Answer:
The Department of Agriculture plans to limit potato consumption among schoolchildren to two servings per week.
- To encourage students to try new vegetables.
- The Institute of Medicine and other experts recommended to the Department that parents cook and serve good portions of potatoes at home for their children, so they do not need to eat so many potatoes at school.
Politicians and farmers in potato-producing states, from Idaho to Maine, attack the plan.
- The National Potato Council, in March 2011, writes a letter addressed to the Department of Agriculture in which they express that they disagree with the proposal to limit the total portions of starchy vegetables (for example, white potatoes, corn, beans and green peas) to one cup per week because eliminating these vegetables could have adverse effects on children's health.
- Those who disagree with the proposal also argue that it is not necessary to achieve nutritional goals; which reduces the consumption of vegetables; and unnecessarily increases the costs of school meal programs.