Basically, the idea is restricting the quantity of starches being served in school lunches will force a greater selection of vegetables to be offered, and ultimately consumed, as a part of school lunches. “Under the USDA proposal, school cafeterias would have to limit starchy vegetables such as potatoes, corn, peas and lima beans to a total of one cup per week for lunch.”

Truthfully, the state of the nation’s nutrition is a major problem and should be treated as a long term crisis with economic, financial, political and military implications. Since most kids and teenagers eat at least one meal a day in a school cafeteria, there is a logic to the approach of establishing rules and regulations designed to encourage better eating and nutrition in school cafeterias.
But, I am not entirely sold that restricting the quantity of starches being served in school lunches will have the intended result.
First, it is important to remember the nutritional quality the starches being restricted. According to the National Potato Council: “Potatoes deliver a good source (providing at least 10% of DV) of two of the four nutrients of concern for children – potassium and dietary fiber. In fact, according to the DGA 2010, one small baked potato is the #1 source of potassium in the diet, providing 738 mg potassium in just 128 calories, and is listed among the top sources of dietary fiber (3 gm).”
Second, I don’t understand the logic or assumption of restricting the quantity of starches being served resulting in increased consumption of other vegetables. Yes, it is true that restricting the quantity of serving starches will result in other foods being served. But, just because other things are being served does not mean they will be eaten. After all, if you were given the choice between potato foods such as french fries, hashbrowns, tater tots or other similar things and broccoli, asparagus, brussel sprouts or other vegetables, which would you choose if you were eating in a school cafeteria? Based on my memories of cafeteria food and what I know about how we all eat, I don’t think it is a far stretch to think the potato choices will win.
The truth of the matter is that the intention of this effort is good, however, the result of the effort will probably not produce the intended result. Instead of focusing on what is served, why not focus on how it is served? Maybe it might be better to focus on how it is served or consumed? So, instead of getting rid of fried or “oven baked” or “oven fried” foods that are very high in statured fats, why not draft regulations designed to encourage cafeteria foods that are prepared in healthy, low fat ways and consumed without the addition of horrendous toppings such as mounds of sour cream, bacon bits, excessive amounts of cheese, or other “toppings” that are enough to cause a coronary in school kids?

For more on this issue, the National Farm to School Network has put together a very interesting briefing on the proposal and problems with implementing the proposal.

Here is the opening paragraph:

“A recent study conducted in 58 schools nationwide found that children choose flavored milk over unflavored milk nearly 70 percent of the time. And when flavored milk was not an option, milk consumption dropped.”

My immediate response to this: DUH!

Hmmm, lets think about this for a minute. Human beings are naturally and instinctively drawn to fast and “cheap” sources of fuel. Sugar and Fat are two fuels that meet this criteria. So, as a result, we tend to be drawn to foods offering us lots of “cheap” fuel and we tend to need pushing (from parents or that parental side of our minds, a.k.a. rational control) to make sure we eat foods that not as high in fats, sugars or other “cheap” fuels. So, given that children are renown for their ability to rationally control themselves, why isn’t it surprising that children “prefer” flavored milks over unflavored milk?

One of the things that puts this article over the edge is the fact that the whole spin of the study and resulting media outreach is that the study is being used as a justification for having flavored milks stocked and distributed in schools:

“Hopefully, school systems and parents will use information like this when making decisions about the kinds of milk they make available to students,” said Tony Banks, a commodity marketing specialist forVirginia Farm Bureau Federation. “Flavored milk is still milk, with all the nutritional benefits of regular milk, and milk is still among the most nutrient-dense food items available to children in schools.

“Even milk that has additional sugar because it is flavored can be a healthier beverage choice than sodas and some fruit drinks.”

