Providing money for school lunch programs may sound like a good idea (to get re-elected), but the reality is that no amount of money is going to force good nutrition into the mouths of students, unless you're actually paying them to eat those fruits and veggies (hey, there's an idea!). We know kids and parents don't get enough of those foods, which is why products like Juice Plus+® come in handy - Juice Plus+ contains nutrients from a variety of fruits and vegetables. While both sides debate whether the government's allocated funds for school lunch programs is a good amount or not enough, the focus is still not being put where it needs to be...and it's not about the money. Here's more --
President Obama’s budget proposal is getting mixed reviews among the people watching over the quality of public school lunches. Some say it’s too little to make any meaningful change, while others are relieved school food programs are getting anything when other agricultural programs have been cut.
The president is proposing an additional $1 billion a year for 10 years to be divided between school food programs and WIC, the program for low-income pregnant women, women who have recently given birth and children up to age 5.
The White House, in a statement, said that the bump is “aimed at improving program access, establishing high standards for the nutritional quality of food available in school, exploring new strategies for reducing hunger and improving children’s food choices, and strengthening program management.”
School lunch reform advocates quickly got out their calculators and started issuing statements.
Some, like Margo Wootan and others in the National Alliance for Nutrition and Activity, which comprises 300 organizations, are urging people involved in school nutrition to get behind the budget proposal and work with Congress to assure the group’s agenda for school food reform moves forward.
Others, who had hoped the federal government would increase by as much as $1 the $2.63 a day it pays most school districts for each lunch, said it was not enough money to provide healthier scratch cooking and more fresh produce to the lunch tray.
Quick calculations show that at best, the president’s plan might offer less than 20 cents more per school lunch. “That’s what it costs me to put an apple on a plate,” said Ann Cooper, a school lunch reform advocate...(read on...)
Bottom Line: You can put a bandaid on a broken leg to stop some of the bleading, or even stop the bleading completely, but the leg is still broken. Throwing money at a problem (i.e. bank bailout?) doesn't solve (most often, anyway) the problem. Moving a country from where the majority have a less than healthy diet toward one that includes plenty of fruits and vegetables is where the campaign needs to start. Juice Plus+® is not the answer, but also a minor solution of sorts to get more nutrients from those types of foods into the bloodstreams of consumers, until the minimum recommended number of those foods are consumed each day. The comment about 'that's what it costs me to put an apple on a plate' strickes me as odd, considering if you could get each kid to eat that apple each day, that would probably do a LOT of good relative to what is being consumed now. It's starts with the simple things. Even water should be the only allowed drink (that is, if laws are going to be made and passed about school lunches)...NO soft drinks.
The Health & Wellness Institute
Official Juice Plus+® Distributor
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