School system’s nutritional director says she can’t meet the First Lady’s healthy food demands

PORTLAND, Ore. — In  the farm-to-fork-crazed city of Portland, Ore., campus gardens supply public school cafeterias and food service workers seek out chicken free of antibiotics.

But the school system's nutritional director finds there's one advocate for healthy food whose demands she just can't meet — Michelle Obama.

"We have tried every noodle that is out there," said Gitta Grether-Sweeney, the Portland nutritional director who says she is exasperated by the federal school lunch rules the first lady champions. "Whole-wheat noodles just don't work in lasagna. We are having to go lawless to use regular pasta."

The locally sourced macaroni and cheese the schools had been serving turned to mush when it was made with whole-grain macaroni to meet the new rules, Grether-Sweeney said.

That once-popular meal is now off the menu. So too are wraps, which she says won't hold together with the brittle wheat tortillas she now must use. Many fewer meals are getting sold at school, she said.

Food service directors like Grether-Sweeney have been warmly embraced by Republicans who are trying to undermine federal school lunch rules that they see as the cornerstone of a nanny-state agenda from the first couple.

In response, the Obama administration has put together its own coalition of celebrity chefs, health organizations and military leaders to mitigate the damage caused by its falling-out with the "lunch lady" lobby — 55,000 school cafeteria workers who were once a major ally.

Back in 2010, when it passed, the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act was seen as a landmark nutritional achievement for the most health-conscious White House in recent memory.

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FOR THE RECORD

9:11 a.m.: An earlier version of this article stated the name of the 2010 law that created new federal nutritional standards for school meals as the Healthy School Meals Act. It is the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act.

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Now, as the Republican-dominated Congress decides whether to renew the law, school lunch trays have become a partisan battle zone. The law expires on Sept. 30, although the status quo will remain in place if Congress deadlocks.

"We should not have what is served for lunch at schools decided by bureaucrats in Washington," said Rep. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.), who wrote one of multiple bills that would ease the rules. "This has become a burden."

The law and the regulations it spawned require school lunches to include significantly more fruits and vegetables and an infusion of whole grains; they also mandate a big drop in calories. Schools were told to cut the salt and sugar in foods they sell, even in campus vending machines.

Supporters of the law say that unwholesome frozen pizzas, chicken nuggets and other junk food that once were lunchtime staples helped drive the nation's epidemics of childhood obesity and diabetes.

They question whether the intense pushback against the new standards truly reflects the concerns of lunch ladies or the views of big processed-food companies that bankroll the School Nutrition Assn., which represents cafeteria workers in Washington.

"We believe they are being highly nudged by the interests that represent the frozen-pizza industry and some of the other processed-food folks that provide significant funding," said Kevin Concannon, undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services at the Department of Agriculture. "Regressive parts of the industry want to act like we are not in the middle of a crisis in this country."

And many schools are all for the new rules — particularly in California.