New USDA Guidelines are likely to result in greater access to high calorie, high fat, high salt ... [+]
We are at a crucial point in time. Research is mounting in support of the importance of eating fruits and vegetables for our health, and unprecedented numbers of young people are switching to a plant-forward diet.
At the same time, only nine percent of high school students meet the US’s dietary guidelines for fruit, and only two percent meet the vegetable recommendation. Younger generations are crucial to driving a lasting shift in our eating habits that will help shape the future of the planet, of agriculture, and human health.
However, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s new proposals for school meal guidelines threatens to hamper progress.
The Food and Nutrition Service guidelines, the USDA says, add more flexibility that will help to cut down on food waste. The reality is it will allow children to eat unhealthier school lunches, risking their health, increasing levels of obesity and giving power to the meat and dairy lobbies.
“Although cloaked in language like ‘flexibility’ and ‘streamlining’ the reality is if (realistically when) this rule passes, school foodservice teams will have the green light to serve fewer fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and will have the ability to do so with even less oversight and accountability,” says Audrey Sanchez, Executive Director of Balanced, an advocacy organization focused on improving the healthfulness of menus in schools and hospitals. “There will potentially be a small number of foodservice teams that take the proposed changes and shift toward healthier menus, but they will be extreme outliers.”
More specifically, the new rules will solidify a temporary rule change quietly released this past spring that pasta made with starchy vegetable-based flours will count as a vegetable, even if it has no actual vegetables served with it. It also lowers the minimum requirement of red/orange vegetables and allows schools to offer potatoes as a vegetable every day, including in the form of french fries.
And schools will also be allowed to offer school lunch entrees for a la carte purchase for one additional day per week. Having more access to entrees for a la carte purchase means more access to high calorie, high fat, high salt foods including pizza, burgers, hot dogs, chicken nuggets and fries.
There will also be looser rules around how much fruit is served with breakfast, to make it easier to offer meat instead (and technically a meat alternative, but who are we kidding?), the guidelines say. Schools will only have to serve half a cup, rather than a full cup, of fruit with breakfasts served outside the cafeteria. The remaining calories could be made up from sugary foods.
Ultimately, the guidelines will enable schools to serve more junk food and less fruit, vegetables and whole grains.
Critics and nutritionists have condemned the announcement, and some say the potato lobby will be very happy with the new guidelines, as the added "flexibility" means schools will be able to offer more servings of potatoes.
Some say the industry pushed for this change. Last year, the USDA moved to allow schools to substitute potatoes and other starchy vegetables for fruit with breakfast.
Experts say it's creating a loophole in nutrition guidelines that could be exploited by industry lobbies, including meat and dairy. The rule change, they say, could make it easier for children to consume more animal products, when the data suggests they are eating far too many.
Indeed, this goes against mounting research suggesting a plant-forward diet is healthier, and that overconsumption of meat increases our risk of heart disease. Research from a pilot case study in Washington D.C. last year found that plant-based school lunches contain three times as much fiber as standard entrees. This is at a time, the researchers state, when nine in ten US children aren’t getting enough fiber, due to poor diets, and one in three are considered overweight or obese.
The guidelines are one in a long string of battles between government, the food industry and experts in nutrition. From former President Reagan wanting to class ketchup as a vegetable, to Congress ruling pizza could be considered a vegetable after lobbying from the frozen food industry – the school cafeteria has long been a battleground, and the loser is children, whose health has been compromised.
The battle has heated up as the Trump administration seems set on undoing any reforms brought in by Obama. The Obama guidelines ruled that starches must contain at least fifty percent whole grains, and chocolate milk must be zero fat.
Big dairy has been a huge driver of what students are served in school. Soon after being appointed Secretary of Agriculture in 2017, Sonny Perdue, who was previously a consultant to milk producers, announced he would be easing restrictions and reintroducing one percent chocolate milk, white bread and pizza to schools. He said: “I wouldn’t be as big as I am today without chocolate milk”.
In 2010, Congress passed Michelle Obama’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. The intention was to lower childhood obesity and get children eating more fruit and vegetables. The Act brought existing breakfast and lunch programs in line with the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
Unsurprisingly, the nutritional quality of meals students ate dramatically improved, and didn’t change participation in school lunches, according to research. Students started eating more whole grains, fruit and vegetables. Eight years later, the USDA also lowered nutrition standards for grains and sodium in school cafeterias that were part of the Act.
The USDA serves thirty million children multiple meals every school day – twenty million of whom qualify for free lunch. Research has found that these children rely on school meals for around half their daily calorie intake, and around 40% of their daily vegetable intake. For low-income children in particular, this is a lifeline.
People on low income are more likely to be obese, putting themselves at higher risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and stroke. It’s crucial, therefore, that school helps educate children about nutrition, and provide access to healthy meals that help shape their future eating habits.
Miguel Villarreal, director of food and nutritional services for the Novato Unified School District in Northern California, said when the option of flavored milk was taken away from them, students initially drank less milk, before getting used to unflavored milk. According to research, children need to be fed nutrient-dense food seventeen times before accepting it.
This is just one example highlighting how important it is to form life changing, healthy dietary habits at a young age. The healthier a child’s diet, the easier it will be for them to eat a healthy diet in adulthood.
Some schools will use the proposed changes as an opportunity to offer healthier menus – but they will be in the minority. The guidelines create a financial incentive for schools to sell unhealthy al la carte food items, and are just one example of how food industry lobbying poses a real danger to the health of children, and of future generations.
We may not have all the answers regarding how we do this – but we can all agree that pasta doesn’t count as a vegetable (and nor does ketchup). It’s more important than ever to ensure we instill and encourage in children healthy eating habits they can carry through life. Future generations depend on long-term thinking – not short-sighted politics.
