Processed Food Industry Shows USDA Who's Boss in the Cafeteria

by: euclidarms

Thu Nov 17, 2011 at 04:50:29 AM PST

First it was potatoes. Now it's pizza. The processed food industry is reaching out to its friends in Congress to scuttle new USDA guidelines that were supposed to make school meals healthier.

House and Senate negotiators have approved agriculture appropriations language that would allow the tomato paste on pizza to be counted as a vegetable serving under the USDA's new school meal guidelines. Count this as the result of lobbying efforts by processed food giants ConAgra and Schwan Food. Schwan is one of the world's largest purveyors of frozen pizza and pitching for its sauce is Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, where Schwan is based.

Senate Posts New School Lunch Score: Potatoes 1, USDA 0

by: euclidarms

Mon Oct 24, 2011 at 04:16:42 AM PDT

In an unprecedented act of meddling in school lunch rule making, the U.S. Senate last week approved by unanimous consent a measure that forbids the U.S. Department of Agriculture from limiting the amount of potatoes in the national school meals program.

Mainstream media got it wrong: This was not a defeat for the Obama administration or for first lady Michelle Obama. Rather, it was a clear case of congressional double-speak, overturning a mandate Congress itself gave the USDA seven years ago to conform school meals with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The Senate action reverses the work of food science experts at the Institute of Medicine, who had spent years at the USDA's behest drafting the new guidelines Congress had ordered.

Des Moines Register: "Egg farms rack up violations"

by: desmoinesdem

Mon Aug 29, 2011 at 18:05:50 PM PDT

A year ago, the recall of half a billion eggs laid in Iowa made national news headlines. But if you thought that federal or Iowa government agencies would take meaningful steps to reduce the chance of another salmonella enteritidis outbreak in egg factories, guess again.

Buyer's Remorse Over Better School Food?

by: euclidarms

Mon Feb 21, 2011 at 05:20:13 AM PST

School food is poised to look less like prison fodder and more like a Moosewood Restaurant buffet if new USDA guidelines are adopted. Colorful vegetables-lots of them-more whole fruit, more whole grains, less salt, less processed junk-that's the plat du jour. The only question now is, who picks up the check?

A tight-fisted Congress would only ante up six extra cents for school lunch in its recent re-authorization of child nutrition programs. Now the USDA says that's not even close to covering all the goodies school food advocates have been asking for. Between more expensive ingredients and the increased labor needed to turn them into meals, the USDA estimates [PDF] school lunch soon will cost an extra 15 cents, and breakfast a whopping 51 cents more.

That compares to the $2.72 the federal government currently pays schools to provide a fully-reimbursable school lunch, $1.48 for breakfast.

According to wonks in the USDA's Food and Nutrition Services branch, the money to pay for these long-awaited changes will just have to come from state and local governments that at the moment are worse than broke. In other words, schools will be switching out frozen tater tots for fresh sweet potatoes and replacing processed beef crumbles with scratch-cooked spinach lasagna at the same time law makers are sending pink slips to teachers, shuttering health clinics for the poor, and unscrewing light bulbs in street lamps to resolve the worst budget deficits since the Great Depression.

Is anyone else feeling a teeny bit of buyer's remorse?

I count myself among those who think the food served to kids in school could be a whole lot better. But something about the notion that kids must have fresh local broccoli on their lunch trays while teachers worry about the next mortgage payment doesn't sit right. I'm doubly conflicted, because after a year of writing about school food on a daily basis, and monitoring what goes on in the cafeteria at my daughter's elementary school here in the District of Columbia , I know that kids routinely refuse to eat and throw in the trash vast quantities of those very same vegetables and whole grains that constitute such a large portion of the looming school meals bill.

And it's not just me. Here's a Chicago Tribune story exposing the same thing in cafeterias there.  The Tribune found hundreds of pounds of food being tossed in the trash in a single school, including unopened cartons of milk and juice, uneaten oranges and bananas, whole cartons of cereal. Just as they do here in D.C., Chicago school children describe the healthier food as "nasty."

We are about to embark on a multii-billion-dollar culinary experiment with unknowable results. This is faith-based nutrition on a huge scale. Nationwide, the USDA says the proposed changes will add $6.8 billion to the cost of preparing school meals in the first five years. The federal government spends $13 billion annually on school feeding programs.

State and local governments currently contribute around nine percent of the total cost of school food service. In California alone, the new guidelines will add $75 million to the annual bill just for fruits and vegetables, according to the Environmental Working Group. Where will Sacramento, currently in utter budget meltdown, come up with such a sum? The EWG proposes diverting money currently paid to subsidize dairy, cotton and rice farmers.

