WASHINGTON, Apr 30, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Lisa
Murkowski, R-Alaska, have introduced legislation requiring nutrition standards
for food sold in school vending machines.
"In all but a handful of cities and states, junk food is still out of control in
schools," Margo G. Wootan, nutrition policy director of the Center for Science
in the Public Interest, said in a statement.
"The federal government spends billions on the school lunch program, but that
investment is undercut by the sale of soda and other junk foods. Parents want to
know the money they send their son or daughter to school with will be spent on
healthy foods, not disease-promoting junk."
Current law only prohibits the sale of "foods of minimal nutritional value" in
the cafeteria during meal times, but the standards, created in 1979, were
drafted with an eye toward ensuring that school foods had a modicum of certain
nutrients, such as protein and calcium.
As a consequence, school's can't sell calorie-free seltzer water, but pizza,
doughnuts and cheeseburgers can be sold without limits on calories, saturated or
trans fat, or sodium. And because the nutrition standards only apply in the
cafeteria, most vending machines can sell virtually anything.
Two-thirds of states still rely on the outdated national standards, Wootan said.
URL: www.upi.com
Copyright 2009 by United Press International