Senators protective of potato in face of USDA limits
— -- You say potato? The USDA says "starchy vegetable."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture wants to limit how many starchy potatoes American schoolchildren eat each week as part of the federal school lunch program, beginning next year.
A bipartisan group of senators from potato states such as Maine, Idaho and Colorado says the USDA proposal is half-baked, and lawmakers will try to block the rule Monday with an amendment to the 2012 agriculture spending bill.
"The much-maligned potato is actually a very affordable, nutritious vegetable," says Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, leading the pro-potato forces in the Senate. "The issue is really in the preparation."
Collins concedes she's biased. Potatoes are Maine's most important cash crop.
Potatoes are also relatively inexpensive. The USDA estimates that the new menu will cost schools about 14 cents more per meal — more than the 6 cents in subsidy they'll get from the government. Total cost to the schools and federal taxpayers: $6.8 billion over five years.
For Collins and the potato industry, the issue is important not just for school lunches, but for the message the USDA's action would send about the healthiness of potatoes.
"It's been a challenging few years," says Mark Szymanski, a spokesman for the National Potato Council, which has launched potatoesinschools.com to rally Americans to their cause. "The Atkins craze, that definitely has had a lasting impact. Now, it just seems like the potato is the next silver bullet Americans are looking for."
Kevin Concannon, the USDA undersecretary for nutrition programs, says the nutrition standards represent some of the most significant changes to school lunch menus since President Harry Truman created the lunch subsidy program in 1946. Schools that follow the federal guidelines get a subsidy — in cash and food — for every meal served, with higher subsidies for low-income children.
Limiting starchy vegetables is just one effort to limit the caloric intake of schoolchildren, but it's become a political hot potato, Concannon says.
"It is a very popular vegetable, and one that we champion, actually," says Concannon, a Maine native. "The potato industry has overreacted to this."
Nothing against the potato, he says, but it often crowds out more nutrient-rich dark green vegetables.
New USDA statistics show most of the 31 million schoolchildren served through the school lunch program are offered about two servings of potatoes a week — which would be the limit of starchy vegetables under the new standards.
Kids are often eating more, however, by going up for seconds.
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