In an effort to wrap my head around all this, I recently spent a few hours reviewing financial briefs for all 50 states. I could hardly have assigned myself a more dismal task. It truly is a blood bath out there. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities [PDF], states are seeing the worst decline in tax revenues ever recorded.  So far, at least 46 states have reduced services and 30 have raised taxes to some degree. With billions in federal stimulus dollars drying up, local budget woes will only get worse-and stay bad for years to come. Even education spending is now fair game for deficit hawks.

Consider these factoids:

Newly-elected California Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed closing a $25 billion budget gap by cutting salaries for non-union state employees, slashing funding for higher education by 20 percent and even reducing aid for K-12 schools if voters don't approve tax increases.

Los Angeles, described as on the brink of bankruptcy, is planning to send pink slips to 4,000 teachers, just in case the city needs to let some of them go.

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has called his state "functionally bankrupt," and proposes to close most of a $10 billion budget shortfall by reducing education funding and Medicaid.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie tells voters he will not raise taxes, but his approach to addressing an $11 billion budget deficit would include cutting $820 million in education funding.

Arizona is so broke, lawmakers are considering mortgaging state office buildings.

And in Madison, Wis., thousands of state workers-including teachers--recently rallied to protest Gov. Scott Walker's plan to cut their benefits and bargaining rights--and his threat to call out the National Guard if things get out of hand.

Here in D.C., extra funding for school meals approved under a "Healthy Schools Act" narrowly avoided budget cuts last year. But now the city faces a huge new shortfall of some $600 million, much larger than anticipated.

How does all of this square with the idea that schools should be feeding kids fresh chicken on the bone rather than re-heated chicken nuggets? Advocates would say we need to embrace the USDA guidelines in order to head off an epidemic of childhood obesity--and the nearly $300 billion estimated annual cost of medical care and lost productivity due to weight-related illness. But do kids really need a full-blown restaurant meal covering all the food groups every day?

Already schools on average lose more than 30 cents on every lunch they serve.  They may soon be forced to start charging students higher prices. Yet Lucy Gettman, director of federal programs for the National School Boards Association, says the outlook for funding school meals may not be so dire. Some states and some school districts have already been moving toward the kind of food service the USDA is proposing.

But there's more turbulence on the horizon. Pending standards for food sold in vending machines and in school stores-presumably requiring healthy choices rather than candy, chips and soft drinks-will likely cut into food service revenues, Gettman said. Congress has also told the USDA to examine how schools assign operational costs to food service, another potential drain.

"Over the last few years, three dozen states have either changed state laws or have considered changing state laws regarding school nutrition," Gettman said. "Every state and every school district is probably going to be in a different place. Some may be very close to meeting some of the standards. But for those that haven't, there may be a very wide gap."

The School Nutrition Association, representing some 53,000 school cafeteria workers across the country, is looking for ways the federal government can contribute more to pay for the new meal standards. For starters, they are asking the USDA to consider giving schools credit toward commodity food purchases for serving breakfast.

The USDA currently awards schools about 20 cents toward purchasing commodity goods for every lunch meal they serve. The program does not cover breakfast, and many schools are now trying to increase breakfast service by offering it in the classroom, which serves the dual purpose of ensuring kids aren't forced to learn on an empty stomach while also generating more federal reimbursements for the food program.

Still, I can't help thinking there ought to be a way to make school food much less complicated. There must be a better funding mechanism that doesn't pit kids against other worthy government programs for the needy.

Maybe it's time for a national guilt relief act in the form of a big, fat federal tax on soda and junk food that pays for school lunch. Now that's something I would not lose any sleep over.

Hallelujah! Mark Bittman Puts the USDA, Oprah, and Walmart in Their Places!

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Feb 09, 2011 at 13:06:16 PM PST

The truly healthy alternative to that chip is not a fake chip; it's a carrot. Likewise, the alternative to sausage is not vegan sausage; it's less sausage.

