School Lunches

First Lady Michelle Obama helped lead an initiative to create healthier school lunches.  I grew up in the generation where ketchup was considered a vegetable, and only a few years ago pizza sauce was considered a serving of vegetables too.  The decision that a government subsidized lunch should be healthy seemed a no brainer, but some school districts and kids protested.  They said it wasn't enough food for "starving" kids, the food took longer and was harder to produce every day, and the healthier food options, particularly the vegetables, usually ended up in the garbage can.  Inevitably, the Republican politicians, usually draped in donations from big Ag and food companies, came up with the talking point about how we've failed our kids.

Since most school cafeterias operate on a limited budget and can't produce two or more full menus each day, they have to make one and go with it.  This is where the right really loses me.

• No one ever threw away part of their lunch prior to the new nutrition standards?  I highly doubt it.
• Given most school districts can have only one major lunch option every day, and considering the near epidemic levels of juvenile diabetes in the USA, the GOP is saying school lunches should be burgers, pizza and fries only?
• All kids can and will make smart, nutritional food decisions for themselves?
• A family, dissatisfied with the school lunch program, can't make their kid the lunch they deem fit and have their kid take it everyday?
• The whole notion of rich white suburban kids who don't have a fast food menu level of choices in a school cafeteria menu are the real face of hunger in this nation?

These no brainer counterpoint arguments are never brought up in discussions about health and nutrition in our school lunch program.  No one asks the GOP to describe the food they would like to see served.

After seeing the crap fed to our kids via school lunch programs for years, food which was horrible nutrition wise, pushed by big Ag and big food companies, and created for convenience (and I mean to imply some cafeteria workers complaints are really a smoke screen to cover the truth; they're lazy folks who don't really want to work), I commend the Obama Administration and Michelle Obama's efforts to make a government funded meal healthy, one that is appetizing, one that helps local farmers, and one appreciated by the truly hungry in this country, not those who want to label themselves victims.

The GOP just hates Michelle Obama and will always rail against her on anything she does.