When it comes to the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), the partisan brouhaha has been about the menu. Later this year, however, Congress will reauthorize the Healthy and Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010, mostly by agreeing to pick up the check. The outline of just such an ending became clear this week when the…
Letter From the Editor: School Lunch Dropouts
This past week probably saw the first-ever national political coverage of an annual meeting of the School Nutrition Association, which went down in Boston. Most everybody knows SNA is the organization of about 55,000 who manage and direct the school lunch (and some breakfast) programs in as many as 100,000 U.S. schools. The reason…
Why Would School Nutritionists Oppose Healthier Meals?
(This blog post by Dr. Marion Nestle was published June 6, 2014, on Food Politics and is republished here with her permission.) Understanding why school nutritionists want to scrap USDA’s nutrition standards takes some effort. The question: Why is the School Nutrition Association (SNA) — the organization that represents the interests of “lunch ladies” —…
School Waivers From New Nutrition Standards Could Become Bridge to 2015
New language offered by the House Appropriations Committee would allow schools than can demonstrate economic hardship to obtain a temporary waiver from new nutrition standards for the upcoming 2014-15 school year. In 2015, the standards might undergo revisions. Language released Monday by the committee said the waiver language was included at the request of local…
Letter From the Editor: Another Failure to Implement
Standing in the door of my school cafeteria was a nun, who, in the full garb of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, stood about seven feet tall. Like a giraffe leaning down to pick fruit off a tree, the same tall SBS nun would lower herself just in time to catch my passing ear…
Letter from the Editor: Fissures in the School Cafeteria
The School Nutrition Association (SNA) is the organization that oversees state and local school lunch programs. It has about 50,000 members from every school district in the country. New federal nutritional policies for school lunch programs are opening deep fissures in this once-unified SNA, which gathers this week for its annual meeting in Kansas City.…