Here's what he says on the Dietary Guidelines and their new acronym, SOFAS (Solid Fats and Added Sugars):

The problem, as usual, is that the agency's nutrition experts are at odds with its other mission: to promote our bounty in whatever form its processors make it. The U.S.D.A. can succeed at its conflicting goals only by convincing us that eating manufactured food lower in SOFAS is "healthy," thus implicitly endorsing hyper-engineered junk food with added fiber, reduced and solid fats and so on, "food" that is often unimaginably far from its origins. When it comes to eating more "good" food, the report is clear, because that can't harm producers. When it comes to eating less of what's "bad," the language turns to "science," because telling us which products to avoid - like a 3,000-calorie fast-food "meal" or a box of low-fat but chemical-laden crackers - would play badly with industry. Instead we're told to avoid SOFAS. Where's that SOFAS aisle?

And Oprah (on her attempt to have her staff go vegan for a week):

Intriguing, except her idea of surviving without meat and dairy - no explanation given for why we should go from too much to none - is to fill your shopping cart with fake versions of both, like meatless chicken breasts and dairy-less cheese.

And Walmart:

We are promised more affordable produce, which undoubtedly means that Wal-Mart will beat the living daylights out of produce suppliers, crushing a few thousand more small farmers. (In fact, what we need is higher-quality and probably more expensive produce, that which is less damaging to the environment, laborers, and consumers, but that gets into the "how do we afford it?" argument, which must wait for another day. Let's leave it that we like Wal-Mart's goal of selling more produce.)

The real problem, again, is Wal-Mart's other promise: "healthier" packaged foods. And whether baked, low-salt chips are "better" than fried ones, is not only arguable - the baked ones are more likely to be chemical-laden - but misses the point which, again, is that real foods are superior in every way.

Bittman is, of course, right. There is no alternative of substitute for eating real food and COOKING real food. But the beef lobby wouldn't be happy if the USDA simply quoted Michael Pollan's "Eat food. Mostly Plants. Not too much." So instead they made up a new acronym to obscure the facts while offending no one.

GE Alfalfa and Sugar Beets: Filing a FOIA [UPDATED]

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Feb 08, 2011 at 17:43:03 PM PST

As I go through the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) process, I decided to post what I learn about it on this blog. Part of what I'm learning is that some useful information is already public, so we should certainly review that in addition to asking for more.

Our Abusive Relationship With the USDA

by: Jill Richardson

Sun Feb 06, 2011 at 21:08:15 PM PST

That seems to be pretty similar to the American people's relationship with the USDA. On one hand, they tell us to eat fruits and vegetables. Lots of fruits and vegetables. Five a day! Now they've upped the ante, and they are telling us "half your plate" should be fruits and vegetables. But every other policy pushes us away from fruits and vegetables. Then we get yelled at for being fat and for rising health care costs (much of which are due to diet-related chronic illness). Let me explain.

First GE Alfalfa, Now GE Sugar Beets

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Feb 04, 2011 at 13:35:55 PM PST

According to the article, the planting of GE sugar beets will be done "under closely controlled conditions." The justification is that we must allow the GE sugar beets or else the U.S. won't have enough sugar, a claim that I suspect is entirely false. Without having looked into the matter further, I can easily say that typically U.S. quotas of imported sugar keep the U.S. sugar price artificially high (and the supply artificially low) compared to the world price. In other words, we don't need GE sugar beets. We could simply allow more imported sugar onto our market if we wanted. Clearly, someone in the USDA - or the White House - really, really wants farmers planting GE sugar beets.

The Reuters article adds another line that smells of BS, saying:

The move marks the second-such boost by the United States for contested biotech crops in a week, and underscores U.S. determination to expand the use of GMO crops amid rising global fears over food security and surging prices.

Yes it's true the U.S. government is determined to allow and promote genetically engineered crops, but no, it is not correct that the GE crops are needed as a solution for food security and/or surging prices. In fact, they've got just about nothing to do with global food supplies and prices.

If you'd like to avoid all GE sugar, then stick to other sweeteners like maple syrup, agave nectar, or honey, or buy sugarcane products like sucanat or evaporated cane juice. If you can, go for Fair Trade and organic sugar products. For processed foods that contain sugar, if you stick to organic, you'll avoid the GE sugar. Unless a company pledges to boycott GE sugar in its products, buying organic is the only way to guarantee your food is free of GE sugar.

Coexistence, Part 2

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Feb 03, 2011 at 14:25:42 PM PST

It's rare that I'm ever questioned about my affiliation with OCA, but suddenly a few people have come to me asking what's going on. And, so far as I can see it, the "Big Organic" folks named above took a calculated risk, acquiescing to the USDA's call for coexistence, while OCA said "hell no" and then called out the "Big Organic" folks for selling out. (OCA is a lot of things, but subtle is not one of them.) To my mind, this inter-organic fight is now obsolete, as all of us lost. But there are people and egos and tempers within our movement, and of course those who have been offended or publicly called out are not ready to be done with it... and the temptation of juicy gossip has people interested, even if this argument is nothing more than last week's news.

