Court vacates Trump's rollback of school nutrition rules
By: By CANDICE CHOI, AP Food & Health Writer
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The district court in Maryland said the administration did not give adequate public notice of the change, which had gone into effect for this past school year. The ruling was in response to a lawsuit brought by the Center for Science in the Public Interest and Healthy School Food Maryland and represented by Democracy Forward.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it does not comment on ongoing litigation and it’s unknown how the agency will proceed. The agency oversees the national school lunch and breakfast programs, which serve millions of free and reduced-price meals daily.
For now, closed schools that have continued distributing meals during the coronavirus pandemic are operating under different standards and have been able to request flexibility on nutrition standards.
“None of this applies under the current situation. This is for when we resume post-pandemic school operations,”said Laura MacCleery, senior policy director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
But Diane Pratt-Heavner of the School Nutrition Association, which represents cafeteria operators and food suppliers, said tighter budgets and strained supply chains could make it even harder to meet stricter nutrition standards once schools resume.
“This is coming at a very difficult and uncertain time,” she said.
It’s the latest twist in the years-long clash over nutrition standards championed by former first lady Michelle Obama. The 2012 rules required schools to transition over time entirely to whole grain-rich options and gradually reduce sodium levels. But school lunch operators opposed the standards, saying new recipes were resulting in mushy pastas and cardboard-like pizzas, and that students were throwing away more food.
To allow cafeteria operators time to adapt, the USDA had been postponing compliance dates and granting waivers to temporarily let schools continue serving select refined grains.
Then in December 2018, the agency issued a rule saying it would give schools greater flexibility by reverting back to a previous standard that at least half of grains served to students be whole grain-rich. It also eliminated the final sodium target.
In a decision vacating that rule Monday, the Maryland court said the USDA had previously “spoke exclusively in terms of delaying compliance requirements, not abandoning the compliance requirements altogether."
Under the relaxed rule this school year, Pratt-Heavner said cafeteria operators had reported mostly sticking to the whole grain-rich foods they had already incorporated into their menus. But she said some took advantage of the option to serve some harder-to-replace refined grain items like biscuits and tortillas, without having to file paperwork.
The lawsuit by CSPI did not challenge the relaxed standard allowing low-fat chocolate milk. Previously, flavored milk had to be non-fat.
I am finding that some of the Fetch Seed functions are not inserting the seed image, even when clicking on the box to include associated images, which requires having to use the Fetch Image button. In turn, this requires having to copy the image location or url in order to get it to insert.
Also...just curious...when the Quote is chosen and inserted in the Quote bar, why does the same quote with the quotation mark showing up in the first line of the seed text? That seems to be redundant and unnecessary since it is already posted in the Quote bar.
Even if there is no Quote used in the Quote bar, there is still the quotation mark showing up for the first paragraph of the seed text. This tends to be confusing.
I may be a bit dense on this, but, what is the purpose of the quotation mark in the seed text if there is a different quotation already used in the Quote bar, and that portion of the seed text has been removed from the seed body?
Can you clarify that for me? It makes the seed text a bit confusing with the same Quotes called out in two different places, or even two different Quotes called out in two different places.
I hope I am not confusing you...
The seed image (the one designated by the author to go with the article) comes over if it is valid. You never have to click the box to include media. Thing is, the author might not have designated an image and/or Fetch may not find a suitable substitute image. This is all a function of how the author wrote the article.
That only happens if the author picked the first paragraph of the article as their description. Fetch has no control over what the author does. The author determines the text that summarizes the article, Fetch just plugs it in.
The quote at the top is for the summary or principle quote of the article. The quote below the large 'seeded content ' button is for the content of the seed itself. There are supposed to be two quote because both the seed summary and the seed content come from the author.
When you find something that seems odd, give me a link to it so that I can inspect it.
Thanks for the explanation, TiG. It does make sense now in how it is related to the author and how they wrote it and not to the Fetch function.
Will do.
Ok...will do.
But, if I need to add a image when there is not one with an article, or not one Fetch will use, do I look for one on s website and then use the link to it to use with the Fetch Image button? I don't have to save it to my hard drive and then load it from there? An I understanding this right?
Correct. It is best to use Fetch Image rather than download. Really, in every case I would use Fetch Image unless you need to edit the image or you already have it on your machine.
Sorry for the violations....I get a bit into my thinking and don't watch what I am saying at times.
Yeah, such a trouble-maker.
Perrie and I were doing some testing on a new moderator function.
OK...will do.