco.

Public health and nutrition experts said they aren’t expecting miracles from those customer surveys. Toy bans may prove to be a great first step toward steering children and their parents away from greasy tacos and French fries, said Pat Crawford, co-director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Weight and Health.

“But wouldn’t it be great if you asked for the children’s meal, and it immediately defaulted to fruit and vegetables and milk? And a whole wheat bun?” she said. “We’re moving in that direction, but those of us who are so concerned about the health of children want to see it move faster.”

National nutrition guidelines

A nutritious children’s meal includes the following:

Calories: No more than 485 for the whole meal, and no more than 200 for a single item.

Sugar: Less than 10 percent of calories from sweeteners.

Sodium: Maximum 600 mg per meal and 480 mg for an item.

Fat: Less than 35 percent of total calories from fat; less than 10 percent from saturated fat.

Beverages: No drinks with caffeine or added sweeteners.

Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/07/BAJR1M9LUC.DTL#ixzz1fw5uYhCT

Fast-food toy ban no aid to nutrition, study says.

CBC News, December 1, 2011

Less than 10 per cent of entrees at children’s hospitals in the U.S. were considered “healthy,” a new study finds.

In the study, researchers used a nutritional scale to assess meals at 12 children’s hospitals in California. The researchers modified a widely-used nutrition tool to assess hospital cafeteria meals. Jeff Baughan/Associated Press

“Unfortunately, the food in many hospitals is no better — and in some cases worse — than what you would find in a fast food restaurant,” Dr. Lenard Lesser, the study’s primary investigator and a physician at the University of California – Los Angeles family medicine department, said in a release.

In the study, published in Thursday’s issue of the journal Academic Pediatrics, investigators used a nutrition tool to rate the pricing, availability of vegetables, nutrition labeling, combo promotions and healthy beverages at hospital cafeterias.

Overall the average score for the hospitals was 19.1, out of a range of 0 (least healthy) to 37 (most healthy).

“Most children’s hospitals’ food venues received a mid-range score, demonstrating there is considerable room for improvement,” the study’s authors concluded.

The researchers found that nearly all hospitals offered diet drinks, low-fat milk and fruit.

But fewer than one-third had nutrition information at the point of purchase and 30 per cent had signs promoting healthy eating.

What’s more, most displayed high-calorie impulse items such as cookies and ice cream at the register, the study’s authors said.

“Achieving ideal children’s hospital food environments would be one small, but significant, step in changing the quality and quantity of what our children eat and preventing the onset of dietary-related chronic diseases,” the authors wrote.

They acknowledged that the study looked at a small sample of children’s hospitals and that no one actually observed what people actually ate.

Hospitals also often have other places to buy food besides the cafeteria, such as candy shops and vending machines.

The researchers called on national hospital groups to establish standards for labeling, pricing, marketing and food quality in their facilities to improve the food landscape.

Since the study was conducted in July 2010, some of the hospitals surveyed have taken steps to either improve their fare. For example, some have eliminated fried food, lowered the price of salads, and increased the price of sugary beverages or eliminated them altogether from their cafeterias, the researchers said.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the study.
U.S. hospital cafeteria fare for kids often like fast food – Health – CBC News.

CNN Madison Park, November 30, 2011

Goodbye, free plastic toys inside Happy Meals — at least in one major California city.

A new San Francisco law goes into effect on Thursday that prevents fast-food restaurants from giving away trinkets, action figures and other toys in their kid’s meals unless their food meets nutritional requirements.

And McDonald’s kid’s meals do not. The meals have to be less than 600 calories and contain fruits (a half-cup) and vegetables (3/4 of a cup). They must have less than 35% of the total calories coming from fat, less than 640 milligrams of sodium and less than 0.5 milligrams of trans fat.

