I wish I could tell you that this is something that we didn’t already know. After USDA mandates were passed on “healthy” school lunches in 2012 and the Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010, a recent University of Vermont study indicates that while students need to fill up their plate with a fruit or vegetable-as required by USDA, the fruit or vegetable does not end up in their stomachs…

…it ends up in the trash!

Sadly, as this study indicates, food waste as a result of FLOTUS’ revamped school lunch program is up 56%. So much for compassion and sensitivity for starving third-world nations.

“We saw this as a great opportunity to access the policy change and ask a really important question, which was, ‘Does requiring a child to select a fruit or vegetable under the updated national school lunch program guidelines that came into effect in 2012 correspond with increased fruit and vegetable consumption?’ “The answer was clearly no.”-lead study author Sarah Amin

According to Science Daily, Amin and her co-authors documented almost 500 tray observations over 10 visits to two elementary schools in the Northeast before implementation of the USDA guideline and almost twice as many observations afterwards. Among the schools surveyed, 40-60 percent of the students qualifies for free and reduced lunch.

Seems the Food Fuzz, (AKA Michelle Obama) is busted. Sure, the kids will willingly put a fruit or vegetable on their plate. But, alas, Queen FLOTUS, you cannot make them eat it! Perhaps if our children had the menu options offered to them that Sasha and Malia Obama have at The Sidwell Friends School:

Philly cheese steaks? What? No tofu?

FLOTUS’ site, LetsMove.gov, tells another story:

As the school bells begin to ring welcoming in the next school year, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation released a new national survey demonstrating that Americans clearly support keeping school meals healthy.

In 2010, Congress passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act with bipartisan support to help ensure all American children have the nutritious food they need to perform well in school and grow into healthy adults. And the American public has noticed and appreciated the healthier school meal standards as the survey shows that 67 percent say the nutritional quality of food in their local schools is excellent or good, which is up from only 26 percent in 2010 before the standards were put into place.

Some key findings include:

-More than 9 out of 10 Americans say nutrition standards in school meals are important.
-86 percent support today’s school nutrition standards saying they should stay in place or be made stronger.
-88 percent support government-funded farm to school programs.

Well, of course most of us want healthy meal standards for our children and don’t want to pump them full of Coca Cola and Twinkies on the daily. Of course, we as parents would appreciate healthy choices placed in front of our children in the school lunch line. What we don’t appreciate is an insult to our common sense and intellect by painting these lunches as “healthier options”:

Delicious.

Nutritious. (Mystery Mush. It does a body good.)

And, who could resist these delectable “Italian Dunkers”? (These are popular at my child’s school.) Wait a minute. Can we say “Italian”? Are we going to offend someone? (My grandmother would be rolling over in her grave right about now.)

I also know as a parent how the USDA mandates have impacted other activities for our school. I sat in on a PTA meeting to get the specifics. Up until last year when the USDA did their crackdown, our school would sell popcorn on Fridays. The children looked forward to Popcorn Fridays. When the USDA mandates came down, it was specified that the popcorn was no longer allowed to be sold at recess and if we sold it and they got wind of it, they would pull all free and reduced lunch funding. But, of course, we had their blessing to pop it and give it away for free! The monies from these popcorn sales went to the PTA who, in turn for our school, provides funding for educational field trips, supplemental supplies for the teachers, WatchDOG Dads for the school grounds and free community events for students and families. A few thousand dollars in sales went out the window to provide some of the above for our students when “Popcorn” was removed as a line item from the PTA budget because they could not sell it.

The ongoing rhetoric of Michelle Obama is that she, somehow knows what is best for our kids. Kids are smarter than she gives them credit for and so are we, as parents. Obama may have indirectly taken care of the childhood obesity epidemic in the sense that kids are throwing their lunch away but for some of these kids, sadly, this is the only meal they get throughout the day. As a parent volunteer at my child’s school, I have seen Kindergarteners come in for the day without breakfast. This alone makes you wonder what they go home to at night.

Which makes you wonder even more…is Michelle Obama wondering? Go ahead, minions. Load up on those Brussels sprouts! And kids, get excited! This Friday marks the first ever Soy Nut Friday! Get your delicious hot bag of soy nuts right here!

Eat up, Nanny FLOTUS is watching you!