$3.2 BILLION WASTE AT OBAMA'S DIRECTION

Obama Administration's New School Lunch Tab to Cost States Billions

The old adage that there's no such thing as a free lunch (although the other guy might pick up the tab once in a blue moon) will haunt states under the Obama administration's new school meal standards.

Unfortunately for the states, they are the other guy who could be forced to swallow the $3.2 billion bill over five years to accommodate the new standards, which replace breaded patties and canned fruit with fresh tomatoes and chef salad. It's a small consolation to them that the tally is less than half of the original proposal's tab.


The first major change to school meals in 15 years, unveiled Jan. 25, advocates healthier meals. Municipalities and states are expected see added costs from buying more fruit and whole grains and preparing meals.

States endorse the healthy concept, but the bill sticks in their craws. In fact, a bill introduced this month in Arizona would change The Grand Canyon State's law so schools can drop out of the national lunch program instead of following the new rules.

"There is no escaping the argument that this is a healthier menu for kids," Arizona State Sen. Rich Crandall, a Republican representing Mesa, told Bloomberg News. "The problem is they are mandating these new standards with no new funding to back it up."

President Barack Obama sought the changes because one-third of U.S. children are overweight or obese, contributing to $3 billion in annual medical costs, according to administration. The U.S. Agriculture Department is establishing minimum and maximum calorie levels, based on age and reducing the sodium content in meals. The original draft proposed in June would have cost $6.8 billion over five years.

The new plan dropped a daily requirement for meat or a meat alternative with breakfast. Local governments denounced the initial cost, and companies lobbied successfully to block its limits on potatoes and tomato paste in pizza.

The new standards "are one of the most important advances in nutrition in decades," said Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director at the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group. "They're much needed, given high childhood obesity rates and the poor state of our children's diets."

The USDA had wanted to change the amount of tomato paste that earns a vegetable credit from one-eighth of a cup to a half cup, said Corey Henry, a spokesman for the American Frozen Food Institute, a McLean, Va.-based trade organization that represents 90 percent of U.S. frozen-food production.

"Tomato paste is incredibly nutrient dense, which is why USDA's current standard works," Henry said in an email to Bloomberg News.

ConAgra, based in Omaha, Neb., and Schwan Food Co. were among companies that had argued against some requirements in the initial proposal, which would have potentially hurt their business. Schwan's Food Service Inc. of Marshall, Minn., holds a 70 percent market share on pizza in the $9.5 billion school food-service industry.

U.S. schools served 2.9 billion free lunches as part of the National School Lunch Program in fiscal 2010, as well as about 500 million reduced-price lunches and 1.8 billion full-price lunches, according to the draft for the rules.