State likely to support existing lunch standards

Credit: Jane Meredith Adams/EdSource Today

Uncomplicated students at the salad and fruit bar in a Northern California school.

Credit: Jane Meredith Adams/EdSource Today

Elementary students at the salad and fruit bar in a Northern California schoolhouse.

California's enthusiasm for healthy school lunches appears unlikely to change under a Congressional budget pecker headed to President Barack Obama for signature that would allow states to weaken new federal school nutrition requirements.

The changes to the regulations for the Healthy, Hunger-Complimentary Kids Act of 2010 – part of a $1.1 trillion upkeep agreement passed on Sat – are the latest in a heated conflict over the new National School Tiffin Program menus, which telephone call for increased servings of fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and reductions in fats and sodium.

The bill would exempt some schools from the requirement that they serve only breads and pastas that are "whole grain rich," meaning they are at to the lowest degree fifty percent whole grain. To receive an exemption, schools must show evidence of "hardship, including financial hardship" in obtaining 50 percent whole grain foods that are "acceptable to students." The neb as well would keep sodium restrictions at current levels until "the latest scientific inquiry establishes the reduction is beneficial for children." The linguistic communication referring to the exemptions begins on page 99 of the lengthy spending neb.

Because the proposed beak allows, just does not crave, states to grant exemptions, the pecker "leaves the power to the land agency to define what is a hardship," said Tracey Patterson, diet policy advocate for California Food Policy Advocates, an Oakland-based nonprofit organisation. The California Department of Education, which administers the National School Lunch Program, has been "very supportive" of improving school nutrition and is unlikely to easily grant exemptions, Patterson said.

"Anecdotally, many of our schools accept constitute successful ways to implement whole grain rich pasta requirements," said Kim Frinzell, nutrition education administrator in the California Department of Pedagogy.

California has a long history of support for school diet and often has imposed nutritional guidelines ahead of the federal government, including the state's 2009 ban on school lunch foods that comprise trans fats, which have been linked to heart disease, and state regulations limiting sugary beverages and salty snacks sold in vending machines at schools.

State Superintendent of Public Educational activity Tom Torlakson stated his back up for the standards in a letter in May. "It is imperative to go along improving the nutrition standards so that nosotros can continue to make a difference [to] our children's wellness," Torlakson wrote.

Already, 95 percent of school tiffin programs in the state are meeting the whole grain rich standards and accept been certified as in compliance with the menu standards. The National School Dejeuner Program provides free or reduced-cost meals to students from low-income families; the meals are likewise available to students at full toll.

"Anecdotally, many of our schools have establish successful means to implement whole grain rich pasta requirements," said Kim Frinzell, diet education administrator in the Nutrition Services Division of the California Department of Teaching.

Post-obit the introduction of the phased-in standards in 2012, the department has provided technical assistance to districts struggling to provide toll-effective menus, including confront-to-face workshops, webinars  and culinary training.

Merely the department wouldn't speculate about whether information technology would grant exemptions to schools to opt out of using whole grain rich breads and pastas if the bill passed. "We will wait until the USDA gives us guidance" on implementing the exemptions, said Julie Boarer-Pitchford, nutrition education consultant of the Nutrition Services Division of the California Department of Education.

"My hope would be those [training] options would get thoroughly explored before the exemption option," said Gail Woodward-Lopez, acquaintance manager of the Atkins Center for Weight and Health at UC Berkeley. "California is by and large very supportive and we accept a lot of innovative food service directors."

This is not the offset time that whole grain rich foods have been a source of conflict in the new dejeuner standards. In May, the U.S. Department of Agronomics said it had received complaints that whole grain rich pasta wasn't holding together well during cooking, and issued a "flexibility" memorandum allowing states to grant schools a two-yr reprieve on serving whole grain rich pasta, while schools and manufacturers figure out adequate pasta products. California is still formulating its process under which schools could apply for a reprieve, said Frinzell at the California Department of Education. But the whole wheat rich pasta rule went into effect July ane and "since July 1, schools this school twelvemonth are already implementing this requirement," she said.

The School Nutrition Association, a Maryland-based national system of school diet professionals, has pressed for rollbacks on the standards, citing a federal Government Accountability Office report that found national participation in the schoolhouse luncheon plan had dropped by 1.2 million students from 2010 to 2013. The decrease was primarily caused past a turn down of 1.half-dozen one thousand thousand students eating school lunch who pay total toll, the written report said, noting that the number of students eating school meals at free or reduced cost increased. The diet clan said that the drop in student participation had made it difficult for some districts to meet the costs of providing more fruits, vegetables and palatable carte du jour options using whole grain rich breads and pastas.

"The escalating costs of meeting overly prescriptive regulations are putting school meal programs in financial jeopardy," said Patricia Montague, master executive officer of the association, in a statement.

But food policy advocates say that the drop in schoolhouse lunch consumption is tied in role to a recent increment in the cost of the lunches for the students who pay full cost. The U.S. Section of Agriculture in 2022 required schools to achieve "paid luncheon disinterestedness" to ensure that districts weren't using federal funds to subsidize the full-rate meals. As a consequence, full-pay dejeuner prices increased and, in some cases, doubled.

In California, in that location have as well been concerns most school districts' fiscal management of federal and state school lunch funds. Recent country reports plant that some districts take diverted tiffin funds for other purposes or kept excessive cash reserves. The California Department of Education has ordered 68 districts to spend millions of dollars in federal and state schoolhouse lunch funds that they accept failed for years to use for student meals.

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Source: https://edsource.org/2014/state-likely-to-support-existing-lunch-standards/71373