School Lunch Politics by Susan Levine Page A

Physicians Task Force on Hunger in America, Hunger in America: The Growing Epidemic (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1985), 149.
    112. Ibid., 148. Also see Janet Poppendieck, Sweet Charity?: Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement (New York: Penguin, 1998).
    113. “Child Nutrition Programs: Issues for the 101st Congress,” School Food Service Research Review, Spring 1989, p. 35.
    114. Ibid.
    115. “House Republicans Oppose Further Cuts for School Lunches,” NYT, October 23, 1981.
    116. “Child Nutrition Programs: Issues for the 101st Congress,” 26–27. Similar cuts in school lunches were undertaken by Margaret Thatcher’s administration in Britain. According to one report, after 1980 the percentage of children eating school lunches in Britain dropped to only 43 in 1988. “The welfare concept of a universal meal service had been abandoned.” School meals were now a matter of family responsibility and consumer choice. John Burnett, “The Rise and Decline of School Meals in Britain,” in John Burnett and Derek J. Oddy, eds., The Origins and Development of Food Policy in Europe (London: Leicester University Press, 1994), 66–67.
    117. In 1995 the USDA still required school lunches to provide one-third of a child’s RDA for protein, vitamins A and C, iron, calcium, and calories over the course of a week. For the first time, however, the standards specified that no more than 30% of calories come from fat and no more than 10% from saturated fat. Schools had until the 1996–97 school year to alter their menus, but waivers of this requirement could be granted. See Charlene Price and Betsey Kuhn, “Public and Private Efforts for the National School Lunch Program,” Food Review, May August 1996, p. 52.
    118. Ibid., 53–54.
    119. See Ward Sinclair, “School Lunches Flunk GAO Nutrition Test,” and Richard Cohen, “Reagan’s Life Style Contradicts Policies,” both in Washington Post, September 15, 1981; Mary Thornton and Martin Schram, “U.S. Holds the Ketchup in Schools: Hold the Pickles, Hold the Relish, Hold the New School Lunch Regs,” Washington Post, September 26, 1981; “Ketchup Set to Pour Again in School Lunch Rules,” Washington Post, October 30, 1981.
    120. Ibid.
    121. “Notes on People,” NYT, September 36, 1981.
    122. Don Paarlberg, Farm and Food Policy: Issues of the 1980s (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980), p. 105. Also see “History of NSLP.” Http://USDA.gov .
    123. “U.S. Acts to Shrink School Lunch Size in Economy Move,” NYT, September 5, 1981.
    124. “School Food: New Intent,” NYT, September 14, 1981.
    E PILOGUE . F AST F OOD AND P OOR C HILDREN

    1. See ASFSA “Your Child Nutrition eSource,” www.asfsa.org/newsroom/sfsnews/legupdate0603.asp .
    2. Peter H. Rossi, Feeding the Poor: Assessing Federal Food Aid (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1998), 7. The lunch program cost in 1947 was $70 million; 1950, $119.7 million; 1960, $225.8 million; 1970, $565.5 million; 1975, $1.7 billion; 1980, $3.2 billion; 1973, $3.4 billion; and 1990, $3.7 billion. See USDA “Nutrition Program Facts,” Food and Nutrition Service, National School Lunch Program.
    3. Masao Matsumoto, “The National School Lunch Program Serves 24 Million Daily,” Food Review, October-December 1992.
    4. School lunch participation was 7.1 million in 1946; 1970, 22 million; 1980, 27 million; 1990, 24 million (reflecting Reagan era cuts); and 2003, 28.4 million (last data available). USDA “Nutrition Program Facts,” Food and Nutrition Service, National School Lunch Program.
    5. “Child Nutrition Programs: Issues for the 101st Congress,” School Food Service Research Review 13, no. 1 (1989): 35–39.
    6. “Half of Black Households Used School Lunch Program in 1980,” New York Times (hereafter, NYT), November 26, 1981. The article also notes that the