Putting the brakes on bake sales

A business club at Millard West High School peddles freshly baked cookies, raking in $15,000 annually to help send students to national conferences.

At Omaha's Masters Elementary, cupcakes, fudge and other bake-sale treats raise $500 for field trips, rain jackets for the safety patrol and playground equipment.

But the federal government could slam the brakes on those brownies and lower the boom on the lemon bars.

A child nutrition bill passed recently by Congress gives a federal agency the power to limit the frequency of school bake sales and other school-sponsored fundraisers that sell unhealthy food.

To some, the bake sale provision makes about as much sense as leaving the marshmallows out of Rice Krispies treats.

It maybe makes sense for the federal government to monitor the quality of ground beef, eggs and milk sold in grocery stores. But caramel corn and snicker doodles whipped up by parents for school bake sales?

“Aren't there more important things for them to be worried about?” Sandy Hatcher, president of Masters' parent organization, said of the federal government. Bake sales at her children's school, she said, aren't that frequent.

In some school districts, bake sales already have become less common or vanished because of food safety concerns and working parents with less time to futz with fudge-making.

The bill — aimed at improving the nutrition of lunches and other food sold at school — wouldn't ban bake sales. Rather, it could limit the number of such sales held during the school day.

Iowa has taken on the obesity issue with a new law similar to the federal bill. The law sets nutrition standards for offerings in vending machines, a la carte lines and fundraisers such as bake sales. (Nebraska doesn't appear to have a similar law.)

The idea in Iowa: School bake sales could sell small slices of banana bread instead of frosted cupcakes, or cookies with raisins instead of chocolate chips.

Compliance is checked during school nutrition reviews, said Patti Delger of the Iowa Department of Education. The state asks what items were sold during a bake sale.

There were no chocolate chip bans in place last week at Masters, in the Omaha school district. The parent group organized a bake sale to coincide with the holiday musical program on Friday.

Treats covered the tables. Four chocolate-chip cookies for $1. Caramel corn in red-and-green bags for the same price. Frosted pretzels for 75 cents.

Moms, dads and grandparents buy the goodies, Hatcher said, and kids don't eat them at school.

But the federal nutrition bill has its backers.

Dr. Phyllis Nsiah-Kumi, a pediatrician and obesity researcher at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said there's nothing wrong with eating an occasional brownie or cupcake.

But it's smart to include bake sales when addressing childhood nutrition and health, she said. Solving childhood obesity requires looking at a child's entire daily diet.

“It's one piece of the puzzle,” she said.

Millard West Principal Greg Tiemann said that even though limits on bake sales could hurt fundraising, he understands the bill's goal to cut back on the sweets at school.

“What they're eating really isn't brain food,” he said.

Three mornings a week, members of the Millard West business club sell chocolate chip, peanut butter and sugar cookies baked in the school ovens. They load the cookies onto a cart, roll them around the halls and sell two for $1.

Senior Kate Waller, the club's president, said she realizes the federal bill is intended to make children healthier. But she'd hate to see it crimp her club's fundraising, which will help send students to a conference this spring in Orlando, Fla.

If her club didn't sell the cookies, she said, students would get their snack fix by bringing Pop Tarts from home.

“It's not like all of us are going to be on a salad and tofu diet,” she said. “Teenagers are going to eat what they want.”

Contact the writer:

402-444-1122, michael.oconnor@owh.com

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