Thank you for asking. The other provision is not in this school nutrition program, but in the WIC--the Women, Infants, and Children--program where we give vouchers to mothers of newborns or pregnant women in expectation that they are having children. To give them access to healthy fruits and vegetables we give them vouchers. In that recommended formula, what the voucher should be spent on is, they are not allowed to spend them on white potatoes. Why? Because Americans eat about 90 pounds of white potatoes or potatoes per year. Think of it. They have hash browns for breakfast, french fries for lunch, and baked potatoes for night. That is a lot of potatoes in one day. Certainly, a newborn and about-to-be-born are not necessarily needing potatoes. Nonetheless, the potato industry is very powerful here and they were able to get a provision in demanding that the vouchers also include the ability to buy white potatoes. That is what stirred up this whole comment, because Congress has never dictated as to what you have to buy with it or to get into buying things that haven't been recommended as nutritional.
On the recordJune 11, 2014
Source
govinfo.govShare
More from Sam Farr
Dec 7, 2016
My daughter is on the way with my grandkids, who are trying to watch this. Maybe we can delay it a little more than that. Madam Speaker, I want to thank Ms. Lofgren for her leadership in the California delegation. She is the head of the…
Jul 5, 2016
I thank very much Ranking Member Costa and Chairwoman Lummis for their support of this bill. Mr. Speaker, I think this bill is more than what we just talked about, because it is an incredible collaboration of groups that are not…
Jul 14, 2016
I am embarrassed that Congress is going home today for 2 months after having done nothing about this outrageous use of guns in America. We are going home because it is an election year. We have 2 months to be with our constituents. I hope…





