PBS高端访谈:美国农业部关注孩子饮食

 　　MARGARET WARNER: Finally tonight: new rules requiring healthier snacks to be sold in schools beginning next year.Ray Suarez has the story.

　　RAY SUAREZ: Estimates suggest that many kids consume at least half their daily calories while at school. The new rules, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are designed to lower the amount of fat, salt and sugar in a child's diet.

　　Starting next summer, vending¹ machines would not have traditional candy bars or full-fat cookies, for example. High schoolers will only be able to purchase drinks on campus that have fewer than 60 calories in a 12-ounce serving, much less than many sodas².

　　The regulations, which affect 50 million students, do not cover food sold after school or brought from home or at a fund-raiser.

　　For more, I am joined by Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

　　WATCH: Seven Foods You Think Are Healthy But Aren't

　　WATCH: Seven Foods You Think Are Healthy But Aren't

　　We invited several food and beverage³ companies, as well as their trade associations, to join us, but they declined our offer.

　　Margo Wootan, how does the federal government, by what authority do they reach out into all these thousands of school districts and compel this kind of new standard?

　　MARGO WOOTAN, Director of Nutrition Policy, Center for Science in the Public Interest: You know, school foods is a little different than other aspects of education.

　　You know, often, education is more regulated at the state and local level, but when it comes to school foods, it's for a long time been a federal program. Most of the money comes from the federal government, from Congress and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And so they have nutrition standards as conditions for getting that funding.

　　If you're going to take this $13 billion dollars a year, you need to serve kids healthy food. And so Congress and USDA sets detailed⁴ nutrition standards for school meals. Now they are also going to have standards for foods that compete with those school meals.

　　RAY SUAREZ: Will cafeterias and companies that make prepared foods have to really significantly change what's on offer in order to qualify to be sold in schools starting next year?

　　MARGO WOOTAN: You know, we have been working on this issue for a long time, about a decade.

　　And so, over that time, states have passed policies and individual school districts have passed policies. And so companies have been working to change the mix of products that they make available to schools. This is just going to make sure that it happens in almost all schools across the whole country.

　　RAY SUAREZ: Aren't some products totally out from now on?

　　MARGO WOOTAN: It is true that some things like regular candy bars, cookies, sugary sports drinks, and sodas are not going to be sold in schools during the school day. But there are lot of other foods that kids like that will be sold. They're going to have water, juice, milk, and carbonated water in all schools, plus lower-calorie beverages⁵ in high schools.

　　And then for snacks, there are things like granola bars, nuts, dried fruit, fruit cups. It will be a much healthier mix of products, but things that kids have seen and like.

　　RAY SUAREZ: Opponents and skeptics point to a Government Accountability Office report that found that in schools that were ahead of the curve on changing these policies, there were garbage cans piled high with things like apples and lower-calorie snack foods, higher-fiber baked goods. The kids just didn't want them, and they just didn't eat them.

　　MARGO WOOTAN: In most schools, actually, things are going very well.

　　It takes a little time for schools to figure out what products the kids like. You know, for years, for decades, they have been serving the same things. And so when you're cutting back on the junk and replacing it with healthier foods, you have got to figure out what products the kids like.

　　So, things like taste testing, having the kids vote for their favorite options, getting the kids engaged really helps. And in schools where they have been doing this for a while, the waste isn't a problem.

　　RAY SUAREZ: Sandra Ford⁶, who is the president of the School Nutrition Association, remarked that, "The new meal pattern requirements have significantly increased the expense of preparing school meals at a time when food costs were already on the rise."

　　Is there going to be an economic difficulty in reaching some of these new goals?

　　MARGO WOOTAN: For school meals, USDA has been providing the main source of funding for those meals. And as a result of a law that was passed in 2010, the Healthy Hunger for Kids Act, USDA is now providing more resources to schools for the school lunch, an additional six cents in reimbursement⁷, and also some changing in -- changes in pricing structure that bring more revenue in.

　　So these new revenues should be covering the costs. For those schools that are struggling, I think mostly we need to give them some more training and technical assistance to show them how they can serve healthy meals at a reasonable cost.

　　RAY SUAREZ: So this doesn't necessarily mean that kids heading to the vending machine or standing⁸ in the tray line in the cafeteria will have to spend more money?

　　MARGO WOOTAN: No.

　　The prices that the kids pay will stay the same mostly. They have been -- for the kids, middle- and upper-income kids, they have been trying to bring the prices of the school lunches in line with what it really costs. In the past, a lot of times, schools didn't charge what it actually cost them to prepare the meals for middle- and upper-income families. And so schools were losing member from that.

　　USDA is giving schools some advice and some guidance about how to sensibly price the foods in order to cover their costs. But schools can do a lot of things. They can form buying cooperatives with other school districts, so that they can get a better price. They can work out better contracts with schools -- with the companies that make the foods for food service.

　　So, there are things that lots of schools are doing to bring down the cost. We know that tens of thousands of schools around the country are serving healthy meals at the current reimbursement rate. For those schools that aren't, we just need to get them the training and technical assistance they need in order to do what other schools are doing.

　　RAY SUAREZ: Margo Wootan from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, thanks for joining us.

　　MARGO WOOTAN: Nice to be here.

1 vending   

v.出售（尤指土地等财产）( vend的现在分词 )；（尤指在公共场所）贩卖；发表（意见，言论）；声明

参考例句：

• Why Are You Banging on the Vending Machine? 你为什么敲打这台自动售货机？ 来自朗文快捷英语教程 2
• Coca-Cola had to adapt almost 300,000 vending machines to accept the new coins. 可口可乐公司必须使将近三十万台自动贩卖机接受新货币。 来自超越目标英语 第5册

2 sodas   

n.苏打( soda的名词复数 )；碱；苏打水；汽水

参考例句：

• There are plenty of sodas in the refrigerator. 冰箱里有很多碳酸饮料。 来自辞典例句
• Two whisky and sodas, please. 请来两杯威士忌苏打。 来自辞典例句

3 beverage   

n.(水，酒等之外的)饮料

参考例句：

• The beverage is often colored with caramel.这种饮料常用焦糖染色。
• Beer is a beverage of the remotest time.啤酒是一种最古老的饮料。

4 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

5 beverages   

n.饮料( beverage的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• laws governing the sale of alcoholic beverages 控制酒类销售的法规
• regulations governing the sale of alcoholic beverages 含酒精饮料的销售管理条例

6 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

7 reimbursement   

n.偿还，退还

参考例句：

• He received reimbursement for his travel expenses.由于出差的花费他可以得到公司的补偿。
• Which forms do I need to complete for my travel reimbursement?我需要填什么表来报我的旅费？

8 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。