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NATIONAL SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM (NSLP)

Every weekday during a school year 27 million schoolchildren sit down to the largest mass feeding in the USA. Unfortunately, school lunches are loaded with saturated fat possibly contributing to increased rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease, and the federal government along with the meat and dairy industries, to date, seem to be making sure it stays this way!

The NSLP, enacted in 1946, was supposed to provide healthy meals to children. Today, the government sponsored NSLP provides 6 billion dollars a year to schools to make sure children get low-cost meals regardless of the students' family income level.

The program is designed to subsidize agribusiness and shore up demand for meat and dairy products even as the public's taste for these foods declines! Schools, strapped for cash, get free food while farmers are guaranteed a steady income.

The problem arises because a typical school lunch may not always be considered a healthy and nutritious meal by nutritionists' standards and our children's heallth and welfare may be getting compromised in the process while taxpayers are paying the bill, along with any future potential medical bills related to the less than ideal eating habits being learned at school.

For over 50 years agribusiness has wielded enormous political power over the NSLP to ensure that schools keep serving up fatty foods. Meat and dairy lobbyists have always been able to defeat most any effort to reform the NSLP no matter if Democrats or Republicans control Congress or the White House! Remember, any significant reforms will likely cost the meat and dairy industries huge revenues, and more importantly, possibly help change children's lifelong eating habits from not-so-healthy to healthy which may lead to significantly less consumption of meat and dairy products!

On another note, some unscrupulous dairy farmers have been accused of "rigging" milk prices which affects the prices of student school lunches. Bid rigging is often an unconscionable effort to keep profits high. Greedy, profiteering practices may be common in many industries. Just think of all the possible bid rigging opportunities that consumers may never be aware of!

SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCE: MOTHER JONES MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2003

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