The current Happy Meal consisting of a hamburger, kid’s-size fries and a cola would meet the calorie, calories from fat, sodium and trans fat requirements under the San Francisco law. It would contain 500 calories, 125 calories from fat and 600 milligrams of sodium.
But it would not meet the fruit and vegetable quota. The pickle and onion on the hamburger does not come near the required ¾ cup of vegetables. The French fries do not count as a vegetable, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

The new law will affect about 50 fast-food restaurants in San Francisco such as Burger King, Carl’s Jr. and Subway.
“Our efforts are geared towards addressing childhood obesity epidemic,” said San Francisco City and County Supervisor Eric Mar, who proposed the ordinance.

About one-third of children in the United States are either overweight or obese, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health advocates have long accused fast-food restaurants of enticing children to eat fast-food meals high in fat and sodium by using toys tied to characters in new movies.
But it has had a greater impact beyond the city, Mar said.
“We inspired other local cities, parent activists and health organizers to take up the issue too,” he said. “We started a national dialogue in San Francisco. It has become a national issue.”

Similar initiatives have been proposed in New York in an effort to curb childhood obesity. And Santa Clara County initially passed the ban early last year.

Starting Thursday, parents who order Happy Meals at the 19 McDonald’s locations in San Francisco will have to request the toy and pay 10 cents. That amount will be donated to the Ronald McDonald House of San Francisco.

McDonald’s said in a statement: “While we will fully comply with this law, we also have a responsibility to give our customers what they want.

“Parents have told us they’d still like the option of purchasing a toy separately for their child when they buy them a Happy Meal or Mighty Kids Meal.”

The announcement that the money would go to charity was met by skepticism by Corporate Accountability International, a corporate watchdog group.

“As McDonald’s long has, it is again using a charity that helps children get well to defend a practice that contributes to a range of diet-related conditions like diabetes. Currently McDonald’s uses its contributions to the charity to defend the hundreds of millions it spends marketing its junk food brand to kids each year,” according to the group’s statement.

Mar said he met with several franchise owners in the city regarding the ordinance. Despite initial opposition to the law last year, he said that there’s growing awareness that having healthy options is good business practice.

Earlier this year, hamburger chain Jack-in-the-Box announced it would discontinue kids’ toys in their meals for children.
Also this summer, McDonald’s announced that it would revamp its iconic Happy Meal to contain healthier options.

The meals will carry apple slices, reduced portion of French fries and a choice of beverage, including new fat-free chocolate milk and 1% low-fat white milk, instead of defaulting to soda. The changes started in September and will spread nationwide by the end of March 2012.
However, the new version of the Happy Meal still does not meet the requirements of the San Francisco law.

Although the San Francisco law has been criticized as legislating health and nutrition, Mar said the responsibility ultimately falls on the parents. But, fast-food restaurants play a role and “benefit from the pester power of the kids of young ages,” he said.

“It’s our job as a local legislator to protect public health,” he said. “Nothing is more important than children’s health.”

He said the momentum for this law came from pediatricians and mainly parents who live in the lowest income neighborhoods. “They were the main voices of our campaign,” he said.

The long-term goal is to move children’s meals toward lower fat, sodium and calories, Mar said.
Happy Meal toys no longer free in San Francisco – CNN.com.

This is the annual DietDetective.com airline survey. Each year I contact the media relations departments of the various airlines to request nutrition information for the foods they serve economy-class passengers on domestic flights. This year, finally, all but two airlines were helpful. Wow, maybe they’re finally getting how important it is to provide this information to the public.

Check out the survey at: Annual Airline Snacking and Onboard Food Survey with Health Ratings for 2011.

Via Yahoo News, AP, Mary Clare Jalonick

Who needs leafy greens and carrots when pizza and french fries will do?

In an effort many 9-year-olds will cheer, Congress wants pizza and french fries to stay on school lunch lines and is fighting the Obama administration’s efforts to take unhealthy foods out of schools.
The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year. These include limiting the use of potatoes on the lunch line, putting new restrictions on sodium and boosting the use of whole grains. The legislation would block or delay all of those efforts.

The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. USDA had wanted to only count a half-cup of tomato paste or more as a vegetable, and a serving of pizza has less than that.

