There’s a line in ‘Pulp Fiction’ where the character of Brett, played by Frank Whaley, says to Jules Winfield (Samuel L. Jackson), “We came into this with the best intentions.” Winfield doesn’t respond and instead, shoots Brett’s friend, ‘Flock of Seagulls’ dead.
The moral is, Winfield had no interest in hearing about Brett’s “intentions” because, in the end, it didn’t matter.
It is a similar situation with the school lunch nutrition program concocted by former First Lady Michelle Obama. She’s not happy at all the Trump administration is rolling it back:
Michelle Obama criticizes Trump administration's decision on school lunch rules: “Think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap.” pic.twitter.com/Yac03GaSfi
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) May 12, 2017
There is nothing wrong with ending a program that did not work. But to people with the mindset of Michelle Obama, they had the best of intentions. Therefore the program is a “success.”
The problem is, the program is not anywhere near a success. Here are three reasons why it’s a failure:
1. School cafeterias are losing money with the program – The government nanny program costs too much money. Over two years ago, food providers were surveyed about the program:
The School Nutrition Association, which is planning to demand changes to the meal requirements to make the food more attractive to students, found that 50.35 percent of cafeteria officials surveyed expect that serving the food will “exceed revenue” next year.
“Of the 92 percent of respondents reporting that rising costs pose a ‘serious’ or ‘moderate’ challenge to their programs, 70 percent indicated ‘serious,’” said the survey from the group that represents 35,000 school nutrition professionals.
It’s hard to feed kids at all when there’s no money to do it.
2. Kids dropped out of the school lunch program after implementation of the new standards – After participation in school lunch programs had increased over a decade, Michelle Obama’s new rules made it so that over a million kids dropped it:
The National School Lunch Program saw a sharp decline in participation once the healthy standards went into effect during the 2012-2013 school year. A total of 1,086,000 students stopped buying school lunch, after participation had increased steadily for nearly a decade.
The report found that 321 districts left the National School Lunch Program altogether, many of which cited the new standards as a factor.
The decline was “influenced by changes made to comply with the new lunch content and nutrition standards,” state and local officials said.
3. Kids are not eating the food and why should they? It’s disgusting. – The food was so bad, kids started tweeting photos of the food and tagging Michelle Obama:
@MichelleObama so this is the "healthy school lunch"… pic.twitter.com/qgxL5ez9zh
— Tyler Clements (@TylerClements6) April 3, 2014
All we get for lunch today. Thank you Michelle Obama pic.twitter.com/1rACNXM9aP
— Brady Justice (@BradyJustice2) March 12, 2014
@MichelleObama my school lunch while eating with my daughter. Only other choice was a scoop of salad. This is sad! pic.twitter.com/5iPvg2nsAa
— Megan Howell (@Howelady) March 14, 2014
Look! A ketchup packet! Ask Paulie Walnuts and Chris Moltisanti just how nutritious they are, seeing as that’s all they had to eat while lost in the Pine Barrens.
Keeping something around due to best intentions is a waste of time. There is nothing that shows Michelle Obama’s program was successful. It deserved to get the hook.
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