I’ll admit it: I’m unusual when it comes to food. I like to eat things that are green and red and yellow and purple, the crunchier the better. I enjoy weird stuff like kale and quinoa and, when prepared correctly, even Brussels sprouts. I haven’t eaten in a McDonald’s in years.

Don’t paint me as an obsessive purist; I’m not. Anyone who knows me knows my seasonal weakness for candy corn, my occasional indulgence in french fries, and my continuing infatuation with chocolate.

But generally, I don’t do brown. Good thing I’m not in high school anymore, because I’d last about a day in the average school cafeteria.

The national school lunch program is considered the largest feeding program in the world, a $10 billion annual expenditure that affects the diet of 28 million public school children. You will be hearing a lot about it this year, because Congress will be debating its reauthorization, and — we should all hope — its reformation.

If the nation is serious about attacking the obesity epidemic among the young, the school lunchroom will be the launching pad. Increasing federal nutritional standards for children receiving free and reduced-priced lunches can raise standards for all, helping to slowly wean young people off a dangerous diet loaded with fat, sugar, and far more brown food than a body should consume.

That diet is addicting — not only to children raised on nothing better, but also to school districts desperate for cash and dependent on the lucrative vending machine contracts that provide money for 98 percent of public high schools and 43 percent of elementary schools nationwide.

Sad but true: Healthy eating often costs more. Serving locally grown, fresh broccoli rather than the mushy, tasteless variety from a can or the freezer takes more money and effort, and that is something to which the Bush administration evidently is not willing to commit. It reportedly will ask for little or no increase in the coming budget.

Instead, the administration says it hopes to find extra cash by aggressively chasing after fraud, striking from the rolls students whose families exceed the income requirements for subsidized or free lunches. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that could add up to a tidy $1 billion.

No one, of course, is in favor of people who scam the government, whether the object is school lunches or defense contracts. But nutrition advocates and some members of Congress are worried about the proposed audit because previous ones have driven away more children than were disqualified.

“Our main concern is that the last time someone tried to do this, the cure was worse than the disease,” says Daniel Weiss, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. George Miller of California, the ranking Democrat on the House education committee.

I have another concern: that debate over the audit will divert energy and attention from the more significant challenge of deciding how to use federal money and might to improve the nutrition of American youngsters.

Washington already acts like the nation’s maitre d’. Last year, the USDA spent $338 million on surplus beef and cheese and $159 million on fruits and vegetables, buying farmers’ leftovers and turning them over to schools. Note the discrepancy in how the money was spent. And we wonder why the cheeseburger rules the lunchroom?

Poor eating habits are the result of more than just bad government decisions, of course. They also are the result of countless bad choices too many Americans make when food is generally abundant and lifestyles are dangerously sedentary.

The government must ensure that public money isn’t squandered. But it also should funnel whatever a good audit saves back into a system that desperately needs resources and creativity to show a generation of junk-food addicts a healthier future. Even if they never learn to love Brussels sprouts.