The reasoning is that drinking flavored milk is better than drinking no milk at all. While it is true that flavored waters, soda/pop drinks, and other beverages contain more sugars, sweeteners, artificial flavorings and other “bad” stuff,  I don’t really buy into this argument. To me, it is about the same as saying that since red wine offers some potential health benefits, it is OK to drink red wine instead of eating the fruits and vegetables that offer the same health benefits. The problem is, the benefits offered by red wine or flavored milk are significantly less than the health detriments offered by everything else that is contained in the red wine or the flavored milk. Or, to put it another way, saying it is better to drink flavored milk over no milk at all is about the same as saying it is better to eat fastfood over canned or fresh vegetables. It just doesn’t make sense.

Also, to make one more point that should probably go into another blog, the purpose of the VA Farm Bureau and the Save Our Food sight is to help promote, protect and preserve local farming and food production in Virginia. Wouldn’t it be a better use of money to promote how local milk is  better for kids, the environment and the economy than promoting a type of consumption that is not necessarily good for kids and a product that tends to not come from local farms and is more commonly from larger industrial farms that are frequently out of state, especially when it comes to the foods that are offered in local schools?

Approximately one third of the world’s people suffer from a lack of micronutrients. Micronutrients are “any substance, such as a vitamin or trace element, essential for healthy growth and development but required only in minute amounts”  More specifically, micronutrients in food include essential things such as: folic acid, iron, vitamin D and iodine. Although they are consumed in minute amounts, the have profound implications on our health and wellbeing.

According to the World Health Organization, “these substances are the “magic wands” that enable the body to produce enzymes, hormones and other substances essential for proper growth and development. As tiny as the amounts are, however, the consequences of their absence are severe. Iodine, vitamin A and iron are most important in global public health terms; their lack represents a major threat to the health and development of populations the world over, particularly children and pregnant women in low-income countries.”

The proposal to address this problem is to enrich food staples and salts with micronutrients. It is true that enriching food staples such as adding iodine to salt and vitamin D to milk has been practiced in the US for a long time and is a primary cause in the elimination of nutrition based diseases such as rickets. Also, the article correctly notes that the cost of fortifying food stables with micronutrients is extremely cost efficient.

But, doesn’t this seem a bit like treating symptoms instead of treating problems?

The problem is not exclusively a lack of access to foods containing micronutrients. In all reality, the problem is a lack of access to an entire diet capable of meeting the current nutritional needs of people.

In a sense, fortifying food staples is the somewhat the nutritional equivalent of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The situation is akin to switching from regular to diet drinks as a way to regulate sugar and calorie consumption. The switch comes with the trade off of increased caffeine consumption as well as increased exposure to artificial sweeteners. At the end of the day, all you are doing is playing a game of nutritional three card monty by trading one bad thing for another.

It is critically important to ask what food staples that will be fortified. If fortified food products in the US serve as an example, they will be highly refined or processed, bearing little-to-no resemblance to their traditional form or place in a person’s regional or ancestral diet.

Considering:

“[When we eat refined foods] … we limit the opportunity to bolster our immune system, keep our blood sugar and emotions balanced, keep our blood sugar and emotions balanced, protect against degenerative diseases, maintain a trim and fit body, and in general, keep our integrated experience of life harmonious.”

“Our desire to overeat can stem from eating foods that are refined and therefore missing ingredients; these deficient foods can foster addiction as we are instinctively driven to over consume them in our endeavor to obtain the missing nutrients that are never there.”

Healing With Whole Foods by Paul Pitchford (2002 edition) pgs 16 -18

And, according to Harriet V. Kuhnlein, Professor of Human Nutrition and Founding Director of the Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE) at McGill University in Montreal, Canada:

The development, health and scientific communities do not usually understand the food resources that indigenous people know and use. Scientific identifications and laboratory data for nutrients and other phytochemicals for a food system may be unknown for many species.

A possibly better solution to this issue might be re-examining and then reintroducing traditional dietary and agricultural practices “upgraded” for current daily life instead relying upon artificially fortifying foods derived from highly refined and processed foods frequently from foreign sources and diets.

Yes, I had head this claim before, and had always written it off as media pandering. But, a bit of recent news has changed my mind.