I haven't read every word written or said by OCA's director Ronnie Cummins or by those who oppose him, but I want to explain why I agree with OCA in terms of my position, even if I would perhaps have used different tactics. Let me start with a quote from the book Toxic Sludge is Good For You by John Stauber & Sheldon Rampton, a book that OCA's Ronnie Cummins is no doubt very familiar with.

In a 1991 speech to the National Cattlemen's Association, he [Ronald Duchin] described how MBD [Duchin's PR firm] works to divide and conquer activist movements. Activists, he explained, fall into four distinct categories: "radicals," "opportunists," "idealists," and "realists." He outlined a three-step strategy: (1) isolate the radicals; (2) "cultivate" the idealists and "educate" them into becoming realists; then (3) coopt the realists into agreeing with industry. - p. 66

In other words, marginalize the so-called radicals (think of PETA) and co-opt everyone else. The book continues:

Duchin defines opportunists as people who engage in activism seeking "visibility, power, followers, and, perhaps, even employment... The key to dealing with opportunists is to provide them with at least the perception of a partial victory." And realists are able to "live with trade-offs; willing to work within the system; not interested in radical change; pragmatic. The realists should always receive the highest priority in any strategy dealing with a public policy issue... If your industry can successfully bring about these relationships, the credibility of the radicals will be lost and the opportunists can be counted on to share in the final policy solution. - p.67

OCA is not willing to play the part of the realists, like WFM and OTA. They are therefore always going to be challenged to fight for their credibility to avoid marginalization. I have no interest in throwing my time, energy, money, and emotions into a fight just to wind up doing the bidding of industry in the end. That is why I stand behind OCA in calling for true reform, not just a little bit of change at the margins.

The larger issue of coexistence comes down to a line I hear from the industrial ag industry ALL THE TIME. They say (this is paraphrased) "We need all kinds of agriculture. We can have organic, but we need production [i.e. industrial] agriculture too. We need everybody." They take that a step further asking, "If I'm not telling the organic folks to quit farming organically, then why should they tell me not to farm the way I farm? We need both of us! You shouldn't have a small minority of people telling the other 95% what to do!"

Got that? If someone is treating their animals well, producing healthy food, building up their topsoil, and sequestering carbon, then the industrial ag folks won't tell them not too. So then why should we tell them to quit polluting the groundwater, wasting oil, treating animals and employees cruelly, contributing to the climate crisis, and producing unhealthy food? Come on, live and let live!

That is, of course, ridiculous, but that's what this idea of coexistence comes down to. And hopefully I do not have to explain why it's a BS idea. The predominant version of farming practiced in the U.S. harms the things we all share - the land, the water, the air, the climate and our continued ability to live on earth, and biodiversity. And the way workers and animals are treated is often criminal. THAT is why those of us who want change have a right to call for change. (Note: I am NOT accusing all large or non-organic farms of doing every one of these things. But if you are doing the right thing already, then you have nothing to worry about by the sustainable food movement's calls for reform.)

You wouldn't say "You don't like molesting children, and I do like molesting children, so live and let live. You do your thing and I'll do mine." Or "I don't like robbing banks, and you do like robbing banks, so live and let live. I will work for my money and you can steal yours from the nearest bank." So why would we take the same attitude about wrecking the planet and exploiting workers?

Reactions to the GE Alfalfa Decision

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Jan 28, 2011 at 14:43:47 PM PST

• Tom Philpott, of Grist: "In a stunning reversal, USDA chief Vilsack greenlights Monsanto's alfalfa"
  
• Sam Fromartz, author of Organic, Inc: "Vilsack caved on GM alfalfa, so what's the impact?"
  
• Change.org: "USDA Approves Genetically Engineered Alfalfa-Now What?"
  
• Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics: "USDA approves controversial GM alfalfa"
  
• Treehugger: "What the Deregulation of Genetically Engineered Alfalfa Means for Organic Consumers"

The Truth About "Whole Grains" in School Meals

by: euclidarms

Fri Jan 28, 2011 at 03:39:41 AM PST

If the U.S. Department of Agriculture has its way, kids will soon be seeing lots more whole grain food on their cafeteria trays--up to 80 percent more at breakfast under the agency's proposed new meal guidelines [PDF].

