Donald Trump’s impulsiveness and vindictiveness has been well documented during his presidency.
After all, this is a man who learned about business from the infamous and loathsome attorney Roy Cohn.
Today he outdid himself, proposing new school lunch guidelines that will gut changes made by Michelle Obama to get more fruit and veggies on the school menu: a move that comes on the former first lady’s birthday.
The Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Food and Nutrition Service, said it is proposing new rules ‘to simplify meal service and reduce food waste.’
That would include ‘increasing flexibility in the “vegetable subgroups” requirements for school lunches.’
But the changes would allow schools to cut the amount of vegetables and fruits required at lunch and breakfasts while giving them the ability to offer more pizza, burgers and fries instead.
It would also undo rules championed by Michelle Obama as part of her Let’s Move initiative and The Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010.
The former First Lady made healthy eating a signature issue during her time in the White House.
‘I am determined to work with folks across this country to change the way a generation of kids thinks about food and nutrition,’ she said.
Trump, however, is known for his love of fast food, with McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken being his personal favorites.
The president will eat an occasional side salad, as long as it’s covered in blue cheese.
Consumer groups slammed the proposed school meal changes.
‘The proposed rule would allow anything that might be allowable as an entrée on any one school day to be served as an a la carte item every single day. In practice, if finalized, this would create a huge loophole in school nutrition guidelines, paving the way for children to choose pizza, burgers, French fries, and other foods high in calories, saturated fat or sodium in place of balanced school meals every day,’ Center for Science in the Public Interest Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs Colin Schwartz said in a statement.
‘The Trump administration proposal also would limit the variety of vegetables served at lunch and allow schools to reduce the amount of fruit served with some breakfasts. (If past is prologue, lobbyists for the potato industry likely have replacements in mind.),’ Schwartz added.
Donald Trump wants America’s kids to eat more like him.
The USDA oversees nutritional programs that feed nearly 30 million students at 99,000 schools.
About two-thirds of those kids qualify as low-income and receive meals free or for a reduced price.
Low-income kids are at a higher risk for obesity and are less likely to have healthy meals at home, making school lunches and breakfasts an important alternative for them.
Additionally, the new rules would make it ‘simpler to offer meats or meat alternates’ at school meals.
And they would cut the fruit serving guidelines from from one cup to a half cup.
For school lunches, the new rules would allow potatoes as a vegetable everyday and would allow them to offer pizza and burgers over more nutritious choices.
It’s not the first time the USDA has changed school meal guidelines.
In March, they allowed school breakfast programs to ‘credit any vegetable offered, including potatoes and other starchy vegetables, in place of fruit.’
Michelle Obama celebrated her 56th birthday today, so of course, one of the first to honor her on her big day was her hubby Barack Obama.
The former president shared a swoon-worthy black-and-white photo collage of the two of them to Instagram Friday. “In every scene, you are my star, @MichelleObama! Happy birthday, baby!” he captioned his post.
Within an hour, the post had already racked up more than a million likes.