Washington, D.C. – On Thursday, 67 members of Congress representing both urban and rural districts sent a message to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack communicating their disappointment that the department disregarded a congressional directive to add fresh white potatoes to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) basket.
The members wrote that the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 included an “unambiguous statement” that it was the expectation of Congress that USDA include all varieties of fresh vegetables – including fresh white potatoes – in the WIC program. Fresh white potatoes are the only fresh fruit or vegetable excluded from the program. “We were disappointed then to see your [d]epartment blatantly disregard the very clear direction by Congress in continuing to exclude fresh white potatoes from WIC food packages,” wrote the members. The letter full can be found here.
The letter, coauthored by Reps. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) and Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), cited the federal government’s 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), which recommends that all Americans – including WIC participants – increase their consumption of starchy vegetables and choose foods that are rich in potassium and dietary fiber, both of which are readily available in potatoes. In the introduction to the 2010 DGA, Sec. Vilsack and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stated that the guidelines were “based on the most recent scientific evidence review.” Unfortunately, when USDA published the final WIC regulations on March 4, the department ignored its own nutritional recommendations.
The letter was sent the day before Sec. Vilsack testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture on his department’s fiscal year 2015 budget request and priorities. During his testimony, the secretary defended the decision to ban potatoes from the program, arguing that the policy was based on a 2005 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report that recommended the program’s potato exclusion. Over the past few years, members of Congress have pointed out that the 2005 IOM report relied on now outdated nutritional guidelines from the 2005 DGA as well as consumption data from the mid-1990s.
Source: The National Potato Council
