Reagan Starved Poor Kids!

[GingerSnaps]

I am doing a thesis on Reagan in my Economics class and I am trying to comprehend his reasoning behind cutting the budget on poor children's lunch programs.

As I understand it Reagan wanted to cut $1.5 billion from the budget and he was going to cut it from the school lunch program. Reagan thought that feeding vegetables such as broccoli and carrots to children from working-class and low-income families was a luxury the country could not afford right?

As I understand it Reagan wanted to replace real vegetables with "ketchup". Reagan thought that if "ketchup" was labeled as a vegetable then under government regulations school programs could use it as a vegetable which would in turn save the government money and deprive the poor kids vitamins and minerals that they essentially needed.

I don't understand Reagan's reasoning on the concept that ketchup was a vegetable. According to a Department of Agriculture official ketchup is "mostly sugar and vinegar," and Reagan wanted it to be categorized as a vegetable and be fed to the children as a substitute for real vegetables. How did Reagan come up with the idea behind this theory :shrug:

Why didn't Reagan want to categorize "ketchup" as a fruit? Ketchup is made out of tomatoes so technically "ketchup" is a fruit and not a vegetable?

We recently saw the enduring nature of Reagan's influence. In an exercise eerily similar to the ketchup scenario, President Bush attempted to classify fast-food industry jobs as "manufacturing jobs" so as to make the economy look better than it is with respect to job creation.

What's up with the reasoning behind the Republicans theories on what is and what isn't a job or a vegetable? :think:

[Maddy McCall]

1. Google +"James Watt" +ketchup

When you finish the paper, I'd love to read it. :-)

[GingerSnaps]

2. Thanks

Why didn't he want to make ketchup into a fruit instead of a vegetable :shrug:

[Mackenzie]

3. Because......

The contents of school lunch has always been based on politics, not nutrition.

Several years ago, the federal government paid farmers to destroy 20,000 acres of perfectly good plum trees, in order to drive up the price of plums and prunes. The government also bought up a lot of the remaining prunes to keep supplies low, to further drive up the price.

Guess where these prunes ended up?

They ended up being mixed in with hamburger meat in school lunches.

I attended public school for my four years of high school. There was a cafeteria that served a "hot lunch" every day. And I never bought it. Not once. It looked and smelled gross and disgusting.

I usually brought a peanut butter sandwich and an apple and some carrot sticks from home. My lunch actually cost less than the school lunch. And it was a lot more nutritious.

School lunch programs are all about corporate welfare for the big agribusinesses, and it has nothing to do with nutrition.

And have you seen the vending machines in the schools? Soda? Candy? Potato chips? Not exactly what I would call "nutritious."

[Mackenzie]

4. Sorry for the double post.

Ignore this one.

[LeftyMom]

5. Federal food programs are more ag programs than anti-poverty

That's why WIC supplies an unhealthy amount of dairy (2 lbs of cheese and four gallons of milk if I recall) and some toxic tuna rather than healthier fresh fruits and veggies to pregnant low-income mothers.

PM me, I have some related articles about WIC and school lunches in particular that may be of use to you.

[immoderate]

6. I'm not a botanist, but

I think there are several vegetables that can technically be classified as fruits. Fruits are the result of ripening of the seed envelope of a plant.

So I think that things like cucumbers and squash may also be called fruit. I would love to be corrected if this is wrong.

--IMM

[Mackenzie]

8. Yep.

A fruit is a ripened ovary.

A vegetable is a leaf, a root, or a stem.

A pea is a legume. So is a peanut, which is not a nut. Beans are also legumes.

Green beans are not beans.

Raw apples and raw celery are the best treatments for acid reflux. But it won't work if they are cooked or pasteurized.

[GingerSnaps]

10. Yep

Right!

[MisterP]

7. read "The Clothes Have No Emperor" by Paul Slansky

it's quite a damning work on St. Raygun

[immoderate]

9. LOL. Funniest title for a book.

--IMM