People complain that there is too much government in their lives. Too many taxes, too many rules, and the list goes on and on. For the most part, I agree that at least sometimes government interference gets in the way of progress. However, when it comes to our kids I am all for more government controls, especially when it comes to nutrition requirements and raising the bar for school lunches. Back in 2010, the U. S. Department of Agriculture decided to set some better standards for school lunches. Anyone in my age bracket remembers just how bad cafeteria food was in our schools. We used to call it mystery meat, full of calories, starch and anything else those kindly old hair netted people could think of to fill us up. Government intervention is right on this one. I didn’t realize that 32 million children each lunch at school every day and 12 million more each breakfast at the schools. Kids consume between 30 to 50% of their calories at school. These new standards are the first changes in some 15 years and the heat is on the schools to meet the regulations to get federal meal reimbursements. There has to be larger portions of fruits and vegetables. There is also a limit on salt. Look, 17% of our kids are obese because they still eat a lot of sugar and carbohydrates. That can lead to diabetes and heart disease. Because the federal government got involved in Trans fats back in 2006 there is good news about children’s cholesterol. During the most recent study from 2007 to 2010 there was a 28% decline in children with high cholesterol. Hey, we are on the right track with our kids. There is a great deal of work to do but as the folks at General Electric used to say, progress is our most important product.School Meals