USDA secretary announces halt on school nutrition standards

https://www.csmonitor.com/EqualEd/2017/0502/USDA-secretary-announces-halt-on-school-nutrition-standards?cmpid=FB

Weston Williams
Christian Science Monitor
May 2, 2017

United States Department of Agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue has had a busy first week. Only six days after his appointment to the new position, Mr. Perdue announced Monday that he would roll back Obama-era school nutrition standards, a move that has prompted criticism from a number of nutrition experts around the country.

Perdue called for a relaxation of the standards in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act introduced in 2010, which had been championed by both former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama. The rollback would reduce whole-grain requirements, allow higher levels of sodium entrees, and restore higher-fat and sweetened milk to school cafeterias nationwide.

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"[Studies show] that for some students it's the only nutritious food consumed throughout the day," Ms. Griffin tells The Christian Science Monitor in an email.

And for many poor students, a school lunch is the only meal that can be counted on as a regular source of food, she adds, making school food nutrition an important social and nutritional component of young children's lives – something that she says cannot simply be ignored to make things a little easier on school pocketbooks.

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