If you were ever a kid going to school in the US, then you probably remember seeing
this in the cafeteria around lunch time.
And that’s because President Truman and the 79th Congress passed the National School
Lunch Act into law in 1946, and The School Breakfast Program received permanent authorization
in 1975.
That means that cartons of milk at school, an item almost synonymous with childhood in
the US, is actually part of a huge umbrella of entitlement programs, which provide students
from lower income families with low cost or free breakfasts, lunches and (sometimes)
snacks during the school day.
And today, the National School Lunch Program is the nation’s second largest food assistance
program after SNAP (still colloquially known as food stamps).
But as cute and innocuous as a kid drinking a carton of milk before the bell rings seems,
government subsidies (like for the dairy industry or other farming programs) and federal entitlement
programs (like school lunches, welfare, or public housing) continue to be major driving
forces for national debate.
And at the heart of it all remain two main points of contention:
First: What kinds of services and goods should be given out or protected by state and federal
governments
And second:
Who should be covered under these government programs?
That’s why this week we’re starting off small (as in carton of milk small) and then
going big (as in federal spending big).
Because everyday items can be the result of some much greater political powers.
By the late nineteenth century, most states in the US had mandates that required young
children to go to school until a certain age.
For more on this history in detail, you can check out our video on “Why is 18 an adult?”
As a result of growing school mandates, children were leaving rural farming communities or
industrial factories and pouring into state sponsored schools.
At the time, many children who attended these local schools were expected to return home
at midday to eat their lunches, since most people lived near where they worked (or in
the case of folks who owned small farms or worked in factories with dormitories, lived
where they worked).
But as time went on and more children enrolled in school, a dilemma arose since not every
child lived close enough to the nearest school to make it home for lunch and back to school
in time for afternoon classes.
In her article for PBS, food writer Tori Avey notes that at first school lunch programs
sprung up in a similar way that new schools did, kind of sporadically and on a case by
case basis.
For example one school in Philadelphia gave out school lunches for a penny in 1894.
And school houses in Wisconsin used the “pint jar method” where students would bring in
foods that could be reheated in sealed jars.
In the morning, teachers would put the jars into hot water on the school house stove (often
the stoves that were also used to heat the classrooms) and by lunch the food was warmed
up again.
Some schools built kitchens connected to the schoolhouses where cooks and staff would make
hot lunches or sandwiches for students in the early 20th century.
But the case by case system meant that not every student in need of a lunch was getting
one.
That’s why in the 1930s and 1940s, when the US saw an unprecedented number of entitlement
programs get signed into law (think FDR’s “New Deal” and the Social Security Act)
school lunches were pulled into a tidal wave of new laws that were passed by President Truman.
But what does ‘entitlement’ even mean?
Although it gets lobbied around nervously during every election season, like playing
hot potato with an active hand grenade, the concept of entitlements is relatively straightforward.
According to the glossary of the US Senate an entitlement is, “A Federal program or
provision of law that requires payments to any person or unit of government that meets
the eligibility criteria established by law.”
But the term draws such polarizing opinions, not only for the programs it describes, but
also because the word “entitled” in other contexts implies someone is demanding something
in exchange for nothing.
But the word wasn’t actually applied as an umbrella term for all of these types of programs
until the 1970s and 1980s.
And although the language of “entitlement” programs is pretty simple in theory (every
person who is eligible for an entitlement program, under the guidelines of that program,
can receive those services) the politics of agreeing how those budgets are decided and
who should get them isn’t so clear.
And around that same period (aka during the Great Depression and in its immediate wake) the Federal
Government was looking for ways to alleviate financial strain and promote economic recovery.
So farming subsidies which began in 1933, like the ones afforded to dairy farmers, regulated
product quantities, release dates, and prices.
But just like entitlements, farm subsidies aren’t universally popular and can be a
polarizing topic. And if you want more info on that head over to our video on “Why Do We
Eat Popcorn at the Movies?”
So we figured out how lunch programs became part of entitlement spending and when milk
got subsidized.
But when did the two become conjoined in the cafeterias of our youth?
And if those programs were passed in response to the Great Depression, then why are reduced
cost or free school lunches still in place today?
Why kids?
And why milk?
Well the answer to “why kids” is the most straightforward one so I think I’ll start
there.
The school lunch argument, since its inception, was grounded in the idea that young children
(who haven’t been allowed to work full time, year round jobs in this country since the
early 20th century) should be considered a protected group of people and should also
be put into mandatory education.
Sending kids to school during certain months of the year suddenly synced the calendars
and geographic location of children right around the midday meal.
And kids stopped going home to eat lunch.
Once kids were required to go to school together it became more apparent to those running the
schools which kids were going hungry and which children were malnourished as the result of
limited food options at home.
And although lots of entitlement programs focus on older folks (like retirement programs
and healthcare options) school lunch is aimed directly at the tiniest members of our society.
So the original language of the National School Lunch Act notes that the purpose of the law
is, “...to safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation’s children and to encourage
the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and other food…”
And while not everyone wants to raise tons of kids, it’s probably safe to say that
most people wouldn’t begrudge a child living with food insecurity a good meal, because
a kid has no way of either making their own food or making money to pay for food.
So by making school lunches an entitlement program, the federal government is stating
that children are a protected class of people who should receive these services, regardless
of their parents’ ability or inability to pay for them.
And this also includes certain structured after school programs that provide snacks.
Which is cool because snacks rule.
But milk isn’t always the natural choice when it comes to the second half of this entitlement
program, namely giving students “nutritious agricultural commodities” in school.
Because entitlements aren’t just about who gets services and what they receive, but also
what the responsibility of the federal government is when they’re providing these services.
And although milk is high in calcium and vitamin D, flavored milks like chocolate actually
aren’t always the healthiest choice because they’re loaded with sugar.
In 2010 70 percent of milk served in schools was flavored and a single serving of the sweet
stuff can contain about 4-6 teaspoons of sugar.
But because milk is subsidized (and supported by powerful lobbies that protect the interests
of dairy farmers) flavored milk often gets a wink and a nudge while other high sugar drinks
like soda and juice are quickly getting banned or greatly reduced in cafeterias nationwide.
So those little cartons you drank from in elementary school are actually in the crosshairs
of some pretty important issues like…
Who should be considered protected classes of people eligible for government entitlements?
And...
Is milk actually the best vehicle for providing nutritious meals for tots?
But while kids are (usually) not the center of controversy when it comes to agreeing that
they should receive federal services, how those services gets rolled out and interpreted
is still challenging.
Government officials in 1981 were roundly criticized when a proposal to count ketchup
and pickle relish as vegetables in school lunches was rejected by the general public.
Luckily condiment as a vegetable rule didn’t pass in 1981 or in 2011 when there was another
kerfuffle about whether Congress was trying to count the tomatoes in pizza sauce towards
vegetable servings for school kids.
But while the connection between being well fed in school and better school performance
has long been established by educators and health officials, new studies are testing to see if there is
a correlation between the how healthy the school lunches are and student performance.
Who knows?
If there’s a strong connection between improved test scores and health foods in the future,
maybe kids will start drinking green juices instead of chocolate milk?
Well as one of the few people in the world who doesn’t really like chocolate milk and
would rather eat grass from a Home Depot lawn bag than drink unsweetened green juices, I’m
just glad that I already finished high school.
Now I can drink plain soy milk and eat my green vegetables in a salad...like an adult.
So what do you think?
Anything more to add to our timeline, or to what cartons of milk teach us about entitlement
programs?
Drop those questions and comments below, be sure to subscribe to Origin on Youtube and
follow us on Facebook and I’ll see you next time!