USDA: Let schools serve more fries, fewer veggies

Feds say plan can help fix unintended issues created under Obama.

Late last week, USDA Deputy Under Secretary Brandon Lipps announced new proposed rules for the Food and Nutrition Service that would allow schools to cut the amount of vegetables and fruits required at lunch and breakfasts while giving them the ability to sell more pizza, burgers and fries to students.

Why it happened

Lipps said the changes will help address what he described as unintended issues that developed as a result of the regulations put in place during the Obama administration.

For example, when schools were trying to implement innovative solutions such as graband-go breakfast off a cart or meals in the classroom, they were forced to give kids two bananas to meet minimum federal requirements.

But Colin Schwartz, deputy director of legislative affairs for Center for Science in the Public Interest, says the rules, if finalized, “would create a huge loophole in school nutrition guidelines, paving the way for children to choose pizza, burgers, french fries and other foods high in calories, saturated fat or sodium in place of balanced school meals every day.”

He says that limiting the variety of vegetables served allows french fries to become even more central to students’ diets. He says the potato lobby has been pushing for this change, and the potato industry was behind a change that happened quietly last March.

The USDA allowed school food authorities participating in the School Breakfast Program to substitute potatoes in place of fruit without including vegetables from other subgroups in the weekly menus.

Potatoes USA, the marketing organization for the 2,500 commercial potato growers, did not respond to requests for comment.

What the new rules allow

The new rules allow schools to cut the amount of fruit included in breakfasts served outside of the cafeteria from one cup to a half cup. The remaining calories could be filled with sweet pas

tries and granola bars.

For lunches, the new rules allow schools to offer potatoes as a vegetable every day and gives them the flexibility to pro

vide pizza and burgers instead of more nutritious choices.

These changes come on the heels of other program alterations rolled out by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue in 2019, weakening school nutrition standards for whole grain, nonfat milk and sodium, all of which had been tightened during the

Obama administration.

Perdue cited food waste and nonparticipation as key rationales for the shift.

The rule was part of USDA’s Regulatory Reform Agenda, developed in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order to eliminate unnecessary regulatory burdens.

DEB LINDSEY / FOR THE WASHINGTON POST 2010 For school lunches, the proposed USDA rules would allow schools to offer potatoes as a vegetable every day and gives them the flexibility to provide pizza and burgers instead of more nutritious choices.