Healthier School Lunch Movement Gains Momentum Nationwide

Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Out with chicken nuggets and foot-long hot dogs, in with locally grown vegetables and lentil tacos.

In the months and years ahead, school cafeteria trays could look much different as some state and federal lawmakers push to restrict ultra-processed foods in K–12 public schools, under the premise of assisting students to be happier, healthier, and higher-achieving.

Arizona, California, Louisiana, Utah, and Virginia passed laws removing unhealthy products, ingredients, or food dyes from school cafeterias, with healthier choices being phased in within the next two academic years. Similar legislation is pending in Hawaii, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, according to the websites of their respective state legislatures.

Foods that are considered “ultra-processed” have an abundance of additives and preservatives and are linked to chronic health issues such as obesity and diabetes, according to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Make Our Children Healthy Again guidance released on Sept. 9.

“The American diet has shifted dramatically toward highly processed foods, leading to nutrient depletion, increased caloric intake, and exposure to potentially harmful or unhealthy additives,” the guidance reads.

Ultra-Processed Foods and Scratch Kitchens 

The Chef Ann Foundation defines ultra-processed foods as those that are chemically manipulated with ingredients such as corn, soy, and wheat extracts to extend shelf life, improve flavor, and enhance appearance. It also includes additives such as sugar, sodium, dyes, preservatives, and other chemicals to change the texture or increase the volume of feeds. Artificial ingredients are used to replace the vitamins and minerals lost as the result of processing and packaging.

Ultra-processed foods are less filling yet contain more calories than minimally processed foods, leading consumers to eat faster and consume more.

Chef Ann Foundation CEO Mara Fleishman said that, beyond cafeteria employee training and kitchen upgrades from heat-and-serve equipment to a scratch cooking setup, the other major necessary investment is increased funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which currently provides $4.50 per school lunch.

Fleishman told The Epoch Times via email that the bipartisan federal Scratch Cooked Meals for Students Act—a USDA pilot program that provides school cafeterias with refrigerators, convection ovens, steamers, and prep spaces—will be reintroduced in the next legislative session.

Most schools built around the middle of the 20th century were equipped with large kitchens designed for scratch cooking, but quality and nutrition took a back seat to efficiency and cost savings in the decades that followed.

By the 1980s, new schools were being built with smaller heat-and-serve operations, and older schools were shrinking their cafeterias to free up space for other functions. Districts that returned to scratch cooking are more likely to have a large central kitchen and transport the meals to their schools, according to Danielle Bock, director of nutritional services for the Greeley-Evans-Weld County School District in Colorado.

During a Sept. 9 House Health Care and Financial Services Subcommittee hearing on childhood nutrition and medication, legislators noted that about one-third of U.S. adolescent children are pre-diabetic and/or obese. Eve Stoody, director of the USDA’s Nutrition Guidance and Analysis Division, said about 61.9 percent of the calories consumed by U.S. youth are considered ultra-processed.

Stoody is working with Health and Human Services to develop a uniform definition of ultra-processed foods for future federal guidance on school menus. Although sodas, salty snacks, and candy are obvious examples, it’s still unclear whether yogurts, bagged salads, and canned vegetables are acceptable menu items.

“There have been discussions that some of these definitions are really broad,” she said.

Parents, Children Weigh In

The MAHA report provides several examples of other nations that serve whole foods for school lunches, including Brazil and countries across Northern Europe. Still, it doesn’t take into account that, for millions of students worldwide, having meals at school is a foreign concept.

Sarah Berner, an 11th-grade exchange student from Germany currently attending Cazenovia High School in upstate New York, said her schools back home always offered doughnuts in the morning and bread as a snack throughout the day. She and her classmates always went home for their afternoon meal before returning to class. Her first and only hot school lunch, eaten shortly after arriving in the United States, was a cheeseburger.

“It was good, I think. But I wouldn’t eat it again,” she told The Epoch Times.

Rowan Wallace, a sophomore in the district whose family is hosting Berner, said the school cafeteria has improved during her 11 years as a student. Hot dogs and pizza are no longer commonplace. The latest menu items—cheese-and-cracker bento boxes with yogurt parfaits—were very good, she said. Still, she said, she misses the deli sandwiches that are no longer offered and would like to see more whole-grain items and chia pudding.

