Just today, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposed new nutrition criteria for the School Lunch Program.  This is the first update to the guidelines in 15 years, and the refresh includes the following nutrition recommendations:

• Decrease the amount of starchy vegetables, such as potatoes, corn and green peas, to one cup a week.
• Reduce sodium in meals over the next 10 years. A high school lunch now has about 1,600 milligrams of sodium. Over the next decade, the goal is to reduce this level to 740 milligrams or less of sodium for grades through 9-12, 710 milligrams or less for grades 6-8, and 640 milligrams or less for grades K-5.
• Establish calorie maximums and minimums for the first time. For lunch: 550 to 650 calories for grades K-5, 600 to 700 for grades 6-8, 750 to 850 for grades 9-12.
• Serve only unflavored 1% milk or fat-free flavored or unflavored milk.
• Increase the fruits and vegetables kids are offered. The new rule requires that a serving of fruit be offered daily at breakfast and lunch and that two servings of vegetables be offered daily at lunch.  There are also rules around serving a variety of vegetables.
• Increase whole grains substantially. The proposed rules require that half of grains served must be whole grains.
• Minimize trans fat by using products where the nutrition label says zero grams of trans fat per serving.

As I mentioned above, these are proposed guidelines.  The way the system works is that guidelines are proposed, all interested parties are allowed to comment (due April 13^th), all the comments are reviewed, and a final decision put in place.    

With more than 32 million kids across the country eating school lunch every day, nearly a third of kids in the U.S. are now overweight or obese, and in light of the future cost demands of treating the diseases obesity can lead to, the nutrition criteria for school lunch is an important issue. 

While you may not consider yourself politically active, the publication of these proposed guidelines provides an opportunity for all of us to get involved in this important issue.  It can be as simple as contacting your school foodservice director to encourage him/her to support the updates, or sending comments directly to the USDA (comments are accepted on their website).  It’s a call to action for all of us to support the future of today’s kids.

Visit www.nuval.com to learn more about pilot programs in schools in Independence, MO.

Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution kicked off last Friday with a focus on school lunch in Huntington, West Virginia.  I have been surprised by how little fan fare there has been about the show since its launch.  I’ve been fighting with whether to write about it or not.  Actually, several people have asked me to address school lunch in this blog, but I have been avoiding it as I’m a bit conflicted on the issue.  Why am I conflicted?  Many reasons, including. . .

• Schools are required by law to meet nutrition standards that comply with the Dietary Guidelines, and they have to do it on a shoestring budget.  The federal rate for reimbursement for school lunches is currently $2.68.  I don’t know that everyone understands this.  Schools have to buy the food, hire staff to prep the food and clean-up, pay for the plates and silverware all at this rate.
• Offer vs. serve.  Most schools offer a variety of foods that comply with these nutrition standards, and then kids are allowed to choose what they will take.  The reason for this is that if you “serve” the kids, giving them no choice, a lot of food gets wasted.  The last time I was at my son’s school for lunch, kids had a choice of seven different fruits and vegetables – steamed broccoli, cut up apples, grapes, salad, oranges, celery, cucumbers.  Yet there were kids that took no fruits or vegetables.  Is this the school’s fault?
• No one ever talks about the lunches that kids bring from home.  Are they more nutritious than school lunch?  When I visit my son’s school at lunch, I see donuts and chips and sandwiches on white bread coming from home in lunch boxes.
• If a child eats three meals a day for 365 days a year, there are a total of 1095 meals eating by a kid in a year.  Many kids eat 5 meals a week at school for roughly nine months out of the year, totaling 195 meals eaten at school in a year.  That’s 18% of a kid’s meals.  What about the other 82%?  It seems so easy to put all the pressure on schools instead of on home, doesn’t it?
• My sense is that we as parents expect our schools to do an awful lot.   Is it fair to expect them to get our kids the perfectly balanced meal at school with all the right foods and nutrients if we aren’t teaching our kids what this means at home?  School lunch has to be perfect so we can hit the McDonald’s drive thru before soccer practice?
• Where does personal responsibility fall into all of this?  There are books and articles written every day about the current generation of “helicopter” parents who want to be their kids’ friend not the parent.  Are we doing our absolute best at home to get our kids to eat the most nutritious foods?

I’m beginning to feel like I’m on a bit of a soap box here, and I probably am.  It’s just that this is a complex topic, intertwined with family eating habits more comprehensively, yet it feels like the finger keeps getting pointed at schools.

I’m not saying I have an answer or know all the complex details of all the facets of this issue.  That’s why I’m conflicted.

I’m curious. .. where do you stand on these issues?

Visit www.nuval.com to see a program that will be implemented in schools in Independence, MO in the Fall of 2010.