Thursday, January 26, 2012
New School Lunch
A New School LunchFor the first time in 15 years, the nutritional standards for school lunch meals will be raised. Yesterday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and First Lady Michelle Obama announced the new lunchtime standards
These changes come as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.
Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy
Vilsack describes the changes as " historic opportunity to improve the quality and quantity of the school meal programs".
The new standards, which will go into affect in 2012-2013 acedemic year, are intended to improve the nutrient intake of the nearly 32million children who participate in the National School Lunch Program each school day. Highlights of the changes include:
- Establish a caloric limit for meals
- Establish a sodium limit for meals (this standard will have a 10 year implementation period).
- Requiring schools provide students vegetables from the five vegetable subgroups each week.
- Requiring schools make fruit available to students daily, and in larger portion sizes.
- Requiring milk be low fat or fat free.
- Requiring "whole grain" to be the first ingredient on all grain items. (This standard will have a 2 year implementation period).
- Requiring that no food item served contains trans-fats.
In order to meet the costs of these stricter standards, schools will be reimbursed an additional 6 cents per meal.
sources: USA Today
Billing Code: 3410-30-P
Labels: Policy
by E Pace at 9:01 AM |
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