Statement of CSPI Nutrition Policy Director Margo G. Wootan

It’s discouraging that just days into his tenure, one of the first things that Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue will do is to roll back progress on the quality of the meals served to America’s children.  Ninety percent of American kids eat too much sodium every day.  Schools have been moving in the right direction, so it makes no sense to freeze that progress in its tracks—and allow dangerously high levels of salt in school lunch.

Similarly, chain restaurants have been successfully implementing the calorie labeling requirements enacted into law seven long years ago.  Calories on menus have proven both useful and popular with consumers.  Yet the Trump Administration has signaled that it wants to subject menu labeling to even more years of delay.

Republicans are just as likely as Democrats to suffer from diabetes, heart disease, and other diet-related health problems.  Yet the Trump Administration is myopically putting Big Food’s interests over the interests of American consumers.