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Empty chicken nuggets, ‘thimble-sized’ portions, rotten fruitDesperate students are still taking to Twitter to reveal the horrors of school lunch under First Lady Michelle Obama’s rules, including empty chicken nuggets and complaints that meals taste like “prison food.” While the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) raves about “locally sourced chicken sandwiches” that meet nutrition standards served in a school district in South Carolina, students across the country complain about what they are eating under the new rules. “My poor little sister has to eat prison food #ThanksMichelleObama,” one student tweeted on Friday. Students are unhappy about their “chickpea sliders” and...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is proposing strict new dietary guidelines for day cares that would prohibit them from frying food that is served to children.Child care providers would also be formally required to provide children with water upon request, though they would face restrictions on how much apple juice and orange juice they serve.The proposed nutrition standards are intended to promote the "health and wellness of children" at day cares that participate in government-funded meal programs, the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service said Wednesday.One of the more notable provisions would restrict day cares from frying food on site...

It’s a morning Kenneth Wright will never forget: 15 armed agents break in his front door and grab him by the neck, still in the boxer shorts he slept in. For six hours, a handcuffed Wright sat in a cruiser parked outside with his three children, ages 3, 7, and 11, while agents searched his house. “They put me in handcuffs in that hot patrol car for six hours, traumatizing my kids,” the Stockton, Calif., resident told a local news outlet at the time. Drugs? Weapons? Domestic violence? No. As Wright later found out, his gun-toting visitors were from the...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued an order that millions of Americans will likely find impossible to carry out: stop eating raw cookie dough. “Avoid raw or partially cooked eggs or foods containing raw eggs, such as cookie dough,” USDA advised in an email over the weekend. cookie1 Carrying out that simple 15-word recommendation would radically change millions of lives, from families who routinely bake cookies and invite the kids to scoop batter out of the bowl, to people who scarf down pre-packaged cookie dough, to everyone who eats cookie dough found in ice cream. Simply put, it’s not...

The number of beneficiaries who receive compensation from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps, has topped 46,000,000 for 37 straight months, according to data released by the Department of Agriculture (USDA). In September 2014, which is the latest data from the USDA, there were 46,459,998 Americans who received assistance from the SNAP program. The number of beneficiaries has exceeded 46 million since September 2011, a total of 37 months, or more than three years. [snip]Households on food stamps in September got an average of $252.69 during the month, and the program benefits cost taxpayers $5,748,809,023....

More than half of the nation’s school cafeteria workers expect to lose money selling low-salt, low-fat meals pushed by first lady Michelle Obama, a “serious” problem that threatens the programs, according to a survey of food providers.The School Nutrition Association, which is planning to demand changes to the meal requirements to make the food more attractive to students, found that 50.35 percent of cafeteria officials surveyed expect that serving the food will “exceed revenue” next year.“Of the 92 percent of respondents reporting that rising costs pose a ‘serious’ or ‘moderate’ challenge to their programs, 70 percent indicated ‘serious,’” said the...

USDA Buys Cranberries For Food Pantries And School Lunches: ‘It’s A Win-Win’ Nov 27, 2014 06:24 PM EST USDA Cranberries - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) agreed to purchase up to $55 million in cranberry products to the Congressional Cranberry Caucus.The USDA doubled with this buy the previous one, which was in January. The agreement ended up with the Agriculture Dept. getting 68 million pounds of surplus cranberries, Green Bay Press Gazette reported.The U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin said on a press release on Monday that Wisconsin is the main producer of cranberries and the decision of the USDA is to...

Gov. Paul LePage’s administration is facing a potential loss of federal funding to administer its food stamp program over concerns about state’s decision to put photos on cards used to access the benefits. Federal officials said in a letter to the Maine Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday that recipients are being given information that makes it seem like they’re required to have their photos placed electronic benefit transfer cards, even though the program is voluntary. The Republican governor’s administration must make it clear to recipients that their decision to not have their photo placed on the card...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved Idaho-based J.R. Simplot Co.'s new genetically modified potato. But one of the company's oldest business partners — McDonald's — hasn't. The fast-food giant says it doesn't use genetically modified potatoes, the Idaho Statesman reported. "McDonald's USA does not source GMO potatoes, nor do we have current plans to change our sourcing practices," the company said in a statement.

