Ketchup As A Vegetable - Results

Results

Nearly 400 participating schools, serving an estimated 2.8 million students, dropped out of the School Lunch Program between September 1980 and September 1981. Specific school districts witnessed large percentages of students choosing to bring their own lunch rather than pay the now higher priced meals. For example, in Clark County, Nevada, nearly half (46 percent) of students dropped out of the program as a result of a 30 percent increase in the cost of subsidized meal costs.

After President Reagan removed the original proposed regulations on September 25, 1981, the Food and Nutrition Service submitted revised proposals on November 17, 1981 that removed all mention of condiments counting as vegetables and adhered to the goal of providing one third of all daily nutrients in school lunches.

Despite such revisions, the Reagan Administration's policy was never implemented and FNS Administrator Hoagland was fired at the end of November.

“Mr. Hoagland..was lashed on Capitol Hill and skewered by the White House, which removed him from his job two days before Thanksgiving.” Hoagland attributed the strength of hunger lobby groups as the source of the FNS regulations downfall. “I may have let the President down by not carefully orchestrating the groups.” According to the Washington Post, "there's a lobby guarding every dish."