The potato and the tomato.  They are definitely the two most talked about vegetables in the federally-funded school lunch program.  Right now, the potato is the one being hotly debated.

The USDA proposed changes to the school lunch guidelines which would limit servings of starchy vegetables (white potatoes, corn, green peas, lima beans) to one cup per week. According to a 2007 USDA study, 75% of the vegetables kids eat at school are these starchy ones, with French fries being the top choice.  The concern by the administration and USDA is that this is contributing to the extremely high rates of childhood obesity as estimates suggest that kids are getting about 40% of their total calories from school each day.

On the opposing side of this great potato debate is the potato industry.  Their point-of-view is that at about five cents per serving, potatoes are a cost-effective way to get potassium and fiber in kids as well as help schools meet the calorie requirements of school lunch.  Their efforts have gone so far that the Senate actually blocked the USDA’s ability to limit the servings of potatoes and other starchy vegetables at lunch.  There’s also a website that has cropped up, called Potatoesinschool.com which is owned by the National Potato Council.  The site touts all the benefits of potatoes and includes a consumer lobbying campaign to keep potatoes in school.

In the regulatory arena, it’s often important to consider the spirit of the law vs. the letter of the law.  This is one of those examples.  The letter of the proposed law says limit starchy vegetables in the school lunch program.  The spirit of the law says we need to increase the variety of vegetables kids actually eat (which is different than what gets offered), and limiting the servings of potatoes will help do this.  The spirit of the law also addresses the issue that it isn’t the humble potato itself that is the issue, but more often it’s what comes attached to the potato – sodium, fat, sugar (ketchup is often used as a condiment).

Change can be effective if it happens one step at a time, and considering the daunting cost impacts of trying to improve the overall nutrition value of school lunch, making incremental changes over time might be the right approach.

Visit www.nuval.com to see why a whole potato scores a 93 and smiley-face tator tots score a 29.

It was recently announced that starting with the 2011-12 academic year, Hawaii schools will require that 15 of the 25 monthly entrees in the school lunch program must be made from scratch.  The belief, based on the press releases, is that this will improve the overall nutrition quality of the food served.  On the surface, this seems like a great announcement, and we envision grilled, skinless chicken breasts with a side of steamed broccoli.  But, in reality, simply making items from scratch doesn’t guarantee they will provide better overall nutrition quality.  Fried chicken, while made from whole chickens that a food service employee cuts, can still be fried in lard.  Mac and cheese from scratch is often made with butter and regular cheese, which can be high in saturated fat and sodium. 

It feels like this is a message cropping up in places beyond policy meetings on school lunch; places like mommy blogs and during Monday morning water cooler talk.  It’s an assumption that what people call “whole food” is always better than processed food.  But it just isn’t true.  Whether the school lunch meals in Hawaii are made from scratch or from processed foods, the overall nutrition quality can range across a fairly broad continuum.  This is true in each and every one of our households, too — scratch cooking is not necessarily synonymous with healthy food.

Visit www.nuval.com to see a system that rates the nutritional value of all foods.