Beware the bean burrito. More than legume-filled deliciousness, it could represent the work of an “activist movement” that seeks to starve your children of meat and turn them into — vegetarians.
So fears Todd Staples, Texas’ agriculture commissioner.
The Austin American-Statesman recently printed commentary by Staples in which he expressed concern that the Dripping Springs school district, by joining numerous other districts nationwide and adopting a meatless menu on Mondays for its three elementary schools, had fallen victim to “a highly orchestrated campaign that seeks to eliminate meat from Americans’ diets seven days a week — starting with Mondays.”
The near-comic rhetoric of Staples’ commentary stood as a refutation of its own argument. But it also was reflective of a tantrum-prone minority reaction that sees destruction of the American way in every do-good attempt, big and small.
Dripping Springs should ignore such noise and carry on with what it calls a pilot program. Let its meatless Monday menu succeed or fail on its own.
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health launched “Meatless Mondays” a decade ago to encourage people to eat less meat and more vegetables. Since then, groups such as the Humane Society of the United States have persuaded numerous school districts nationwide to adopt the idea as a way to promote better nutrition and environmentally aware eating.
John Crowley, a registered dietitian who is Dripping Springs’ director of childhood nutrition, told the American-Statesman that the district’s meatless options meet children’s nutritional requirements. He said he attended a Dallas seminar last year organized by the Humane Society and, with parents pressing him for more vegetarian options, thought he would give a meatless Monday menu a try.
So, yes, the Humane Society promotes meatless Monday programs. And it is concerned with the effects raising animals for meat have on the environment and human health. It has an agenda.
Well, agenda meet agenda. Staples two years ago called a U.S. Department of Agriculture message to encourage meatless Mondays “treasonous” and has received at least $116,000 in campaign contributions from beef and ranching interests since 2010.
On the day we printed Staples’ commentary, the entrees on Dripping Springs’ meatless menu included black bean burritos, bean and cheese burritos and vegetarian chili with cornbread.
Here are some of the items on Dripping Springs’ menus Tuesdays through Fridays that it is “forcing,” in Staples’ view, its grade-school kids to forego on Mondays: pizza with assorted toppings, mini corndogs, beef tacos, hamburgers, baked “fish shapes” and various cuts of chicken.
Dripping Springs posts helpful nutritional information for its elementary school menus on its website. The sodium levels in almost all entrees stand out from a quick menu survey. The district offers cheese nachos, for example, which contain a whopping 1,748 milligrams of sodium, which is a staple of processed foods.
Fresh veggie and fruit side selections are offered daily, but the point is, meatless or not, healthy meals remain a concern.
Healthy eating fights obesity and other diet-related illnesses, and saves money long-term. This is an agenda we should all rally behind.
There are no meatless Monday menus at Dripping Springs Middle School or Dripping Springs High School. But there are options. Perhaps, when the district’s current grade-schoolers move to middle school, they will arrive at least aware of alternatives and choose them occasionally. You could call them victims of propaganda. Or you could call them educated.
— Austin American-Statesman
