When is Seltzer Water Junk Food? When a School Wants To Add It To a Menu

By MB -
New York Seltzer's dispenser
MomsRising's most recent action alert starts by listing four food items: Hi-C Blast, Poland Spring seltzer water, french fries, and candy bars. All of these are available at a school near you - except the seltzer water, which is "junk food" according to national school nutrition standards because it contains no vitamins or minerals.

Now, I love french fries as much as the next person (and probably more), but I am fairly confident that they don't qualify as health food (even if my mom did count them as vegetables when my pediatrician asked if I was eating well). When children aged 6-11 are four times more likely to be obese than children a generation ago, it might be time to look at national school nutrition standards again.

MomsRising has a petition you can sign on updating the nutrition standards, which they plan to take to Congress in June 24.

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