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Nutrition Through The Ages: Special Edition - School Nutrition 101: The Good, The Bad, & The Future

Updated: May 24, 2023


The Good

School meals tends to have a bad reputation, and it can be challenging to find accurate information if you are not part of the school nutrition bubble. As a young dietitian, I didn't have much exposure to school nutrition besides a single course during college and a rotation during my dietetic internship. All I knew was based on sensationalized headlines and bad pictures of school lunch trays. Do these examples accurately represent school nutrition right now though? The quick answer is no! Just head over to the hashtag #thisisschoollunch, and you will see all sorts of examples of fantastic, colorful and nutrition-focused meals being offered all around the country.


When looking at the nutrition/health side of school meals, many people might be surprised to learn that school meals have the highest diet quality, followed by food found in grocery stores, worksites, and restaurants, according to a recent Tuft University study. You may ask yourself, "why is that? Last time I heard, school meals are gross and unhealthy". Well, we can give a large portion of credit to the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act (HHFKA) of 2010, which really strengthened nutrition standards for all child nutrition programs across the country. These standards continue to be implemented at this time. You can read more about Child Nutrition Programs via the USDA website. General standards for any school/district that participates in National School Lunch or Breakfast Program require schools:

  • increase the availability of fruits in school meals

  • increase the availability of vegetables in school meals

  • increase the availability of whole grains school meals

  • increase the availability of fat-free and low-fat fluid milk in school meals

  • reduce the levels of sodium in school meals

  • reduce the levels of saturated fat and trans fat in school meals

  • meet the nutrition needs of school children within their calorie requirements


The Bad

Like everyone else, schools and school nutrition professionals were largely impacted by COVID19, and school nutrition services are still being affected by the side effects. School nutrition professionals are still navigating how to implement healthy meals while facing supply chain disruptions amid a labor crisis. In an article from 2021, The School Nutrition Association found that almost all schools in the country were dealing with product shortages (95%), increasing food and supply costs (97%), and labor shortages (95%). The same report also confirms that these issues persist in 2022, with schools struggling to obtain food, beverages, equipment, and supplies on time (while working within a fairly limited budget).


Child Nutrition Programs are also struggling with the expiring pandemic waivers, which provided much-needed help since COVID began. These waivers included:

  • higher reimbursement rates

  • continued service through summer under the same "in session" guidelines

  • alternative feeding options for congregate meal programs

  • meal service time flexibility

  • Offer vs. Serve flexibility

  • area eligibility

  • recipient flexibility

In March of 2022, the School Nutrition Association President, Beth Wallace stated, "schools will be unable to sustain salaries needed to staff our kitchens or afford the fresh fruits and vegetables we want to serve our students each day."

Fortunately, the Keep Kids Fed Act has recently passed. This is a bipartisan compromise bill that aims to support school meal programs as the pandemic waivers expired on June 30, 2022. The package includes the following assistance through the school year 2022/23 for child nutrition programs:

  • increased federal reimbursements for every school lunch by 40 cents

  • increased federal reimbursements for every school breakfast by 15 cents

  • extend no-cost waivers, including those schools unable to meet some nutrition standards due to supply chain disruptions

  • reduce administrative and reporting burdens (documentation required for state agencies)

  • extend waivers for 2022 summer meal programs


The Future:

School nutrition programs have slowly, BUT steadily, been moving towards scratch cooking and culturally relevant school menus, with help from organizations such as:

  1. The Chef Ann Foundation - "providing school meal services with the operational knowledge to transition from a heat and serve" to scratch cooking.

  2. The Institute of Child Nutrition - "providing school meal services the culinary training needed to return to scratch cooking".

  3. FoodCorps - "providing students nourishing meals, food education, and culturally affirming experiences with foods that celebrate and nurture the whole child")

As more and more schools transition to a scratch cooking operation, it will be interesting to see what shows up on school menus soon. If you have a chance to check-out the hashtag, #thisisschoollunch, you'll already see beautiful salads, grab n' go meals, and culturally-rich foods such as Elote (my favorite!).

So… what exactly is scratch cooking? There are many definitions of scratch cooking, but one way is showcased by school districts cooking their own meals while incorporating fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, whole grains, and all kinds of spices. This is especially important in schools following the USDA nutrition standards because it gives the power back to the nutrition professionals. It allows them to control the amount of sodium, trans-fats, and saturated fats that go into every recipe. For example, Alhambra Elementary School District recently developed an Elote recipe that used Greek yogurt, a bit of mayo, and low-sodium Tajin (YUM!). This increased the amount of protein, decreased saturated fats, and allowed our program to serve an item that our school population recognized.


Scratch cooking, varied and culturally relevant foods, and diversity represented in school meals is incredibly exciting! School Nutrition Professionals are hopeful for the upcoming year. We can't wait to see what challenges we'll face, and how creative we can get to overcome them!


Watch Companion Video Here!


Other Nutrition Through The Ages Posts!

Author Bio

Irlena (Ale) Penaloza is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist with Alhambra Elementary School District, and a Research Consultant with the University of Miami. She was born in Bogota, Colombia and moved to hot Phoenix, AZ when she was 14 years old. Ale lives in Phoenix with her long term partner, and her three fluffy cats (all named after food) Tuna, Waffle and Soy Sauce. Ale likes spending time advocating for cultural diversity in school nutrition programs and under-researched communities. Ale obtained her Bachelors (2018) and Master's Degree (2020) from the University of Arizona, where she focused on Motivational Interviewing and Nutritional Interventions in the Latine community. You can find Ale at your local farmers’ market fangirling over freshly baked loaves of bread.


You can find Ale on Instagram!


References

  1. Liu, J., Micha, R., Li, Y., & Mozaffarian, D. (2021). Trends in food sources and diet quality among us children and adults, 2003-2018. JAMA Network Open, 4(4). https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.5262

  2. Child nutrition programs. Food and Nutrition Service U.S. Department of Agriculture. (n.d.). Retrieved July 30, 2022, from http://www.fns.usda.gov/cn

  3. School Meal Programs Grapple with Supply Chain Fallout . School Nutrition Association. (2021, December 8). Retrieved July 30, 2022, from https://schoolnutrition.org/news-publications/press-releases/2021/school-meal-programs-grapple-with-supply-chain-fallout/

  4. School meal programs in peril. School Nutrition Association. (2022, March 9). Retrieved July 30, 2022, from https://schoolnutrition.org/news-publications/press-releases/2022/school-meal-programs-in-peril/

  5. Keep kids fed act waivers. Keep Kids Fed Act Waivers - Nutrition (CA Dept of Education). (n.d.). Retrieved July 30, 2022, from https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/keepkidsfedactwaivsum22.asp

  6. Get schools cooking. Chef Ann Foundation. (n.d.). Retrieved July 30, 2022, from https://www.chefannfoundation.org/what-we-do/get-schools-cooking

  7. Announcing the School Nutrition Culinary Institute. Institute of Child Nutrition. (2018, December 13). Retrieved July 30, 2022, from https://theicn.org/announcing-the-school-nutrition-culinary-institute/

  8. The case for food. FoodCorps. (2022, May 19). Retrieved July 30, 2022, from https://foodcorps.org/the-case-for-food/


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