Chocolate milk can remain in the cafeteria while schools serve more foods that are rich in whole grains and lower in salt over the next two years under a Biden administration plan for healthier school meals. The USDA announced the transition to healthier school food after loosening its rules during the pandemic so schools could continue to feed students despite staff and supply chain disruptions.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the USDA would update school nutrition standards for the long-term, based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, in time for the start of school in fall 2024. A proposed rule could be issued next fall.
“We’ve got to find the right balance between standards that give our kids the best chance at a healthy future based on the latest nutrition science and ensuring those standards are practical, built to last and work for everyone,” said Vilsack on Friday.
Under the transitional rule issued by the USDA, starting next fall, 80 percent of grains served for breakfast or lunch at school must be rich in whole grains. Schools can serve flavored 1 percent milk in addition to nonfat flavored milk and nonfat or low-fat non-flavored milk. Beginning in fall 2023, the weekly sodium limit for school lunch will decrease by 10 percent.
The School Nutrition Association said it was too soon, given ongoing pandemic disruptions, to tighten the rules. It has called for Congress to give schools more time to reduce salt in meals, set the whole-grain target at 50 percent of grains served, and allow low-fat flavored milk, along with increasing the federal reimbursement for each lunch and breakfast served and making meals free for all students.
“School nutrition professionals are frantic just trying to get enough food on the tray for our students amid relentless supply chain disruptions and labor shortages,” said SNA president Beth Wallace. She said the group was ready to discuss “the viability of nutrition standards moving forward.”
The senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee agreed. “The bottom line is it’s the wrong time to try to force schools to comply with stricter nutrition standards,” said Arkansas Sen. John Boozman.
When Congress reauthorized child nutrition programs in 2010, it said schools should serve more fruits, vegetables and whole grains while cutting back on salt, fat and sugar. Lawmakers intervened repeatedly to delay the deadlines for compliance. The Trump administration wrote flexibility on dairy, white flour and salt into regulation before the pandemic upended school operations.
Chairman Bobby Scott of the House Education and Labor Committee said he was “pleased the Biden-Harris administration is continuing to provide flexibility for school meal nutrition standards as schools and families across the country confront the recent rise in Covid-19 infections.”