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Trump Administration Rolls Back Obama-Era Nutrition Standards For School Lunches (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Just a week into his position, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced Monday a rollback of nutrition standards for school meals, previously championed by former First Lady Michelle Obama as part of a larger initiative to improve the health of America's children. Under Perdue's new rollback, schools across the country can now delay a requirement to reduce sodium levels, can serve kids fewer whole grains, and can provide one percent flavored milk in addition to flavored skim, unflavored skim, and unflavored one percent. In a news release that declared the move would "make school meals great again," Perdue said: "This announcement is the result of years of feedback from students, schools, and food service experts about the challenges they are facing in meeting the final regulations for school meals. If kids aren't eating the food, and it's ending up in the trash, they aren't getting any nutrition -- thus undermining the intent of the program." Specifically, under Obama-era nutrition rules, schools were supposed to decrease sodium from meals in three phases. For instance, 2012 school lunches had average sodium levels between roughly 1,400mg to 1,600mg, with elementary school lunches on the lower end. Federal dietary guidelines, which schools must follow, recommend kids get 1,900mg to 2,300mg or less of sodium per day (depending on age). Currently, schools have dropped down to "Target 1," which is a range of about 1,200mg to 1,400mg or less. Schools were supposed to get that down to about 900mg to 1,000mg this year ("Target 2") and then to between 600mg and 700mg by 2022 ("Final Target"). The USDA will now waive the requirement to reach Target 2 until 2020. The USDA will also grant exemptions from the current requirement for schools to serve only whole-grain-rich foods.
Because if there's anything Donald Trump knows, it's how to have a healthy diet.
This could be actually a good thing, but for their unintended consequences.
After the publication in 1980 of USDA dietary guidelines the percentage of obese people in USA started to rise.
Same thing happened in the UK with the introduction of the Eatwell plate.
I think that all stems from the idea that eating fats and cholesterol make one fat, so the energy intake should be based on starchy foods like rice, potatoes and refined wheat: these are foods with a really high glycemic index so the starches are rapidly converted in glucose, the pancreas stats to produce insulin and the glucose is transformed in fat. Then normally the level of glucose in food decreases and the brain registers it as starving and if food is readily available one eats again the starchy foods, that are healthy. Unfortunately this is a sure way to eat too much.
Eating some fatty food, like cheese, eggs, olive oil, nuts or meat requires more times to be digested and the glycemic response is much lower, so one feels more satisfied to eat.
In this case I think thast giving to kids "boring" foods makes them eat more "tasty" food like snacks and fried potatoes, that are high in calories and surely not "gourmet" foods, making the whole dietary advice moot.
If in schools they start to serve a real pizza margherita made with buffalo mozzarella, olive oil, fresh tomato sauce and freh basil, maybe the kids will get a more decent taste for good food, istead to eat some baked thing called pizza made with leftovers
Yeah, my parents knew a family with a dairy farm, and we would regularly drive out there and get a big pail of milk, fresh out of their cows (well, from a large holding tank). Between that and lawn darts, we barely made it out of adolescence.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
It will, if the rest of the day involves paleo activities like "20 km mammoth chase" and "1 km sprint from sabertooth tiger".
What's next? Putting the lead back in gasoline?
Make American cars great again!
No sig today...
The in-between days with 500 calories help to balance the paleo lifestyle, too.
You dietary nuts! I just watch out that all my meals contain the four important food groups, i.e. fat, salt, sugar and caffeine, and I'm doing fine.
On a completely unrelated note, what's that coppery taste in my mouth?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Don't knock it until you try it.
Place something witty here
The science isn't settled in just about every field, they're still arguing over sodium, theoretical physicists are still arguing over gravity! Apparently only the very best scientists work in climate science, they're the only ones where the science is settled.
It does make me wonder, if their science is settled, why are they still getting paid to do more climate science?
Is this what Slashdot has come to? We're now full of Milk Hipsters? Geez!
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.