Menu Labeling and other Headaches

Those who like the government to dictate and intervene on micro level applauded the draft rules released by the Food and Drug Administration last week that will require the disclosure of calorie and nutritional information on menus or menu boards in chain restaurants and retail food establishments - including calorie posting for food sold through vending machines. Those seeing these rules authorized by the Affordable Care Act as another intrusion of governmnet on personal choice and daily behavior in strongly against it. A case can be made on both sides but it is safe to bet that either menu choices are going to shrink in our favorite restaurants or menus will start to look like encyclopedias.

This is in addition to another food fight looming with the first re-write of school-menu rules in 15 years.
The skirmish is over the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s efforts, prompted by the recent passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, to rewrite the rules about meals served through the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs. At stake is what will and won’t be offered in the breakfasts and lunches schools serve millions of children every weekday. (Education Week 4/5/11). Stakeholders include farmers, food companies, cafeteria managers and off course, lobbyists with the occasional celebrity chef weighing in. This update is long overdue and much needed as such a large percentage of our student population receive their primary meals from the school cafeteria.

With budgets being cut in all public schools and events such as the veto by a state governor recently on a passed bill to mandate physical education in one state, it is encouraging to learn about a new Physical Activity Initiative by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank founded in 2007 by former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and George Mitchell. The group aims to develop policy solutions across political party lines. The goal is to make policy recommendations on food, health, fitness and nutrition issues. Let's hope they ask for input from folks with boots on the ground!
Michael Cordier