ON THE face of things, school meals are one of a few success stories in modern American policymaking. Five years ago it was clear that children, like grownups, needed to eat less sugar, salt and fat. Given that many children consume half of their daily calories at school, these meals seemed a good place to start.

So in 2010, Congress passed the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, which set higher nutritional standards for meals, based on recommendations from scientists. With the help of the School Nutrition Association (SNA), which represents "school nutrition professionals", the act demanded healthier meals in exchange for an increase in federal spending on school lunches. Now, however, the SNA has changed its tune. It says the rules are expensive and difficult to implement, and it wants temporary waivers to the rules for any school-meals programme that has been losing money for six months. The SNA adds that school canteens are unprepared to meet a new set of standards that is due to take effect this July.  

A big sticking-point appears to be the fact that all the grains offered in schools must be whole grain from July. Schools are having trouble finding whole-grain tortilla, biscuits and pasta. In New Mexico, in particular, there is cultural resistance to whole-wheat tortillas. The SNA also wants to eliminate the requirement that students take a fruit or vegetable as part of their meal—a mandate that results in a nearly 100% increase in wasted fruits and vegetables. It also opposes further restrictions on the sodium content of meals. 

House Republicans have been eager to comply with SNA’s request for action—presumably seeing an opportunity to bat away the wagging finger of the nanny state. Using an agriculture appropriations bill (and the sort of policymaking that allowed pizza sauce to be counted as a vegetable), House Republicans propose allowing schools to apply for waivers if their school-food programmes are losing money.

The SNA does have some reasonable-sounding points. It says that since the new standards were implemented in 2012 the number of students choosing school lunch has fallen by more than 1m. The decrease in participation also reduces revenue for school-meal programmes struggling with the higher cost of meeting the new standards. An SNA report says that in the 2012-13 school year 47% of school-meal programmes report that overall revenue declined. (It also complains that food costs have gone up, but that was expected when standards were raised and schools were given more money to cope.) 

Clearly there are some real problems. In May the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) acknowledged as much when it announced that schools that can demonstrate significant challenges in serving whole-grain-rich pastas may serve traditional products for two more years. But rather than pursue more relief from the USDA, the SNA has been aggressively seeking these waivers in Congress. These efforts have been roundly criticised by Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, along with nutrition advocates, 19 former SNA presidents and even the first lady, Michelle Obama. Mr Vilsack pointed out that 90% of schools had successfully met the standards and that the bill would undermine efforts to provide kids with more nutritious foods. The SNA now stands accused of changing its views because it is on the payroll of Big Pizza (ie, the processed-food companies). 

It seems likely that there is an ulterior motive. My guess is that this could be the first tomato being lobbed in a bigger food fight to come during the 2015 reauthorisation of child-nutrition programs. The harmless-sounding request to issue temporary waivers actually has enormous potential for abuse. For example, schools might change the way they assess indirect costs such as space and utilities to change the amount of profit they make. Or they could aim to run at a loss if they wanted to acquire a waiver. Moreover, the six-month bar could be too low as, apparently, schools typically lose money on food service in the first six months of a year and make it up later. This rule could almost have been designed to allow a school to walk away from the standards if wanted to do so. The SNA is ratcheting up the fight further, now accusing the administration of being unresponsive to its request for meetings. The USDA responded by listing nine interactions with the association since the start of the year and a meeting in January. All of this drama raises the question of why go to all this trouble given that the USDA has shown its flexibility? 

It takes time for children to adjust to new foods, and for schools to learn how to make new things. This is what healthy school-meals company, Revolution Foods, learned as it fought to discover how to make a healthy and delicious chicken wing. It must be doing something right. Steve Case, the AOL co-founder, has just invested $30m in the company. Teething troubles are to be expected, but they are best handled by bureaucrats, not politicians.  

Ultimately it is worth remembering that this is also a fight over science-driven policymaking. Republicans may argue they are fighting the good fight against excessive regulations, but they need to remember that the larger struggle is for the future of our children's health—a fight that is still being lost. This isn't about whether or not grown adults can supersize their meals. This is about whether school canteens can serve cheap junk to the nation's kids on the taxpayer’s dollar and tell them it is real food. If current trends continue one in three Americans born in 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime. If conservatives don't think America’s next generation is worth fighting for, then what the hell is?