Many parents prefer to send their children off to school with a packed lunch, believing that the food they have given them is far healthier than school lunches. But a new study, published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, claims this may not be the case. The research team, led by Alisha R. Farris of the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Exercise at Virginia Tech, found that school lunches had better average nutritional quality than packed lunches. "We found that both packed and school lunches almost entirely met nutrition standards, except school lunches were below energy and...

A virus that killed millions of baby pigs in the last year and led to higher pork prices has waned thanks to warmer weather and farmers’ efforts to sterilize their operations. And as pigs’ numbers increase, sticker shock on things like bacon should ease. Already, hog supplies are on the rise, with 5.46 million baby pigs born between June and August in Iowa, the nation’s leading producer—the highest quarterly total in 20 years and a record 10.7 surviving pigs per litter, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report. It’s a significant turnaround from a year ago when the porcine...

Enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars keep pouring into a scandalous Obama administration program that aims to provide low-income minorities—already getting free groceries from the government—with healthier foods. It’s part of the First Lady’s effort to eradicate “food deserts,” area’s with limited access to affordable and nutritious foods, and so far the administration has spent a fortune with no end in sight to the cash flow. Announced just a few weeks ago, the latest allocation is for $31.5 million to “create projects that increase the purchase of fruits and vegetables among low-income consumers” that already get food stamps from American taxpayers....

A division of the Agriculture Department is making $31.5 million in funding available to help people on food stamps obtain healthier foods. The department’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) is making the funding available to help those enrolled in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which offers nutrition assistance to millions of low-income Americans. "Too many struggling families do not have adequate access to nutritious food," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Monday as he announced the new funding. "Helping families purchase more fresh produce is clearly good for families' health, helps contribute to lower health costs for the country,...

The U.S. is planning to train veterans to become solar panel installers in the next six years, the White House said Thursday. The jobs training program is among a host of initiatives the White House says will cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than 300 million tons through 2030, plus save billions of dollars on energy bills for homeowners and businesses. It will launch this fall at one or more military bases and train a total of at least 50,000, including veterans. …

Who imagined that the Obama administration’s effort to make school lunches more nutritious (but less delicious) would encourage children to become little community organizers? The U.S. Agriculture Department has found an upside to all those “healthy” school lunches that students refuse to eat: It says schools can use the plate waste as a “learning opportunity” to turn young students into “civic-minded, community-conscious adults.” …

A message for new parents: get ready for sticker shock. A child born in 2013 will cost a middle-income American family an average of $245,340 until he or she reaches the age of 18, with families living in the Northeast taking on a greater burden, according to a report out Monday. And that doesn’t include college—or expenses if a child lives at home after age 17. Those costs that are included—food, housing, childcare and education—rose 1.8 percent over the previous year, the Agriculture Department’s new “Expenditures on Children and Families” report said. …

Should the public know how much money Wal-Mart, or that convenience store down the street, takes in through the federal food stamp program? Or does that amount to a retail trade secret? Those are the questions at the heart of a request for public comment announced Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the food stamp program. Here’s the background: Last year we spent $76 billion tax payer dollars on the food stamp program (officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP). That money goes to about 47 million low-income Americans, who use it to buy...

Move over, organic milk. Health-conscious consumers are increasingly choosing a new bovine beverage: Grass-fed milk. Derived from cows fed mostly grass—not corn or soy—the pricey beverage is capturing a growing market share among consumers, The Wall Street Journal reports. […] Branded “Grassmilk,” it has cream on top and is lightly pasteurized with heat. A half-gallon sells for close to $6, more than a dollar more than the average price of organic milk and more than double the price of traditional milk. …

The nation’s food stamp program, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), provided a record $74.6 billion in benefits to needy Americans in Fiscal Year 2012—paying out $2 billion too much, according to the annual quality control report for FY 2012, the most recent year for which data is available. And only in Washington could that $2 billion in overpayments be viewed as a good thing. […] The data show the payment error rate has declined over time, from 5.64% in FY 2007; 5.01% in FY 2008; 4.36% in FY 2009; 3.81% in FY 2010; 3.80% in FY...

After having made her mark on school lunches, you know, replacing mac n’ cheese for quinoa salad thereby leaving kids across the nation hungry and unhappy, first lady Michelle Obama is moving on to bigger and better things, it seems. Via The Washington Free Beacon: The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is suggesting major changes to grocery stores to “nudge” Americans to purchase healthier foods when they shop. The agency commissioned an “expert panel” to make recommendations on how to guide the more than 47 million Americans on food stamps into spending their benefits on fruits and vegetables. The group...