The Trump administration is pausing enforcement of an Obama-era plan to further reduce the amount of salt in school lunches.
The Obama administration had set targets that envisioned school reducing the amount of sodium in school meals each year.
But the Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service announced Wednesday that it would keep the current targets for sodium levels reductions unchanged through 2019. Those targets are currently not more than 1,230 mg per meal for elementary, 1,360mg for middle and 1,420 mg for high schools.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has said previously that relaxing the restrictions is necessary because children simply don’t eat the healthier meals.
But Margo Wootan with the Center for Science in the Public interest said the decision is “putting children’s health at risk.”
(AP)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
3 Responses
Reducing sodium in our food intake is one of the easiest ways of improving nutrition and reducing a variety of illnesses. There is zero rationale for this change other than the Trumpkopf’s obsession with undoing everything Obama. We fought the battle in our shul about 4 or 5 years ago when we tried to change the foods served at Kiddush and simchas….for some diehards, , serving fatty and salty foods was Torah Moshe m’Saini and an obligatory part of our mesorah from the alte heim.
While I may not be a medical professional, here is my lay opinion.
The problems with these types of mass programs are many. For one, they do not consider what each individual child eats outside of the school. In fact, a low intake of sodium is also very dangerous (muscle functions on sodium, and the heart is a muscle – and also studies have shown that too little sodium adversely affect insulin and cholesterol). In 2013, the recommended daily intake (for adults) in Canada jumped form 1500 mg per day to 2000 mg per day. So, in fact, if the child does not eat outside of school, then the “maximum” salt intake in this program barely meets the minimum level.
The fact is that all evidence shows that lowering salt intake lowers blood pressure by only a small amount. (Blood pressure is the main concern with high salt intake). It is arguably more dangerous to have too little salt than too much (as long as the amount is reasonable).
So all in all, the sum total of evidence is that there is no “net” gain from massive program like this (as opposed to individual tailoring for each person).
From the article it seems that they’re not eating the meals because there’s not enough salt?? That’s ridiculous