What the USDA is implementing today is a so-called bridging rule to help schools slowly return to meeting basic nutrition rules over the next two school years. The rule places slightly stricter limits on sodium, requires more whole-grain foods to be served (think hamburger buns and chicken patties), and still allows schools to serve 1 percent flavored milk, but avoids major changes for a few years. .
The policy maintains some of the changes that the Trump administration had made. For example, under the Obama administration’s rules, only nonfat flavored milks were allowed. The Trump administration allowed 1 percent flavored milks. The Biden administration is sticking with that change for now. On sodium and whole grains, Biden is essentially splitting the difference and bringing schools closer to Obama-era standards.
The overall goal is to help schools stabilize their nutrition programs, many of which have been losing money due to skyrocketing food and staff costs. Meanwhile, the USDA is planning a full reset of nutrition standards for school meals that likely won’t go into effect until the 2024-25 school year.
As part of that effort, health advocates hope the USDA will eventually set limits on the amount of sugar that can be served in school meals. The Obama administration’s update did not establish a limit because the Dietary Guidelines did not yet include a limit on added sugars. However, the last two iterations of the federal nutrition advice have recommended that Americans get no more than 10 percent of their daily calories from added sugars.
Vilsack told POLITICO the department is looking at sugar, sodium and increased fruit and vegetable consumption, among other things, as it works to do a more comprehensive long-term update.
“The link between diet, nutrition, health and educational outcomes is pretty clear,” Vilsack said. “When children are healthy, they do well, when children are well fed, they do well.”
Earlier this week, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the American Heart Association and the American Public Health Association filed a citizen petition with the USDA explicitly calling for a limit on added sugars to align school standards with the Dietary Guidelines, which the department must do.
“For many children from food-insecure families, breakfast and lunch served at school may be their only nutritious meal of the day,” said CSPI President Peter Lurie. “While the program has been a historical success story, it needs to stay current with the latest science.”
The groups note that making school meals healthier is particularly important in light of the fact that diet-related diseases such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension have made the country much more vulnerable to disease. and serious illness during the pandemic. And the first data on children during the pandemic raise warning signs about the worsening health of the country in the midst of a stressful time. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that the monthly rate of increase in body mass index, or BMI, among children and adolescents roughly doubled during the pandemic.
But setting stricter limits on sugar or anything else will have to wait a while. Supply chain constraints have hit schools particularly hard. School nutrition officers are currently having trouble obtaining staple foods or even the necessary trays or packaging, making even serving meals difficult.
Virtually all schools, 96 percent, recently surveyed by the School Nutrition Association, which represents about 55,000 school food officials, said they were dealing with vendors who didn’t have the menu items they need to meet typical nutrition standards. These include products rich in whole grains and low in sodium, as well as low-fat options.
Federal school meal programs, serving nearly 30 million students each day, are operating on extremely slim margins during normal times. It is typical to spend about $1.25 per meal. The pandemic has added enormous pressure to schools. When things initially closed in March 2020, thousands of schools immediately turned to serving grab-and-go meals to families in need, a massive effort that was credited with feeding millions of families, but also cost a lot of money, in terms of additional staff and packaging.
Now supply chain constraints are worsening an already shaky financial situation. Food companies and distributors that supply schools often supply other food businesses as well, so when a shortage occurs, low-margin school accounts are often the first to be cut.
“Because of the supply chain, you can’t get chicken products,” said Katie Wilson, executive director of the Urban School Food Alliance, a group representing 18 of the nation’s largest school districts, which together serve nearly a billion of meals per year. . That beats any chain restaurant or food service operation in the US, and probably by far.
Wilson believes public contracting rules have put schools at a particular disadvantage during the pandemic. “You know, Kentucky Fried Chicken isn’t having a problem,” he said. “McDonald’s is not having any problem because it has trade agreements.”
Schools have been hurt in part because they pay so little for food. If the private sector can pay more, the product will move there.
“At the start of the pandemic, I had dealers calling me and saying, ‘I have 20 trucks that need to go out. I have two drivers and only one and a half warehouse employees, one full time, one part time, and on those two trucks, he’s not going to go to schools. It will go to my fancy restaurants because that’s where my profit margin is,’” Wilson said.
Widespread supply chain disruptions have prompted a major push by school nutrition leaders to get Congress to extend USDA’s authority to continue to waive school nutrition requirements and a host of other regulatory requirements for a year more. The current USDA exemption authority expires at the end of June. Extending these waivers would also mean schools could continue serving free universal school meals for another year, something the vast majority of school nutrition leaders support.
Wilson, who served as a senior nutrition official at the USDA during the Obama administration and supports tougher nutrition standards, said it’s essential that the waivers be extended because schools are in a very difficult position right now, though He acknowledged that some schools are taking advantage of the regulatory relief to serve mediocre meals.
“There are groups of people who are using the pandemic as an excuse to serve whatever garbage they can,” he said. “Overall though, I think people are really trying. I think even if we get waivers for next year, USDA [with this rule] he’s saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute folks, now is the time to start thinking seriously about going back to nutrition standards.’”
