District insists kids like eating pumpkin parfaits, roasted brussel sprouts

DONEGAL, Pa. – Students like eating brussel sprouts. No really they do – at least according to Donegal, Pennsylvania school officials.

They insist kids like the new school lunch menu changes inspired by First Lady Michelle Obama, which reportedly include pumpkin parfaits and fresh roasted brussel sprouts.

But April Hershey, superintendent in the nearby Warwick district, admitted all is not well.

“We struggle with continued mandates that limit what we know to be best practices for our students,” she told Lancaster Online.

Despite claiming to know better than the Washington, D.C bureaucrats handing down those mandates, Hershey’s district has no plans to drop out of the National School Lunch Program.

An equally dire warning was reported from Cocalico School District superintendent Bruce Sensenig.

District officials “are on the edge of actually pricing ourselves out of business. We cannot raise our prices enough to pay for what is required by the mandates to in turn serve what is legally considered ‘good’ foods,” he says.

Participation is down in Cocalico’s program, which has resulted in higher lunch prices for students.

Common sense says higher prices will drive down consumption. But who cares about Economics 101 when there’s “healthy” food to be eaten?

Eastern Lancaster County superintendent Robert Hollister tells the newspaper his district would not consider dropping out of Michelle Obama’s lunch plan because they “depend” on the federal funds.

Students have asked not to have fruit and vegetable servings put on their trays, “but we must do that anyway,” he told the paper.

Michelle Obama recently claimed credit for creating a “cultural shift” with her so-called anti-obesity efforts.

“Right now, we’re truly at a pivotal moment, a tipping point when the message is just starting to break through,” the first lady said. “And if we keep pushing forward we have the potential to transform the health of an entire generation of young people,” she was quoted as saying.

But if that doesn’t succeed, at least the Greek yogurt and brussel sprout lobbyists will be happy.

Via: EAG

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