1
Plenty of Regulations, But are They the Right Ones?
By Nancy Borowski and Ann Cooper —
School cafeterias have to comply with a slew of USDA regulations. In fact, we spend an inordinate amount of time striving to follow guidelines as opposed to actually feeding children. So what exactly are those government regulations? And do they adequately ensure that students eat the healthy lunches?
Part 1: Nancy Borowski breaks down the current rules
Parents are constantly calling me and asking questions about their children’s meals, from “How much money do they have?” to “Why did I have to pay for a milk if my child gets free lunch?” to “It doesn’t look like they get much to eat, can’t you give them more?” The questions vary widely, but they almost always come down to explaining what we serve and why we serve it. Many parents are unaware of the federal regulations governing school food programs. Here is a breakdown of what the federal government considers a meal.
Schools participating in the National School Breakfast Program (NSBP) and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) must follow Federal and State guidelines to receive financial assistance and commodity items. This assistance allows us to keep meal prices for students relatively low.
These guidelines include minimum serving size requirements based on age group/grade levels. They specify that no more than 30% of an individual’s calories come from fat and that fewer than 10% come from saturated fat, as recommended in the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Regulations also require school lunches to provide one-third of the Recommended Daily Allowances (RDAs) of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, calcium, and calories. Though school meals must meet federal nutrition requirements, local school food authorities decide what specific foods to serve and how to prepared them.
Schools can choose from different forms of meal patterns for menu planning. These are Food Based Traditional, Food Based Enhanced, Nutrient Standard or Assisted Nutrient Standard. Food Based Traditional menus (the most common approach) are based on offering items from each food group for well-balanced meals. Food Based Enhanced menus are the same as traditional, but they also offer more portions of fruits, vegetables and grains. Nutrient Standard and Assisted Nutrient Standard menus are based on the nutrient analysis of the menu items and must meet specific age- or grade-based requirements when averaged over the school week.
Schools can also choose to use Offer vs Serve in conjunction with the meal pattern they have chosen. Under Offer vs Serve, schools must offer all the required components of a meal, but students may decline up to one item at breakfast and up to two items at lunch. This allows students to pick the items they want, thus reducing waste. Systems not using Offer vs Serve must place all components on a student’s tray, regardless of likes or dislikes.
Here’s what breakfast and lunch look like following the Food Based Traditional Meal Pattern:
Breakfast - Schools must offer the following:
8 oz. fluid milk
1/2 cup fruit/vegetable or 4 oz. fruit juice (100%)
2 oz. grains/breads or 1 oz. grain/bread and 1 oz. meat/meat alternate.
Lunch - For lunch, both Food Based Traditional and Food Based Enhanced are divided into Groups I to V by age/grade. This determines the minimum serving size for students. Some systems, such as mine, may choose to follow only one group. In some instances, this provides larger portions than required, but never less. This is what my system offers, following Group IV:
2 oz meat/meat alternate
2 oz. grains/breads
8 oz. fluid milk
3/4c fruits and vegetables (fruits and vegetables must be in two different servings — 2 fruits, 2 vegetables, or one of each)
Students receiving free or reduced-price meals must take a complete meal (3-4 items at breakfast and 3-5 items at lunch) for schools to claim reimbursement.
This just skims the surface of what is involved in planning, preparing and serving your child’s meals. Even the most basic guidelines can be broken down into sub-categories that have additional requirements and regulations that govern them.
Part 2: Ann Cooper discusses how the federal guidelines can be improved
Nutrient analysis makes it easy for governing bodies to assess whether a school district is in compliance with school meal guidelines. But it is a system in which the importance of numbers has replaced the importance of food. This is a system that demands milk at every meal, yet takes no account of the millions of children who are lactose intolerant. This is a system that sets a minimum level of calories, but not a maximum, which makes no sense in a country where over 30% of children are over-weight or obese. The result of this extremely flawed system is that agribusiness and food companies formulate products that fit the numbers but have no real relationship to food as we know it — or at least should know it.
Instead of spending hours processing forms for the USDA, my team and I would like to spend all of our time and money feeding children delicious healthy food and educating them about where their food comes from. To make this happen, the NSLP truly needs a makeover!
I believe that the following guidelines would help us focus on feeding children real, healthy, delicious food.
• Make both breakfast and lunch universal, so that every child is fed every day. This would alleviate the need for free and reduced applications and tracking.
• Replace the current system of nutrient-based menu analysis with one based on healthy, delicious, balanced meals. These meals should be made up mostly of fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, whole grains and plant based protein.
• Raise the federal reimbursement rate to $4-$5 based on the cost of living of the area, and dedicate a minimum of $1.75 to be spent on food. Additionally, require that at least $1.00 be spent on fresh fruits, fresh vegetables and whole grains with a priority placed on procuring regionally produced food.
• Dedicate resources to building and/or rebuilding kitchens in school districts to accommodate scratch cooking.
• Dedicate resources to set up a training program to teach school food service workers to cook from scratch.
• Set up a National Chefs Corp which allows culinary students to work off student loans by working in K-12 schools.
• Institute hands-on experiential learning in the form of cooking and gardening classes that become a mandatory part of the educational system.
• Dedicate resources to a national marketing campaign to help change children’s relationship to food, so that healthy and delicious school food becomes cool food.
• Underscore the importance of eating healthy food by instituting questions on standardized tests that highlight sustainable food and agriculture.
• The USDA should also adopt a new definition of nutritious food. The Prevention Institute has just issued a sign-on letter that lays out the principles of healthy food. The Institute acknowledges that healthy food “goes beyond nutrients” and must be produced, transported and marketed in a way that is sustainable and just.
This may seem like an incredible task given the size of the system and the immensity of the challenges — but I did say it was a makeover that was needed. With the first African American family in the White House and with the achievement and life-expectancy gap ever widening, I believe that this is the social justice issue of our time. In the end, if we are successful, we will assure the health of all children for generations to come, and we just might save the planet as well.
October 13th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
I served lunch at school today, and saw so many flaws, the 3 year olds were fed the same amount that the 14 year olds were. Today lunch consisted of 1 hot dog with a bun, 9 tater tots(counted out) 1/2 cup cooked carrots, and about 6 to 8 grapes and milk. My children are both skinny, yet have a high metabolism, and were still very hungry there was not any portions alloted for seconds. The 8th grade boys were still hungry, and the 3 and 4 year olds could not eat all of their food. This is so flawed. How does a hungry child focus, Breakfast is a home thing, but what happens when it is their only in school meal option, until after school.