School Food Nutrition Standards are Achievable, Report Finds

 From the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The 2021 School Meals Corporate Report Card is out. Read it here.

School meal programs have many choices for K-12 products that meet existing and proposed standards

Full story here.

The majority of K-12 school food products sold by the largest foodservice companies meet key federal nutrition standards and could meet new goals that further support children’s health, according to a new report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The 2021 School Meals Corporate Report Card analyzed nearly 2,000 K-12 products offered by 28 major foodservice companies to see if they met existing whole grain-rich (made with at least 51 percent whole grains) and sodium requirements, two areas that schools claim have been challenging to meet. It also assessed whether companies meet new proposed goals for added sugars, artificial sweeteners of concern, and synthetic dyes.

The report found that all companies had over 75 percent compliance with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) whole grain-rich requirements for the majority of grain food groups. Companies were either close to or at 100 percent compliance for USDA’s current sodium targets for lunch, the main source of sodium in school meals. In addition, most companies would meet a new standard, proposed in the report, that would require meals contain no more than 10 percent of calories from added sugars. Nearly all products would meet a proposed synthetic dye- and artificial sweetener-free standard. (Synthetic dyes are linked to behavioral issues in susceptible children, and certain artificial sweeteners should be avoided, primarily due to cancer concerns.) This means that schools have plenty of healthy choices from which they can select in their efforts to comply with the USDA and proposed nutrition standards.

"It’s encouraging to see that major foodservice companies have largely been able to deliver K-12 products that meet nutrition requirements, allowing schools to buy foods that meet federal guidelines and provide students with healthy meals,” said Colin Schwartz, deputy director of federal affairs at CSPI. “We urge the industry to continue to reformulate the minority of non-compliant products and support strong, science-based nutrition standards. We also urge the Biden administration to set stronger nutrition standards for schools.” 

Companies that sell salty culprits for lunch like pizzas, sandwiches, and burritos were virtually at 100 percent compliance with current sodium targets. In fact, none of the median amounts of sodium in any of these food categories exceeded the lunch target levels for any age. But there are exceptions. Schwan Foods, the nation’s largest school food pizza manufacturer, makes an easily compliant whole grain-rich pizza with 470 mg of sodium per slice, but also makes a personal pizza with a whopping 1,100 mg sodium (and not whole grain-rich). Two seemingly similar whole grain-rich burritos from Foster Farms can differ by 350 mg of sodium, either making or breaking compliance.

After School Pizza Sales Now Covered by BOE Nutrition Policy - 1/10th of a pizza anyone?

After school pizza sales and other food fundraisers must now comply with the Board of Education's new Policy on food and beverage sales during the 30 minutes after school.

  2013 MCPS Memo on Regulatory Change of Noncompliant Foods Update by Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland

SCO: USDA revises school lunch nutrition standards

Silver Chips Online:  

MCPS has always followed the Institute of Medicine recommendations that the USDA used to create its new guidelines, according to Marla Caplon, director of the MCPS Division of Food and Nutrition Services. Thus, Caplon said that there would only be a few minimal changes made to MCPS’s meal plan. One of these changes would require that fruit be eaten at breakfast by obliging students to take one-half cup of fruit at breakfast.

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School Lunch: "What we are feeding our Children is an Outrage"

The June 4th Metro Section of the Washington Post has an article on the push to improve our children’s lunches. The above quote is from Cathal Armstrong of Restaurant Eve in Alexandria, Virginia. According to the Post article, written by reporter Jane Black,

…the city's Iron Chefs -- the group includes White House assistant chef Sam Kass, José Andrés of Jaleo, Todd Gray of Equinox, Spike Mendelsohn of Good Stuff Eatery and Robert Wiedmaier of Brasserie Beck -- decided that each chef would adopt a school. Kass is spearheading the project.

On Friday at the White House, to support First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Initiative, the chefs launched a national ‘adopt-a-school’ program. As usual, the District is leading the way. Our children will have to wait while MCPS touts that it ‘meets’ current USDA standards that are acknowledged as out-of-date.

Or, as the Renegade Lunch Lady, Ann Cooper, Nutrition Director for the Boulder Valley (Colorado) School District has stated, "We’ve grown a generation of children who think chicken nugget is a food group."

And no wonder. Last week on Thursday June 3rd, our children who attend MCPS schools had a choice of ‘Chips Olé with whole grain taco pieces, and baked turkey corn dog nuggets with baked beans;’ the next day, Friday, June 4th, they were offered ‘cheese, veggie, or pepperoni pizza and Morningstar chik’n nuggets with confetti corn.’

The chik’n nuggets are actually a vegetarian choice; one website said they were made with ‘textured soy protein.’ Four of these soy nuggets (apparently one serving) contain 190 calories, 7 grams of total fat (11% of the recommended daily amount), 1 gram of saturated fat (5% of the RDA), 490 milligrams of sodium (20% of the RDA for sodium), 15% of the recommended daily amount of iron, 12 grams of protein and 18 grams of total carbohydrates which includes 1 gram of sugars and 2 grams of fiber. Caloriecount.com gave this food item a ‘B+.’ Again, given the diversity of ethnic groups and restaurants in Montgomery County, one would think our school system could develop a menu that reflects us. Vegetarian is good, right? So, do we really have to serve it to our children in the form of ‘chik’n nuggets?’ Do we really have to present them with hot dogs, pizza, and chicken nuggets week after week? My children’s friends are African, Iranian, Indian, Thai, Korean, Japanese, Latino, Chinese, Italian, Jewish, Middle Eastern, and European, or descendents of the above, and more. So why are we feeding our children hot dogs, hamburgers and pizza?

