Providing greater flexibility for school meals

The USDA will provide greater flexibility in nutrition requirements for school meal programs in order to make food choices both healthful and appealing to students. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue made this announcement during a visit to Catoctin Elementary School in Leesburg, Virginia, to mark School Nutrition Employee Week. He signed a proclamation which begins the process of restoring local control of guidelines on whole grains, sodium, and milk. Perdue was joined by Sen. Pat Roberts (KS), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, and Patricia Montague, CEO of the School Nutrition Association.

“This announcement is the result of years of feedback from students, schools, and food service experts about the challenges they are facing in meeting the final regulations for school meals,” Perdue said.  “If kids aren’t eating the food, and it’s ending up in the trash, they aren’t getting any nutrition – thus undermining the intent of the program.”

“I commend Secretary Perdue for taking this important step,” said Montague. “We have been wanting flexibility so that schools can serve meals that are both nutritious and palatable. We don’t want kids wasting their meals by throwing them away. Some of our schools are actually using that food waste as compost. That shouldn’t be happening.”

Schools have been facing increasing fiscal burdens as they attempt to adhere to existing, stringent nutrition requirements. According to USDA figures, school food requirements cost school districts and states an additional $1.22 billion in Fiscal Year 2015. At the same time costs are going up, most states are reporting that they’ve seen a decrease in student participation in school lunches, as nation-wide about one million students choose not to have a school lunch each day. This impacts schools in two ways: The decline in school lunch participation means reduced revenue to schools while they simultaneously are encountering increased costs.

Perdue lauded the efforts of the nation’s food service staff in serving healthful, appealing meals and underscored USDA’s commitment to help them overcome any remaining challenges they face in meeting the nutrition standards.

According to the National Potato Council’s (NPC) web site, it has supported giving local school systems the flexibility to deliver healthy meal options to school children within their operating budgets. In 2011, NPC, state potato organizations and U.S. potato growers won a victory in defending potatoes against USDA’s proposed school meal program regulations. USDA’s proposed regulations would have limited the total servings of starchy vegetables (potatoes, corn, green peas and lima beans) in the National School Lunch Program to one cup per week, and prohibited them from serving these vegetables altogether in the School Breakfast Program.