- The federal school lunch initiative as experienced by school districts in rural New York [Sarah Harris, North Country Public Radio]
- Europe’s Ugly Fruit movement wants to reclaim for consumers tons of food rejected for appearance, sometimes by marketers and sometimes by regulators [NYT]
- Expect uptick in food labeling suits after Supreme Court decision approving suit in Pom Wonderful v. Coca-Cola [Glenn Lammi, WLF; FedSoc Blog; more, Mayer Brown]
- “Biggest secret” of glutamic acid, of umami and MSG fame, “may be that there was never anything wrong with it at all” [BuzzFeed]
- Cottage food win: New Jersey lawmakers unanimously back right to sell homemade goodies [Institute for Justice]
- Celebrity-driven “Fed Up” film is “strident stalking-horse for a Bloombergian agenda” [Jeff Stier, Baylen Linnekin]
- Young persons, especially college students, drink much more than they used to. Right? Wrong [Michelle Minton, Andrew Stuttaford]
Posts Tagged ‘school lunch’
Lunch Lady 1, First Lady 0
A House panel has voted to allow school districts to opt out temporarily from much-protested nutrition standards [Washington Post, earlier] While the Obama administration and its allies have chosen to blame Big Food for the reverse, the capital has not been short on firsthand testimony from school lunch directors about thrown-away offerings, declining student participation and other woes. [Washington Post, School Nutrition Association]
More: Nick Gillespie/Time (“if we can’t trust our schools to figure out how best to fill their students’ stomachs, why the hell are we forcing our children to attend such institutions in the first place?”), Baylen Linnekin (“She’s right. The House GOP is playing politics. They’re just not doing it as pervasively—or as deftly—as she and her colleagues are.”)
Food roundup
- “Particularly relevant …is the uncontested fact that Defendants – as manufacturers of [high-fructose corn syrup] – do not control how much HFCS is used in the finished products that Plaintiff consumed.” [New York federal court dismissing case, h/t Nicki Neily]
- New frontier of public health disapproval: Girl Scout cookies [NPR]
- “Former Kellogg Co. CEO Carlos Gutierrez says food industry is under attack by FDA” [MLive]
- Whole milk, least processed of widely available milk varieties, would be banned in Connecticut childcares if pending bill passes [Elizabeth Nolan Brown]
- House-passed expansion of Jones Act domestic-flag rules for food aid would harm hungry recipients and US farmers alike [Coyote]
- “Archaic distribution laws” hamper craft-beer sector [Steve Hindy, NY Times, related Nick Gillespie (Florida)]
- Facing mounting fiasco in school lunch program, feds double down [Baylen Linnekin, Reason]
Schools roundup
- Excellent Mark Oppenheimer column cites new Cornell study: students deprived of whole milk and chocolate milk as choices “drank less milk, threw more milk away, and bought fewer school lunches over all” [New York Times]
- “The process of tying curricular standards to federal money actually helps create the ‘ideological circus’ that [David] Brooks decries.” [Rick Hills, Prawfsblawg on Common Core]
- School choice lawsuits and legislation news updates from Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, and elsewhere [Jason Bedrick, Cato]
- More applications of New Jersey’s pioneering “anti-bullying” law. And will it stand up in court? [Hans Bader, earlier here, etc.]
- “When one New Zealand school tossed its playground rules and let students risk injury, the results were surprising” [Sarah Boesfeld, National Post (Canada)] Plenty of discussion of new Hanna Rosin piece “The Overprotected Kid” [Atlantic via Tabarrok; a contrasting view from Max Kennerly]
- News you can use about applicability of Institutional Review Board regs to research on oneself [Michelle Meyer, Bill of Health] Another new blog about IRBs [Suffocated Science via Instapundit]
- Community college suspends professor over Google Plus share of Game of Thrones quote on daughter’s T-shirt [Bergen Record]
Schools roundup
- “Zero Tolerance Hurts Kids and Ruins Schools” [A. Barton Hinkle] “Teen’s military plans on hold after spending 13 days in jail” [WOIO, Ohio]
- Who knew the visiting scholar of conservative thought would turn out to be conservative? [Boulder Daily Camera re: U. of Colorado attacks on Steven Hayward]
- Case by case, courts take away right of taxpayers, lawmakers to regulate school spending [Steve Gunn, EAG News; earlier here, etc.]
- Heather Mac Donald on gangs and the case for school discipline [NRO] More: Ruben Navarrette, CNN.
