Former First Lady Michelle Obama is trying to cash in on her time in the White House.
She thought she was on the verge of scoring a major victory.
But, Michelle Obama was fuming after this one scheme collapsed in epic fashion.
The top policy achievement from Michelle Obama’s time as First Lady was the ill-fated 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA).
The HHFKA instituted stringent new nutritional guidelines for meals provided by schools and extended taxpayer-provided meals to millions of students.
Michelle Obama was on a crusade to limit choice from school meals and force kids to eat allegedly healthier options.
Long-time favorites like sloppy joes were swapped out in favor of whole-wheat vegetable lasagna.
This top-down dictate from the federal government was a disaster.
School districts started losing money when students stopped eating the allegedly healthier options.
Food waste also soared after students threw out the program’s mandated fruit or vegetable with every meal.
Under former President Donald Trump’s administration, the rules were relaxed after students flat-out rejected the HHFKA’s unappealing meals.
The HHFKA became another costly federal welfare program that never worked as intended.
Michelle Obama’s new juice company fails her own nutritional standards
After leaving the White House, the Obama family cashed out with lucrative speaking, book, and television deals.
Michelle Obama looked to continue her crusade to force children to eat healthier with her latest business venture.
She became a co-founder and strategic partner at Plezi Nutrition, a company touting healthier beverage alternatives for kids.
Marketed as a healthier alternative to soda, Plezi is a lower sugar, juice-based drink.
“Most kids get to school age, drinking only water and milk just isn’t a reality,” Obama said at a Wall Street Journal conference. “We’ve gotta live in the real world, we’ve gotta give kids something they want.”
However, Plezi’s first juiced-based drink would not meet the nutritional guidelines she championed under HHFKA.
The standards supported by Obama said that schools can only serve water, milk, fruit, or vegetable juice so long as it’s 100% juice with no added sweeteners.
Since the juice is made from concentrate and contains plant-based sweeteners like stevia leaf extract and monk fruit, Plezi’s drink does not meet these requirements.
Critics pointed out that the Obama-backed beverage is not a good alternative to soda for kids.
Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, said that Plezi is “standard-industry, ultra-processed products not to be promoted to kids.”
Jerold Mande, a professor of nutrition at Harvard and former nutrition advisor to the Obama Agriculture Department, said that Obama was being led astray by her advisors.
“She has been ill-served by advisers who convinced her to start by targeting 6 to 12-year-olds with a flashy, ultra-processed beverage that may not be any healthier than diet soda,” Mande said.
Michelle Obama spent years trying to promote healthy eating to kids, but her drink fails short of the lofty standards she set.
Deplorable Daily will keep you up-to-date on any developments to this ongoing story.
