On October the 19th, the Associated Press reported that
the United States Department of Agriculture is buying record amounts of
fruits and vegetables for the national school lunch program. The USDA
bought close to a billion pounds of fruits and vegetables for schools in
the fiscal year which ended on September 30. That's 22 percent more than
in 2002 and 38 percent more than in 1999.
Unfortunately, 90 percent of those veggies were canned
or frozen and only 10 percent was fresh produce. Eric Bost, USDA
Undersecretary for Nutrition was quoted as saying, "There has been a
concerted effort on our part to increase the availability of fresh
fruits and vegetables. (ten percent of the total? Come on USDA, try
harder.)" He continued, "It helps to address issues with the obesity
that's affecting children in our country." Last year the government
reported that 15 percent of the children in the US are overweight,
that's twice as many as in the 1970s.
Each year the USDA buys an average of 1/2 billion pounds
of meat, poultry and fish for the school lunch program. The fact that
the USDA now buys twice as much fruit and vegetables as meat has
livestock farmers worried.
Kara Flynn, a spokeswhiner for the National Pork
Producers Council whined, "We would hope that in the future the USDA
would purchase some additional meat products to sort of even things
out." I'm sorry you're losing a piece of the action, Kara, but there
seems to be some small effort to decrease the nation's obesity related
disease problems caused mostly by the meat and dairy industry.
The Associated Press also reported that 6 million
federal tax dollars was given for a study to determine if school
children will pick fresh produce over french fries and candy bars. "Hey,
kid, would you rather have this chocolate covered coconut and almond bar
or this serving of beets?"
That's a six million dollar grant I would have liked to
have secured to study whether anyone in our government understands kids
or nutrition.
Go on to Happy Halloween For All Creatures Great and Small
Return to 26 October 2003 Issue
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