But as my colleague Lisa Suriano pointed out in this space recently, if you thought that meant spelt and quinoa suddenly making an appearance in the nation's lunch rooms, you might want to re-assess. In fact, federal rules permit products containing just 51 percent "whole grain" flour to be classified as "whole grain."

Bad Bad Bad News: USDA Caves to Industry Pressure on GE Alfalfa

by: Jill Richardson

Thu Jan 27, 2011 at 14:52:05 PM PST

This is a bit of a first, as I've said before. It's not the first GE crop to be grown commercially in the U.S. But it's a first in terms of the impact it will have. Most corn grown in the U.S. is hybrid, which means that the genes in the seed corn farmers plant have been carefully selected. It's likely that some GE contamination occurs in corn, but for the most part, if you try to buy GE-free corn, that's what you'll get. But alfalfa is open pollinated, which means that the alfalfa grown to produce seed sold around the country can be easily contaminated with GE traits.

Truly, this is devastating. Not only for the impact it will have on organic farmers, but also in terms of what it tells us about the USDA. A release from The Cornucopia Institute says:

...the agency, under heavy pressure from the biotech sector, chose total deregulation.  Over 250,000 public comments were received during the FEIS process, with the vast majority opposing deregulation.

Vilsack did announce that the USDA WOULD establish a second germ plasm/seed center for alfalfa in the state of Idaho to try, and the operative word is "try," to maintain GE-free strains of alfalfa.

There you are. The majority of 250,000 citizens vs. the biotech lobby. I think, at a minimum, the USDA should now be required to stop referring to itself as "The People's Department" (the name Lincoln gave it when he founded it in the 1860's).

Press coverage:
NYT: Agriculture Agency Approves Planting of Modified Alfalfa
Des Moines Register: Vilsack decides against biotech restrictions

GE Alfalfa Resources

by: Food Sleuth

Sun Jan 23, 2011 at 23:50:17 PM PST

In response, I have compiled the following resources and links with emphasis on the National Organic Coalition's call for action instead.

Coexistence and GE Alfalfa

by: Jill Richardson

Sun Jan 23, 2011 at 18:32:38 PM PST

Proposed New School Lunch Nutrition Standards 101

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Jan 19, 2011 at 22:59:36 PM PST

The new rules add maximum calorie limits to meals for the first time, gradually reduce sodium over 10 years (eventually reducing it by more than half), ban most trans fats, require more servings of fruits and vegetables, require all milk is low fat or nonfat and that all flavored milks are nonfat, and require more whole grains. Additionally, for breakfasts, schools must serve both a grain and a protein instead of one or the other. My favorite change is that the new rules require more variety in the vegetables served during the week. In other words, french fries served 5 days a week won't cut it. You'll have to serve something orange, something green, and some beans too.

However, these rules do NOT address sugar or - perhaps more significantly - added sugar. They also take no action to ban or limit chocolate milk or other flavored milks. Surely, if they had done either of those things, the rules would be more controversial than they are now. Rather than banning flavored milks outright, I think a limit on added sugars would be a good idea (with the understanding that the entire meal including flavored milk should not exceed the added sugar limit). My only worry is that a limit on added sugars would result in an increase of artificial sweeteners in school lunches.

To hear a pretty mainstream reaction to these proposed rules, you can hear an interview of the School Nutrition Association's Vice President-Elect on the radio show AgriTalk. It's a pretty simple interview with no real controversy, as you will hear. Perhaps the most significant and interesting point in the interview is the idea that parents can help by introducing their kids to homecooked foods and more types of veggies at home so that they will be more likely to eat them at school. (As Bruske notes, the kids often dump their veggies in the trash.)

All in all, I don't expect these rules to make too much of a difference in the quality of school food. The rule changes are a good thing, of course, and certainly a step in the right direction, but they are being adopted without providing the schools very much in the way of additional resources to meet the new requirements or to make any other perhaps more significant changes, like increasing the amount of whole foods or decreasing the amount of pre-processed foods that is merely defrosted, heated, and served. Those changes would require more training, labor, supplies, and equipment in addition to, of course, buying the actual food - and all of that takes money. Money is, of course, the one thing that the recently passed Child Nutrition Reauthorization did not provide. (To be accurate, the bill did provide an additional 6 cents per lunch, but that's nothing compared to what's needed.)

If you want to read the rules or submit comments to the government on the proposed rule changes, you can do so here. (If the link doesn't work, it's Regulations.gov with the Docket Number FNS-2007-0038-0001.)