- Editorial board endorses parent liability for school bullying [Newark Star-Ledger]
- States to GAO: feds’ school lunch changes aren’t going well [Jason Bedrick, Cato; Washington Post]
- Proposed Rhode Island law: “No Child Under 7th Grade Shall Get On or Off School Bus Without a Guardian” [Free-Range Kids] St. Louis: “Mom Arrested for Not Signing School Sign-In Book” [same]
Schools roundup
- The price of yielding to demands for “trigger warnings” in college curricula, discussions [Jenny Jarvie/TNR, Jill Filipovic/Guardian, Laurie Essig/Chronicle of Higher Ed, Philip Wythe/Rutgers Daily Targum (trigger warning needed on Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway”?)]
- A sleeping giant awakes? Asian-Americans oppose attempt to restore racial preferences in Calif. higher ed [Pasadena Star-News]
- Coming soon: huge expansion in school feeding program as feds fund meals for all students in schools where >40% qualify [Baylen Linnekin] More: fiasco unfolds in new school lunch regs [Jason Bedrick]
- Kansas Supreme Court seizes control over school spending [my new Cato post, earlier here, here, and here, more background]
- More coverage of Sen. Diaz’s scheme in New York to require parents of school-age kids to take parenting classes [Deseret News and thanks for quote, earlier here and here]
- Staff at Minnesota school, worried about following rules, “opted to simply let the girl freeze” [Jason Bedrick/Cato]
- College discipline furor: Can she consent to sex after drinking? [Margaret Wente, Cathy Young]
- Infant fell through bleachers at soccer game, Yakima, Wash.-area school district to pay $6.9 million [Insurance Journal]
Megan McArdle at Cato
She talked about her new book The Up Side of Down, on failure, which has many policy implications (and quotes me on “blamestorming”); her examples included Hollywood production cost overruns, New Coke, L.A.’s healthy school lunch program, and (in the book) Avenue Q. Arnold Kling contributed very illuminating comments, and my Cato colleague Dalibor Rohac moderated. More here (including audio podcast version) and at Arnold Kling’s site.
Schools roundup
- Following outcry, Ohio lawmaker drops proposal to license homeschool parents [Jason Bedrick/Cato, sequel]
- In Colorado U. crackdown on professor’s deviance course, university retracts claim that professor needed to clear controversial teaching with institutional review board [Inside Higher Ed, Zachary Schrag and sequel, background on IRBs]
- The purely fictional, entirely bloodless “assassin” game — which I remember was played in my own high school years ago without anyone worrying — now seems to be controversial in suburban D.C. because School Violence and Think of the Children. [Washington Post; Bedrick, Cato on pretend “arrow” zero-tolerance case]
- After son’s death, Ontario mom urges schools to let asthmatic kids carry inhalers [CBC, Bedrick]
- Cathy Young on how the forces of unanimity police discussions of “rape culture” [Minding the Campus]
- Kansas regents forbid faculty/staff to post social media content contrary to best interest of university [WaPo]
- Don’t forget to stop home some time: more public schools serving dinner as well as breakfast and lunch [Future of Capitalism]
Cronyism in your school lunch
A manufacturer of Greek yogurt “paid $80,000 to Cornerstone Government Affairs to lobby Congress on its behalf, according to federal records.” And now Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York — upstate being a leading center of production for the premium product — has made sure it will be included in federally prescribed school lunches, even in places where local budgets and tastes might not have generated much demand for it. [The Hill; Ira Stoll]
P.S. And plenty of bad GOP behavior on the farm bill too, notes my colleague Mike Tanner.
Food and farm roundup
- In Washington, DC today? Come to Cato New Media lunch where I’ll be on a panel on the nanny state;
- Future of food freedom looking brighter these days at state level [Baylen Linnekin] Polls looking good for it, too [same] “The FDA’s Pathetic Food Safety Proposal” [same]
- “Class claim against Crock-Pot seems a crock” [Sean Wajert]
- USDA issues proposed rules on vending machine fare and other school “competitive foods” [Lunch Tray, SmarterTimes, Julie Gunlock/IWF (good news: rules don’t address bake sales and birthday cupcakes. Bad news: why is this Washington’s business at all?)]
- Lawyer suing Subway over “Footlong” also handled controversial red-light camera action [NJLRA]
- So, lung, it’s been good to know you: fans of authentic Scottish haggis still vexed by US ban [BBC]
- “New Year, New Hot Coffee Case” [Abnormal Use]