Friday, January 14, 2011
U.S. plan aims to make school meals more healthful
Stacy Finz, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle January 14, 2011 04:00 AM Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
It's a smackdown on french fries and a cry for more fruits and vegetables.
For the first time in 15 years, the federal government is calling for significant changes in school meals, including limiting the amount of trans fat, salt and calories in the cafeteria and increasing the produce and whole grains served. The hope is that the 32 million children who participate daily in school meal programs will have more healthful foods to chew on.
The proposed rule, which would raise reimbursements to schools by 6 cents a meal, was released on Thursday, and it is being applauded by nutrition and children's outreach groups across the country."The United States is facing an obesity epidemic, and the crisis of poor diets threatens the future of our children and our nation," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack wrote in a news release. "With many children consuming as many as half their daily calories at school, strengthening nutritional standards is an important step in the Obama administration's effort to combat childhood obesity and improve the health and well-being of our kids."
About 17 percent of the nation's children and adolescents are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's triple the rate from one generation ago. Overweight kids run the risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and Type 2 diabetes.
A good start
"I think it's a wonderful step and we really should be optimistic about it," said Ann Cooper, a school food consultant and chef who helped build Berkeley Unified School District's lauded school meal program and has been vocal about the ills of cafeteria lunches.
Cooper isn't enamored with everything in the proposed rules: "Six cents is about the price of a quarter apple" and "I'd like to see a faster crackdown on the levels of sodium we're serving as opposed to the USDA's proposal of (reducing it incrementally) over a 10-year period," she said, but called the rules a move in the right direction.
The proposal calls for:
-- A decrease in potatoes (those french fries), corn and other starchy vegetables to a maximum of one cup a week.
-- A gradual reduction in sodium levels over the next decade to 740 milligrams per lunch or less for high school students, 710 milligrams or less for grades six through eight and 640 milligrams or less for kindergarten through fifth grade.
-- Serving only unflavored milk with a 1 percent fat content or fat-free flavored or unflavored milk.
-- Creating calorie minimums and maximums for the first time. For lunch, the range would be 550 to 650 calories for kindergarten through fifth grade, 600 to 700 calories for sixth through eighth grades and 750 to 850 calories for high school students.
-- Introducing children to a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. A serving of fruit would be offered daily at breakfast and lunch and two vegetables would be available for lunch. Green and leafy vegetables, orange vegetables, beans, starchy vegetables and others must be served over the course of the week so students get one of each.
-- Requiring for the first time that half of the grains served be whole grains.
-- Serving only foods with nutrition labels that show zero grams of trans fat per serving.
Explain the sources
Alice Waters, the Berkeley restaurateur whose Chez Panisse Foundation has been instrumental in funding successful school food programs, is concerned that without an educational component, kids will wind up chucking their whole grains and broccoli.
"Unless they know where their food comes from, it's not going to work," she said, adding that the rules are still "a giant step forward."
"I'm pleased that we're going down this path," she said. "I just want so much more."
The Agriculture Department is scheduled to take public comment until April 13 on the proposal, which is part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, signed into law by President Obama last month. The law requires that the proposed rule be implemented in the next 18 months and state education officials will monitor the program for compliance, said USDA spokeswoman Jean Daniel.
"It's a much-needed and long-awaited change," said Juliet Sims, program coordinator of the Prevention Institute, an Oakland nonprofit dedicated to the well-being of children. "It's what we were all expecting, but a really exciting step, particularly the fruits, vegetables and whole-grain aspects of the rules."It's not perfect, said Sims, who would have preferred that the agriculture department ban flavored milk altogether. There is debate over whether chocolate and other flavored milk is helpful or hurtful in promoting good nutrition.
Good eating habits
Arnell Hinkle, executive director of the California Adolescent Nutrition and Fitness Program, a Berkeley nonprofit that works on after-school programs, said the most important part of the changes is that they will influence good eating habits at home.
"Children are going to learn what real food is," she said. "It's about lifelong behaviors starting at school."
U.S. Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, also praised the proposal.
"The reality is that for many families struggling in this economy, the only chance their child has at eating a healthy meal comes in the school cafeteria," he said in a news release. "This means that our schools have an enormous responsibility to ensure the meals they serve our kids are nutritious, well-balanced and tasty enough that our kids actually want to eat them."
E-mail Stacy Finz at sfinz@sfchronicle.com.
