Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., shakes hands with Bertrand Weber, director of the Minneapolis Public Schools Culinary and Nutrition Services, as she gathers with school food services directors. The directors were lobbying today with the United Fresh Produce Association to keep the half-cup fruit and vegetable requirement in school meals. Standing between Stabenow and Weber is Betti Wiggins, head of the school meals program for the Detroit Public Schools. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)

Bertrand Weber, director of the Minneapolis Public Schools Culinary and Nutrition Services, said today that he believes House Education and the Workforce Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., is determined to write a child nutrition reauthorization bill with the flexibility that the School Nutrition Association has asked for.

Bertrand Weber
SNA, which represents school food service directors and the companies that make school foods, has asked for a number of changes, including whether to make the half-cup of fruits and vegetables an option up to the students.

Weber, who traveled to Washington to lobby with the United Fresh Produce Association to keep the requirement that students take a half-cup of fruits and vegetables with each meal, said that he and other school food service directors met with a Kline aide on Tuesday.

The Kline aide said that some school food service directors maintain they need flexibility and was “not very receptive” to the views of school food service directors who want to maintain the fruit and vegetable requirement, Weber said.

“It was just what we expected,” Weber added.

The Kline aide was “very vague” about the scheduling of a child nutrition reauthorization bill, Weber said. Kline has not scheduled a markup, and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., had to cancel a September 17 markup because the committee did not have scores and had not reached a bipartisan agreement.

Weber said the half-cup fruit and vegetable requirement is a “no-brainer.” Weber said he would like to see some changes in specific regulations such as “whole grain rich,” rather than flexibility, which he maintains would lead some districts to pull back on many of the healthier meal standards.

Weber said he would prefer to serve whole grains such as rice, red rice, quinoa, and kamut, an ancient wheat used in salads, in their natural state rather than in whole grain-rich foods that are likely to be processed. The companies that make school foods have adapted to the whole grain-rich requirement so that students are now served processed foods such as whole grain-rich doughnuts, he said.

Schools in middle-class districts that relied heavily on a la carte sales have had financial troubles since the new rules went into effect, Weber acknowledged. It’s hard to convince children to eat healthy when they are “bombarded” with ads selling items such as Mountain Dew-flavored chicken wings, he added.

The new school meal rules should not be a financial problem for schools that manage their food purchasing like a restaurant, he said, adding that Minneapolis spends $1.37 per meal for food.

“A peach is less expensive than a breaded chicken sandwich,” he concluded.