Nutritionists say the whole effort is reminiscent of the Reagan administration’s much-ridiculed attempt 30 years ago to classify ketchup as a vegetable to cut costs. This time around, food companies that produce frozen pizzas for schools, the salt industry and potato growers requested the changes and lobbied Congress.

School meals that are subsidized by the federal government must include a certain amount of vegetables, and USDA’s proposal could have pushed pizza-makers and potato growers out of the school lunch business.

Piling on to the companies’ opposition, some conservatives argue that the federal government shouldn’t tell children what to eat. In a summary of the bill, Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee said the changes would “prevent overly burdensome and costly regulations and …provide greater flexibility for local school districts to improve the nutritional quality of meals.”

School districts have said some of the USDA proposals go too far and cost too much when budgets are extremely tight. Schools have long taken broad instructions from the government on what they can serve in the federally subsidized meals that are given free or at reduced price to low-income children. But some schools have balked at government attempts to tell them exactly what foods they can’t serve.

Reacting to that criticism, House Republicans had urged USDA to rewrite the standards in a bill passed in June. The Senate last month voted to block the potato limits in its version, with opposition to the restrictions led by potato-growing states. Neither version of the bill included the latest provisions on tomato paste, sodium or whole grains; House and Senate negotiators added those in the last two weeks as they put finishing touches on the legislation.

The school lunch proposal is based on 2009 recommendations by the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said they are necessary to reduce childhood obesity and future health care costs.
USDA spokeswoman Courtney Rowe said Tuesday that the department will continue its efforts to make lunches healthier.
“While it’s unfortunate that some members of Congress continue to put special interests ahead of the health of America’s children, USDA remains committed to practical, science-based standards for school meals,” she said in a statement.

Nutrition advocate Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said Congress’s proposed changes will keep schools from serving a wider array of vegetables. Children already get enough pizza and potatoes, she says. It also would slow efforts to make pizzas — a longtime standby on school lunch lines — healthier, with whole grain crusts and lower sodium levels.

“They are making sure that two of the biggest problems in the school lunch program, pizza and french fries, are untouched,” she said.
A group of retired generals advocating for healthier school lunches also criticized the spending bill. The group, called Mission: Readiness, has called poor nutrition in school lunches a national security issue because obesity is the leading medical disqualifier for military service.

“We are outraged that Congress is seriously considering language that would effectively categorize pizza as a vegetable in the school lunch program,” Amy Dawson Taggart, the director of the group, said in a letter to lawmakers before the final bill was released. “It doesn’t take an advanced degree in nutrition to call this a national disgrace.”
Specifically, the bill would:

• Block the Agriculture Department from limiting starchy vegetables, including corn and peas, to two servings a week. The rule was intended to cut down on french fries, which many schools serve daily.
• Allow USDA to count two tablespoons of tomato paste as a vegetable, as it does now. The department had attempted to require that only a half-cup of tomato paste could be considered a vegetable. Federally subsidized lunches must have a certain number of vegetables to be served.
• Require further study on long-term sodium reduction requirements set forth by the USDA guidelines.
• Require USDA to define “whole grains” before they regulate them. The USDA rules require schools to use more whole grains.

Food companies who have fought the USDA standards say they were too strict and neglected the nutrients that potatoes, other starchy vegetables and tomato paste do offer.

“This agreement ensures that nutrient-rich vegetables such as potatoes, corn and peas will remain part of a balanced, healthy diet in federally funded school meals and recognizes the significant amounts of potassium, fiber and vitamins A and C provided by tomato paste, ensuring that students may continue to enjoy healthy meals such as pizza and pasta,” said Kraig Naasz, president of the American Frozen Food Institute.

The school lunch provisions are part of a final House-Senate compromise on a $182 billion measure that would fund the day-to-day operations of the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. Both the House and the Senate are expected to vote on the bill this week and send it to President Barack Obama.

Congress pushes back on healthier school lunches – Yahoo! News.