Baffling Federal Regulations Turn School Meals into a Challenge

Approximately 530,000 tons of food, along with 45 million gallons of milk, are discarded annually in our school cafeterias across the country — with 31% of vegetables and 25% of milk going to waste.

Taxpayers are responsible for approximately $1.7 billion upfront to procure and prepare this wasted food, plus additional costs to transport it to landfills.

The culprit? Our federal school lunch regulations.

As the leader of a network of 57 charter schools that serves 22,000 students, we’re developing a school in The Bronx featuring a restaurant-quality kitchen aimed at preparing high-quality meals from scratch.

Yet, numerous nonsensical and wasteful federal requirements render this goal almost unattainable.

For instance, we are mandated to provide fruits and vegetables to students who refuse to consume them.

Even if it’s the final day of school and a child has discarded his apple for 179 consecutive days, we are still obligated to hand over yet another apple.

The most significant issue with federal school lunch regulations, however, lies in their astonishing complexity.

The regulations exceed 47,920 words — nearly seven times the length of the Constitution along with all 27 amendments.

I wish to employ a chef capable of preparing affordable, nutritious meals like roast chicken, scalloped potatoes, and hearty soups, utilizing leftover vegetables in stews and seasonal or on-sale produce.

However, the regulations prohibit any such flexibility.

We are mandated to use standardized recipes that have been tested to ensure compliance with federal requirements and are expected to adhere to them strictly.

The regulations are so convoluted that any cook I employ would practically need a law degree.

They identify five categories of vegetables: dark green; red/orange; beans, peas, and lentils; starchy; and others. We must provide minimum quantities from each of these five subgroups weekly.

And not in equal amounts, mind you. That would be too straightforward.

We are required to serve ¾ cups per week of red/orange vegetables, but only ½ cup of dark green ones.

Unless the dark green vegetables are leafy greens, in which case one full cup is required.

And do not assume that bean sprouts, Brussels sprouts, green beans, and green peppers qualify as dark green vegetables. Strangely, they do not, while mesclun, romaine, and watercress do count.

If our chefs wish to provide a vegetarian option to meet the meat requirement, no problem!

They simply need to ensure it fulfills 2,563 words’ worth of regulations, which include peculiar requirements like: “Each 100 grams of the product (based on 13% moisture) must contain protein equivalent to that provided by 20 grams of protein with a quality of no less than 95% casein. The equivalent grams of protein required per 100 grams of product (on a 13% moisture basis) would be determined by the following equation: x=ab/c.”

All these rules are so intricate that only a large corporation can effectively navigate them.

The bureaucrats also impose burdensome bookkeeping requirements on schools, compelling us to track not only the exact number of lunches served each day but also which students partake.

The program could simply reimburse schools based on the number of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch and utilize attendance records to ascertain how many missed lunch due to absence.

Instead, the federal government insists that states maintain a plethora of bureaucrats to enforce compliance with their rules — only for the federal bureaucrats to oversee them.

From Washington, D.C. to the local school kitchens, vast resources are wasted on compliance rather than being allocated toward procuring quality ingredients and hiring skilled chefs.

The issue here is not solely the government’s excessive regulations but also the very notion that school lunches should be federally regulated at all.

Congress enacted the School Lunch Act in 1946 because military assessments during World War II revealed that recruits who had experienced the Great Depression were unfit for service due to childhood malnutrition.

Since then, circumstances have evolved. Nutrition remains vital, but it is no longer a matter of national security.

The federal government has plenty of responsibilities unique to its domain: combating terrorism, regulating financial markets, approving pharmaceuticals, and more.

Determining how to provide our children with nutritious meals is a task that can and should be managed by local communities — or even better, by the schools themselves.

Once a federal program is established, however, those in charge find it difficult to conceive of a scenario where their roles should cease to exist.

I cannot blame them; it’s human nature.

That’s why it’s invigorating to witness a new president introducing outsiders from the private sector to critically assess where the government can streamline operations.

The school lunch bureaucracy is an excellent place to begin.

Eva Moskowitz is the founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools.