Our school lunch soap box.

If you've heard about the potential revamp of America's school lunch program, don't get too excited yet. The suggestions are less than amazing. From MedicineNet.com:

The report on healthy school meals suggests lunches contain no more than 650 calories for students in grades kindergarten through five; 700 calories for children in grades six to eight, and 850 for those in grades nine to 12. Breakfast calories should not exceed 500, 550 and 600, respectively, for these grade groups.

To ease the adjustment to lower salt meals, the report calls for reducing sodium over the next decade from today's average of 1,600 milligrams per lunch to 740 milligrams.

In addition, breakfasts should contain one cup of fruit, and lunches for grades nine to 12 should also contain one cup of fruit. No more than half of the fruit should come from juice, the report says.

Vegetable offerings should increase to three-quarters of a cup a day for grades kindergarten through eight, and one cup a day for grades nine to 12. Starchy vegetables, such as potatoes, should be served less often, and at least half a cup each of green leafy vegetables, orange vegetables and legumes should be provided each week, the report said.

For grains, half of the breads and pasta should be whole grain, Stallings said. Milk served with school meals should be skim or 1% fat, she added.

Meat with lunches should be kept to about two ounces for all grades, but can be higher for students in high school. For breakfast, meat should be kept to about one ounce a day for children in kindergarten through grade eight, and two ounces for high school students, the report noted.

While the sodium and calorie restriction parts are okay (although I can't wait to see high school football teams across the country training for 2-3 hours after class on 850 calorie lunches), the rest is lame. Juice is not fruit and therefore should not be considered fruit. Half of grains should be whole grains? And my favorite, "at least half a cup each of green leafy vegetables, orange vegetables and legumes should be provided each week."

Each week?!? For the record, that's one-tenth the weekly amount of non-starchy vegetables suggested by the USDA's food pyramid for boys between the ages of 9 and 18.

And furthermore, these are merely suggestions from the Institute of Medicine. They have yet to go through the USDA, who formally decide these guidelines. For the record, during the Reagan era, the USDA suggested ketchup and pickle relish both count as veggies. During the Clinton era, they proposed salsa count. Recently, they approved batter-coated french fries as produce.

Of course, these weird nutritional improvisations are often economically motivated. But the money they save by cutting federal school lunch funding is a tiny fraction of what we spend on, well, just about everything else and they probably lose three times that fighting childhood obesity.

So good luck with that, kids.

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And on a side note, I'd like to point out the obnoxious coverage given to the issue by ABC:

But perhaps one of the biggest changes -- and one that is supported by both child nutritionists and a celebrity chef -- is an emphasis on adding new equipment and infrastructure to school kitchens to speed the changes along.

British TV chef Jamie Oliver told ABC News through a representative that the largest change schools could make to improve menus was to "teach nutrition services staff how to cook freshly prepared meals." Oliver said this would require training, better ways of storing fresh food, and in many cases adding equipment and facilities.

In early 2010, Oliver will begin starring in "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution," a show on ABC where he will remake the school lunch menu in Huntington, W. Va. The British chef had previously embarked on a project in the United Kingdom where he remade the meals at a school there to make them healthier.

Nice way to use raising childhood obesity rates to plug your new show, ABC. Like I really give a flying flip about the opinion of The Naked Chef. Tell me, Jamie, what's the nutritional value of the "crispy waffles & maple bananas" recipe on the opening page of the recipe section of your website?