Her mother, Julie Wallace, said the cafeteria does a good job with healthy grab-and-go items for busy high school students who don’t get a lunch period when they have band or chorus practice. She said she thinks that homemade granola bars would be the perfect afternoon energy-booster for teens who have sports practices or school club gatherings after school.

In Utah, state Rep. Kristen Chevrier said she based her bill calling for removal of additives and dyes from school foods on what she witnessed in her state’s Granite School District’s prep kitchen: large vats of homemade salsa, a conveyor belt of locally grown potatoes with minimal seasoning, and a panel of student taste-testers judging the flavor of new menu items—chicken sandwiches and burrito bowls.

“Moms approached me about getting rid of the toxins in school food,” Chevrier told The Epoch Times. “My own children have food sensitivities, so I understand what they mean.

“The closer we can get to natural and fewer ingredients, the better.”

Little Wiggle Room

School districts that receive USDA reimbursement funding for school lunches must follow guidelines that dictate serving sizes, types of food (fruits, vegetables, meats, and grains), calorie counts, and limits on saturated fat, sugar, and sodium. States can add restrictions. Current guidelines don’t address ultra-processed foods, according to the USDA website.

Schools purchase some foods directly from the USDA, and the federal agency regulates processed food manufacturers. For example, Post and General Mills make cereals with reduced sugar content specifically for schools. Districts are required to self-audit their food purchases and their meal preparation, and both functions are subject to state and federal level audits, according to Duncan Sproule, who worked as a school food services manager in urban and suburban districts in Syracuse, New York.

Sproule recalled an incident involving whole-grain pasta from the USDA. It didn’t hold its shape well, was difficult to serve, and was unpopular among the students. The remaining cases of the product were donated to local food pantries; the school spent local tax dollars to substitute regular pasta. Most districts rely on state and federal funding for meals and must carefully set aside money on a long-term basis to replace equipment.

“The margins are very tight,” Sproule told The Epoch Times.

Dave Bartholomew, who managed public school food service operations in the Central New York area for 35 years, said providing fresher foods in cold-weather states with short growing seasons is a tall task.

The USDA expects much from schools, he said, recalling the requirements to continue food service during the COVID-19 pandemic and getting meals to students in remote areas during winter storms.

“Improving the nutrition is a good thing, but it will need to be done very slowly and very meticulously,” Bartholomew told The Epoch Times.

“To understand the regulations we’re already dealing with, the politicians need to spend time in a cafeteria. Don’t just visit it. Go work in it for a day.”

School Food Service Already Changing

In upstate New York, school districts complied with stricter school lunch requirements set by President Barack Obama, Sproule recalled, noting that the chicken sandwich menu item decreased by less than 1 ounce and whole-grain rolls replaced white breads.

Dana Canino, child nutrition director at the Granite School District, said even the condiments in her central kitchen, which serves 80 schools, are homemade. She said she buys as much food as possible from local farmers, including fruits, whole wheat flour, and beef. Food prices have fluctuated since the COVID-19 pandemic, she said, so it’s too soon to gauge if whole food preparation is cheaper.

Bock said that in her Colorado district, school food service operations are still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted supply chains, decreased the labor force, and required the return of certain processed foods for sanitary reasons and heat-and-serve operations to accommodate children in their classrooms instead of cafeterias.

“We’re able to get back to scratch because we have culinary control over our ingredients,” she said.

Utah’s law takes effect for the next school year. State Sen. Heidi Balderree, who co-sponsored Chevrier’s bill, said many districts across her state won’t have to make drastic changes to comply with the new regulations beyond removing “chips and Jello.”

In addition to expected improvements in academic performance, Balderree said, Utah agriculture could enjoy growth if lawmakers undo regulations and smooth out supply chain issues to get farm-fresh products to school kitchens promptly.

“The more autonomous we can be, the better we’ll be,” she told The Epoch Times. “In the long run, it’s a wise thing to do.”