School lunches will have less sugar, salt under USDA proposals

(TND) — Proposed changes to school meals would limit added sugars for the first time and gradually cut back on the amount of salt in the foods served to students.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said these "really important" changes could improve the health of the roughly 15 million children who eat a school breakfast and nearly 30 million children who eat a school lunch.

Many children aren’t getting the nutrition they need, and diet-related diseases are on the rise," Vilsack said in a news release. "Research shows school meals are the healthiest meals in a day for most kids, proving that they are an important tool for giving kids access to the nutrition they need for a bright future."

Around 1 in 5 U.S. children are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These proposed updates to the school meal standards stem from President Joe Biden’s National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health that was released this fall. The Biden administration wants to stamp out hunger and greatly improve the diet-related health of Americans.

“It’s important for us to get this right,” Vilsack said during an announcement of the proposed changes.

He said they developed these proposals with “a tremendous amount of feedback that we received, and have received, over the course of several years.”

And the Department of Agriculture is seeking even more feedback, holding a 60-day comment period that begins Tuesday.

The changes would lower sugar and salt intake while increasing the consumption of whole grains.

There are currently no limits on added sugars in the food served by schools.

The first foods targeted by sugar reductions would be mostly breakfast foods, such as cereals, yogurts and flavored milk.

Cereals would be limited to no more than 6 grams of added sugar per dry ounce. Flavored milk served during meals would be limited to no more than 10 grams of added sugar per 8 fluid ounces.

“In general, I agree,” Dr. Tamara Hannon said of the proposed changes.

Hannon, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Nutrition, said these sugar cutbacks are in line with what the AAP recommends.

“Breakfast foods like yogurts and cereals, ready-to-eat cereals, have a substantial amount of sugar in them, so that seems a logical place to start,” she said.

But the reductions in sugars wouldn’t begin until the fall of 2025.

The USDA said it’s taking a phased approach.

The second phase of limiting sugar is slated for fall 2027. They eventually want the added sugars to account for less than 10% of the calories children are getting from their school meals.

“As we listened, we learned that we needed to have a degree of flexibility in these standards,” Vilsack said. “We need to phase in some of the changes that are going to take place to give people the opportunity to do this right.”

The School Nutrition Association, a trade group, says it wants to maintain current school nutrition standards. The SNA called the proposed changes “unachievable for most schools nationwide.”

“As schools nationwide contend with persistent supply chain, labor and financial challenges, school meal programs are struggling to successfully maintain current standards and need support, not additional, unrealistic requirements,” SNA President Lori Adkins said in a news release.

SNA says nearly 90% of school meal program directors report having trouble getting sufficient menu items, such as whole-grain or low-fat options, to meet current standards.

Hannon said she trusts the USDA’s “expertise in this area” when asked about the timeline for rolling out the proposed changes.

I would disagree with the notion that this is unachievable,” she said. “There are lots of examples of schools and school systems that have achieved improvements in their meal programs, whether it's through partnerships with parents or community organizations. If the community wants to do this, they will do it.”

The USDA is also funding grants of up to $150,000 for small and rural schools to help them meet the standards.

“It may be a staff issue, it may be (a) food cost issue, it may be space or equipment needs,” Vilsack said. “We know that they need help.”

The USDA is proposing cutting the amount of salt in school lunches by 30% through a series of 10% reductions in the falls of 2025, 2027 and 2029.

It says this will gradually align sodium levels in school meals with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which calls for less than 2,300 milligrams per day, with even less for children younger than 14.

The first changes, slated for fall 2024, would prioritize whole grains while providing flexibility for schools to serve nonwhole, enriched grain foods – such as refined, enriched pasta or flour tortillas – one day a week, according to the USDA.

“USDA understands that thoughtful implementation of the updates will take time and teamwork,” Stacy Dean, deputy undersecretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, said in a news release. “We’re proposing these changes now to build in plenty of time for planning and collaboration with all of our school nutrition partners.”