To be fair, the MCPS website touts the ‘Maryland Farm-to-School Program’ which took place for one week in 2009, September 14-18. During that week on Thursday, children were offered ‘zucchini bread, pears, and cole slaw’ on Thursday; and ‘pizza veggies, cherry tomatoes, assorted fresh fruit’ that Friday. Which, really is even more scary, to know our children are not offered even cole slaw the rest of the year. I really hope that can’t be true.

What is your child eating?

School Lunch: A Primer

I spent some time searching around the internet looking for variety and differences in elementary school lunches across the US. I have to tell you, there wasn’t much. A non-statistical but random sample of six May/June 2010 lunch menus (not much, I know, I would encourage you to do the same), including Montgomery County, Maryland Public Schools, showed lots of cheese pizza; from this I conclude the US has an abundance of cheese. And, public school nutritionists, or the federal government, strongly believe that every food item should be breaded.


So, here we go ‘round the horn… On most of the menus, one day of the week is pizza day. Including of course, cheese pizza.

The Oakland Unified School District, in California, instituted ‘Meatless Mondays’ which they replaced with, from what I can tell, cheese, including, cheese quesadillas; bean and cheese burritos; and grilled cheese sandwiches.

On the other hand, Oakland stood out in that vegetables and fruit were served with every meal, ranging from ‘Beautiful Baby Carrots’ to ‘Kind-hearted Kiwi’ Oakland also offered stir fry vegetables and a ‘chicken vegetable medley’ to their children. Kudos!


In the Portland, Oregon public schools, Thursday is pizza day. Portland also offers 1% or non-fat milk, and offers teriyaki, and vegetarian chili and to its monthly menu. Portland offers unlimited fresh fruit and vegetables, too, from their fruit and veggie bar. And…Portland works to bring in local produce to the school cafeterias. According to their website, twice a month they feature local produce grown by local farmers.

At the Berkeley Unified School District, in California, all I can say is wow! Unlike Montgomery County, Berkeley made a decision to move “from pre-packed “heat and serve food” to freshly prepared buffet-style service.” I could not find a monthly menu, but the website did state that almost all their food is made from scratch; there are salad bars in all the schools; all the hamburgers and hot dogs are natural and from grass-fed animals; and more. Much, much more.

In the Scarsdale Public Schools, in New York, the Edgewood ES PTA sponsors a fund-raiser, the Bento Box Japanese Lunch, on Mondays, which costs either $3.85 for the regular size chicken bento box; $4.45 for the chicken bento box; and $3.75 for the sushi. This is PTA sponsored, compared to the $2.50 that MCPS charges for each lunch in our elementary schools.

For the chicken plan, we offer three different meals in rotation; Teriyaki Chicken on rice, Chicken cutlets & rice, Fried chicken & noodles. For the sushi, you’ll have 8 pieces of California Rolls which have avocados, fish cakes and cucumbers.

St. Paul, Minnesota Public Schools really offered something different. Their May lunch menu includes Thai chicken; hamburgers with sweet potato fries; and a chicken rice bowl with broccoli and orange wedges as sides. Wow!  And interestingly for Minnesota, cheese did not feature.

Here in Montgomery County, Maryland the profile is similar to most of the menus. Pizza day (choice of cheese or pepperoni) appears to be Tuesday. MCPS offers teriyaki, and from what I could tell, all the poultry is breaded, except for ‘roast turkey.’ The variety includes ‘baked turkey corn dog nuggets,’ ‘baked chicken nuggets,’ and ‘whole grain chicken drumstick’ although why chicken is labeled as ‘whole grain’ is beyond me, but I assume that the drumstick is breaded instead of baked or roasted. Given that the ethnic diversity in our county is a point of great pride to us, it is disappointing to see that our schools don’t offer the foods we enjoy in our homes. Instead the County is teaching our children that pizza, chicken ‘Mcnugget’ look-alikes, and take-out food are the norm.

The MCPS website states that our children’s lunches ‘meet USDA standards’ for nutrition. But these nutrition standards are now the subject of much scrutiny and debate. The USDA recently requested that the Institute of Medicine review these standards. These reports are being published now and you can find them here.  And, the comparison between the current requirements and the new recommendations can be found here.

How Did we get to this Point?
Lynn Olver has posted a brief history of school lunches on her website, Food Timeline, which you can access here. The Children’s Aid Society established the first free school lunch, to provide for urban children over 100 years ago.


More recently, according to Wikipedia, the National School Lunch Act was signed by President Truman in 1946, and its purpose was two-fold, first to feed children; and second, to “prop up food prices by absorbing farm surpluses” And here on Wikipedia is where we get the first glimmer of why our Montgomery County children are being fed breaded and fried food. According to Wikipedia,

...the cheapest way to satisfy the nutritional standards is with something breaded and fried. For example, a corndog plus a fruit cup and milk would meet the current meal plan requirements.

This law, and the federal nutrition standards, married with our autocratic dysfunctional county government explains why our children are fed fast food in a place of learning. So, what are they learning about nutrition and food? And what are we, their parents, learning about Montgomery County government?