Out to lunch: Mind-blowing federal rules make school meals an ordeal
An estimated 530,000 tons of food and 45 million gallons of milk are wasted in our nation’s school cafeterias annually — 31% of vegetables and 25% of milk purchased.Taxpayers lay out $1.7 billion at the front end to buy and cook this squandered food, and more on the back end to truck it to landfills.Blame it on our federal school lunch regulations.I lead a network of 57 charter schools serving 22,000 students.At a school we’re building in The Bronx, we’re creating a restaurant-quality kitchen so we can cook high-quality food from scratch.However, Washington’s many inane and wasteful requirements make that aim virtually impossible.For example, we must serve fruits and vegetables to students who refuse to eat them.Even if it’s the last day of school and a child has thrown out his apple for 179 days in a row, we have to give him another one.But the biggest problem with federal school-lunch rules is their mind-blowing complexity.The regulations run 47,920 words — nearly seven times that of the Constitution and all 27 amendments combined.I’d like to hire a cook who can make affordable, healthy meals like roast chicken, scalloped potatoes and hearty soups, someone who keeps costs down by throwing leftover vegetables into a stew and using what’s in season or on sale.But the regulations prohibit any such improvisation.They require us to use standardized recipes, tested to ensure they meet federal requirements, and to follow them religiously. The rules are so complicated that any cook I hire would also need a law degree. They specify five different categories of vegetables: dark green; red/orange; beans, peas and lentils; starch, and other.
We must use minimum amounts of each of these five subgroups every week.And not equal amounts, mind you.That would be too easy.We must serve ¾ cups per week of red/orange vegetables but only ½ cup of dark green ones.
Unless the dark green vegetables are leafy greens, in which case you need a full cup.And don’t m...