MILLER CLAIMS: “I am the model that Bobby Kennedy and the Make America Healthy Again Movement is using nationwide. Last year, schools bought $300 million of Texas-grown food.”
THE TRUTH: Texas has never ranked amongst the top performing states in the school lunch program.
Yes, Texas schools reported $257.8 million in Texas‑grown purchases in SY 2022–23. However, the total budget for the Child Nutrition Program (state and federal) for the previous biennium is $4,981,877,570 — or roughly $2.5B per year. This means Texas-grown purchases only accounted for 10.35% of Texas expenditures on food. Nationally local purchases account for 16% of total food spending — so Texas isn’t leading — it is falling behind.
Furthermore:
Miller’s first official act as commissioner was granting “amnesty to cupcakes” — a symbolic rollback of healthy school food standards (source).
He soon lifted bans on sodas and deep fryers in Texas schools, reversing bipartisan reforms that had reduced junk food in cafeterias (source).
Districts largely ignored the policy, but Miller’s move politicized school meals at a time when children’s health was collapsing, with ultra-processed foods now making up most of kids’ calories, obesity rates tripling in a generation, and over three-quarters of health-care spending tied to chronic disease. Today, 77% of young Americans are ineligible for military service, turning poor nutrition into a national security concern.
Instead of supporting Texas farmers, ranchers, and fresh food in schools, Miller took the side of processed food lobbyists and empty calories.
While families and lawmakers work to make school lunches healthier, Miller’s record made them worse putting politics ahead of kids’ health, parents’ trust, and Texas common sense.
Shortly after he was elected Sid Miller stated: "What we've been doing for the last ten years hasn't worked, the obesity rate in our school children has gotten progressively worse. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and we are no longer going to do that.”
