Amid a flurry of regulations, the Biden administration is desperately trying to ram through ahead of the November election a new nanny state rule that will restrict added sugars in school meals.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture finalized a new rule that restricts added sugars in school meals for the first time. The Biden administration touted the rule as “a significant step toward advancing the Administration’s national strategy to end hunger and reduce diet-related disease by 2030.”
“Like teachers, classrooms, books, and computers, nutritious school meals are an essential part of the school environment, and when we raise the bar for school meals, it empowers our kids to achieve greater success inside and outside of the classroom,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.
The rule will gradually require schools to restrict the amount of added sugars in their meal programs over the next three years. Sodium levels will also be limited, and schools will be encouraged to serve tofu, nuts, eggs, and seeds.
For the Biden administration, this regulation exemplifies yet another top-down regulatory effort that imposes the policy whims of liberal Washington, D.C., bureaucrats on everyday people, while removing their ability to combat it at the local level.
The nutritional value of meals served at public school cafeterias is a perfectly valid policy concern for a local school board, superintendent, or even a school principal. Washington, D.C., is the last place these decisions should be made.
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Local school districts have their own elected officials that govern the day-to-day operations of public schools, and are actually in touch with the needs and desires of the local community. These officials are far better equipped to regulate what ingredients are in school meals than are faceless bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. If the local school boards want to restrict added sugars in school meals, they have the power and the means to do so.
By enacting this regulation, the Biden administration is attacking local control of education and again imposing a nanny state regulation that imposes a one-size-fits-all policy on the millions of students who attend the nation’s thousands of school districts.
