There are all kinds of labels on food these days. You may have seen foods in the grocery store labeled as “natural,” “organic,” or “GMO-free.” We could argue for days over whether these labels make a product healthier or tastier. However, I have yet to meet a person who believed that the quality of a food product was improved because the farm on which it was grown employed union workers. Yet, HR 8450, cleverly packaged as the “Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids Act,” would create incentives for schools that sourced their school lunch foods from producers that have unionized labor, participate in animal-welfare programs, obtain something called “worker justice certification,” or produce food “in an environmentally sustainable manner.” No child will be able to taste the difference in the food, nor will any of this food be even a smidgen healthier. All of these goals are purely political, masked by a label touting “healthy meals.”
In fact, the bill takes matters a step further by actively prioritizing politics over health for students. The bill would create a program for schools to completely cut meat out of the menu. Because this program has never been tried at this scale before, there is no way of knowing if students can get a wholesome meal from a completely vegetarian diet. Even if growing boys and girls could theoretically get enough protein from an all-vegetable diet if they eat everything on their plates, no teacher or lunch lady can force veggie burgers down the throats of hundreds of kids. If kids don’t want something, they don’t eat it, and that means less nutrition and more food waste. This kind of experimentation on our children is rotten to the core.
From the classroom to the bathroom, our schools are quickly becoming political battlegrounds. Once the left has politicized the lunchroom, there will be no place where the needs of students are put first. HR 8450 is an insult to the lunch ladies throughout America who work hard to provide tasty and nutritious meals to growing students. They don’t deserve more federal government oversight. I raise my milk carton in appreciation for their service, and I hope parents, teachers, and even politicians everywhere will do likewise.