According Hal Arkowith and Scott Lilienfeld in the Sept/Oct 2009 Scientific American Mind:

“Two thirds of American adults and one third of school-age children are either overweight or obese (defined as extremely overweight).”

But this sounds a bit abstract, right?

They go on to state:

“From 1960 to 2002 the population of overweight and obese adults increased by roughly 50 percent, and the corresponding increase for children was 300 percent.”

So, in less than 50 years our society has gone from “thin” to “fat.”

This is our entire society, not just a handful of indulgent adults or spineless parents allowing children to overeat junk food. Also, if you want to blame genetics,while it is true genetics plays heavily into our weight, metabolism and how we process stress, sleep and other environmental factors affecting our weight, genetics are personal not societal and can not evolve quickly enough to account for these changes throughout our entire society.

Want to blame the “Industry” – Restaurants, Food Manufacturing Companies, the Government, our Schools, etc.? Well, while it is true that they must shoulder a responsibility for providing clear, easily understood and comparable information about ingredients, calories and other such things ….

“… the root of the obesity problem ‘must lie in the powerful social and cultural forces that promote energy-rich diet and a sedentary lifestyle’” (Scientific American Mind Sept/Oct 2009)

Before you go off to round up the pitchfork and torch brigade and head off to your closest MacDonalds or 7-11, consider what Gavin Fitzsimmons, Professor of Marketing and Psychology at Duke, has to say:

“There is a notion that if we all just had the full nutritional information on menu or food items, we’d choose rationally … [b]ut that isn’t so. There are too many unconscious environmental cues that prove too strong.” (Psychology Today, Sept/Oct 2009)

Additionally, we fool ourselves:

“[Brian Wansink, Dir of the Food and Brand Lab, Cornell Univeristy]… has demonstrated we consume more food when it is served on a larger plate, in a bigger bowl, or in bulk packaging. And if it’s labeled low-fat, we chow down even more – consuming, on average, 20 percent more caloriesthan we would were it not so labeled.” (Psychology Today, Sept/Oct 2009)

So, should we tax things that make us fat?

According to Yale Psychologist Kelly D. Brownell and Thomas Freiden, at the CDC, social policies such as taxes on “one of the biggest contributors to obesity: sugar-sweetened beverages.” (Scientific American Mind Sept/Oct 2009)

This cry is also supported by Dr Barry Popkin, one of the first researchers to identify a link between high frutcose corn syrup and obesity in his well known study published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2004.  As quoted in Food Navigator’s recent article, Fructose in the firing line:

“The idea is very simple, that essentially in America – and the rest of the world – when you consume any caloric beverage, particularly sugar-sweetened beverage, [including corn-based sugar] you don’t reduce your food intake.”

“We know that if you increase the price of sugar-sweetened beverages, you will reduce their impact,” he said. “Much like cigarette taxes have worked grandly in the US and elsewhere to reduce smoking…These are one of the only foods and beverages with no health benefits and clearly defined health cost.”

But, much like prohibition on alcohol in the 1920′s, wouldn’t a tax on bad foods result in them possibly becoming even more attractive by being “bad”?

“A recent study published in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests that the mere presence of health offerings on a menu or on display in a restaurant or even in a vending machine can often be enough to vicariously satisfy our long term health and nutrition goals-and trick our brains into allowing su to make more indulgent food selections, ones we would not otherwise make. (Psychology Today, Sept/Oct 2009)

So, basically, even if we know something isn’t good for us, by having  a healthy alternative is available we can placate our selves with the thought or intention of having that food while actually eating the “bad” food.

To me, this all boils down to changing your lifestyle since I don’t think taxes, government labels or other top down solutions will really do all that much good.

Simply put, say what you do, do what you say and find ways to give yourself success.

Interestingly,

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Financial-Industry/Fructose-in-the-firing-line?utm_source=exclusive_interview&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Exclusive%2BInterview