Lawmaker: White House Should Live By School Lunch Guidelines

 

By Lina Batarags, Sun, February 16, 2014

The meal served at the White House’s state dinner for French President Francois Hollande nearly doubled the daily recommended calorie intake for schoolchildren in the US.

 

Now, Illinois Republican Rodney Davis has requested that the White House abide by the USDA mandated guidelines for school lunch and breakfast programs.

 

The new bill introduced by Rodney, H.R. 3686, the School Nutrition Fairness Act, would function “to make sure this Administration is aware of the real-life impact their regulations are having on kids who are going hungry.”

 

Tuesday’s White House dinner racked up “almost three times as much as what the first lady and the USDA allow our school kids to eat in the school lunch program,” Davis said.

 

The 2,500 calorie dinner stands in stark contrast to the USDA standard of 1,200 calorie daily diet, which Michelle Obama was recommending as part of her anti-obesity campaign.

 

“It’s the height of hypocrisy,” Davis stated.

 

As the Times reports, Tuesday’s meal consisted of luxuries such as a first course of American Osetra caviar and a winter garden salad, followed by a main course of “dry-aged ribeye beef served with blue cheese, 12 varieties of potatoes, and quail eggs.”

 

If the diners had any room left for dessert, a selection of sweets – cake made with Hawaiian chocolate, vanilla ice cream made in Pennsylvania, maple syrup fudge from Vermont – were also offered.

 

Meanwhile, the government-mandated, small meal portion sizes are leaving kids hungry and parents angry and complaining of school lunches that “taste like vomit.”

Sounds like a good idea to me.

"If they are hungry, let them eat cake"

Is 1200 calories a day for school-aged children enough?

Is 1200 calories a day for school-aged children enough?

 

Nowhere near enough for football players. :lol2:

Is 1200 calories a day for school-aged children enough?

 

For those kids whose parents haven't/can't pay their lunch bill....it's evidently too much.

Do to them like King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had done to them and they may have a change of heart.

Let them eat cake.

^ And once again mountainref has put BGP on a watch list.

And I agree with the man, let's spend more to make school lunches better. Oh, is that probably not what hot-shot Mr. Illinois smart-aleck had in mind? I didn't think so.

 

Come on, it was a state dinner. This guy needs a new job because Congressman obviously isn't for him.

I went to my son's school and had lunch with him. I used to lunch was nasty when I went. The lunch they serve now is gross I wouldn't let my dog eat it. I pack my son's lunch every day.

They dont even serve mac and cheese or mashed potatos anymore at my kids school

And I agree with the man, let's spend more to make school lunches better. Oh, is that probably not what hot-shot Mr. Illinois smart-aleck had in mind? I didn't think so.

 

Come on, it was a state dinner. This guy needs a new job because Congressman obviously isn't for him.

You know exactly what he has in mind, he is pointing absurdity by being absurd. As usual, too many folks see no problem with a nanny-state.

I went to my son's school and had lunch with him. I used to lunch was nasty when I went. The lunch they serve now is gross I wouldn't let my dog eat it. I pack my son's lunch every day.

My son can't stand the school lunches and when he gets home everyday he eats non stop because he doesn't eat half the garbage they serve at school.

I tell you...as a kid I enjoyed school lunch. My job now has, from time to time, taken me into schools for the purpose of conducting safety audits. I have had the opportunity to sit down and eat lunch during these times. The food, to put it mildly, was bad. With that said, there were other food choices that I could have gone with, and those choices might have been better, but what I had was pretty bad. I have also had the opportunity to eat prison food a couple of times, again doing safety audits at the facilities. Food was about the same as I found in the schools.

You know exactly what he has in mind, he is pointing absurdity by being absurd. As usual, too many folks see no problem with a nanny-state.

 

And how many man-hours of Congressional employees were spent drafting and printing this? Aren't Republicans usually the ones screaming about government waste?

 

That's great, he's making his point. So draft a bill to get the federal government out of mandating calorie counts on school lunches. I'm on board with that. What did this do except take a shot at the White House because he felt like he could? This is a small-scale move like the people who want to oppose militarism by submitting proposals to reinstate the draft.

 

Want to make a statement? Talk to the press. I want my Congress drafting bills that people can actually vote on.