June 10, 2020 update: USDA extended another waiver allowing local feeding programs to serve meals to children, regardless of where they live, for the summer.

May 15, 2020 update: USDA is extending the following waivers nationwide through August 31, 2020: non-congregate feeding, parent pickup, and requirements on meal times.

March 12, 2020 update: The USDA announced today that 14 states have received waivers to “congregate feeding” requirements. To date, Washington, California, Maryland, Alaska, Utah, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Maine, Kansas, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Virginia have all received waivers.

March 10, 2020 update: The USDA has now approved waiver requests in three states—Washington, California, and Alaska—to allow use of the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) to serve free meals to low-income children affected by school closures, and also waiving the SFSP’s requirement that children eat these meals in a group setting.

This morning, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue also made clear that such waivers will be made freely available to any other state that needs one. Speaking before the House Agriculture Committee, Perdue told lawmakers (comments start at 47:25) that, “Our legal counsel tells us that we have to be asked, [so] we’ve sent the message to all the states that they can preemptively assume a positive response . . . once a waiver request comes in.”

It’s important to note, however, that even with a USDA waiver in place, states may not be able to ensure that all low-income children facing a school closure will have access to free meals. That’s because the SFSP only allows meal service at “area eligible” sites—that is, locations serving populations with at least 50 percent children entitled to free or reduced-price lunch, based on the latest U.S. Census data or school enrollment data. So while low-income children in any part of these states are technically entitled to free meals, as a practical matter, they may live too far from an approved meal distribution site to take advantage of this benefit.

Perdue is aware of this significant limitation and addressed it with federal lawmakers this morning, telling them that “We would love” to allow meal service outside of high-poverty areas, but “we don’t believe we have the legal and statutory authority” to do so. “That’s something we need to look at together,” he added.

The USDA also has yet to respond to an open letter sent to the agency last week by the School Nutrition Association (SNA), asking for additional flexibilities to make it easier to feed children during COVID-19-related school closures. SNA spokesperson Diane Pratt-Heavner told Civil Eats today, “We encourage USDA to consider SNA’s additional suggestions, in particular ways to allow all schools the opportunity to serve needy students. This is an evolving situation with many unknowns and complex considerations that vary from one community to the next. SNA will continue conversations with our members, USDA and allied groups to continue to identify solutions moving forward.”

March 7, 2020 update: USDA has approved requests by Washington state and California to allow meal service during school closures. The waivers run through June 30, and will allow food to be served in non-group-eating settings.

The original article begins below.

The rapidly growing spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has forced the closure of schools in 22 countries on three different continents, according to UNESCO. In the U.S., as of Thursday, just a small number of schools are closed in Washington, California, and New York—so far—but 13 countries have taken the drastic step of closing all their schools nationwide. As a result, nearly 300 million school children are at home right now, with some able to keep up with their studies remotely while others are surely losing educational ground.

But missing school can mean more than lost instructional time; it can also deprive children of critically needed nutrition. In this country, more than two-thirds of the 31 million students who regularly eat school lunch are economically dependent upon the meal, and low-income kids similarly constitute the majority of the 14.6 million who eat school breakfast and the 1.3 million who receive an after-school supper.

So what will happen to at-risk children if this school-based social safety net falls prey to the growing pandemic?

That question is no longer hypothetical. Earlier this week, when Los Angeles declared a state of emergency due to COVID-19, parents in the nation’s second-largest school district were told to plan for school closures. In Washington state, where 11 people have so far died from the illness, a number of schools were closed temporarily for deep cleaning, while others will remain closed for the next two weeks. And in New York’s Westchester County, four schools recently closed after a local man there tested positive for the virus.

Kathy Reeves, director of communications in the Everett School District in Washington state, says the question of school meals has been very much on the minds of officials in her district. “Right now, we’ve had just one closure,” she said. “But we have a large number of kids on free and reduced-price lunch, and these kids are going to have a very hard time getting food each day if there are widespread closures. We’re working on contingencies right now.”

Fortunately, Reeves’s district doesn’t have to figure out those contingencies entirely on its own. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the federal agency that oversees the nation’s school meal programs, has long had guidance in place for feeding children during unexpected school closures—whether caused by extreme weather, safety concerns, labor disputes, or other unforeseen causes.

According to the most recent USDA guidance memorandum, any districts pre-approved to do so may continue to serve meals during a state- or federally declared state of emergency by offering those meals under the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) or the National School Lunch Program’s Seamless Summer Option (SSO). Both of these programs were created to feed low-income children during the summer months by allowing meal service at sites like libraries, churches, and community centers, and that very flexibility makes these programs particularly adaptable to emergencies that occur during the school year.

But the SSO and SFSP also have some limitations that could prove problematic during a COVID-19 outbreak. For one thing, not all districts have been pre-approved by their relevant state agencies to participate in these programs; they would instead need to seek a waiver in a COVID-19 outbreak. While likely to be expedited, the process would still add an additional layer of bureaucracy that could slow down relief efforts. In addition, while some districts in the past used their schools as emergency food-distribution sites, the agency’s most recent memo put a stop to that practice; it now also requires a waiver to allow SFSP or SSO meal service at schools.

And finally, both the SSO and SFSP specifically require “congregate feeding”—providing meals to children in a group setting—a practice that may be ill-advised in the context of a viral outbreak. Indeed, in its own COVID-19 guidance to schools, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is encouraging administrators to “design [meal distribution] strategies to avoid distribution in settings where people might gather in a group or crowd . . . such as ‘grab-and-go’ bagged lunches or meal delivery.”

For these reasons, the School Nutrition Association (SNA), the leading association of school food professionals, is now seeking even more flexibility in responding to potential COVID-19-based school closures. In an open letter sent yesterday to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, the organization asked the USDA to waive requirements for congregate feeding, allow all districts impacted by coronavirus closures to participate in the SFSP, even if not pre-approved, and allow SFSP meals to be served at school sites, in addition to community sites, without a waiver.

It also asked the agency to permit districts to deliver meals to satellite sites, “so schools equipped to do so can deliver meals to multiple locations throughout the community, minimizing families’ dependence on public transportation to access meals.” And the SNA urged the USDA to maximize the availability and use of USDA commodity foods for emergency feeding operations, and to minimize complicated or burdensome regulatory requirements for districts seeking to launch emergency feeding operations.

On Monday, the SNA’s leadership will address these proposals with the USDA in person: The organization’s annual Legislative Action Conference was already slated for this coming week in Washington, D.C. While the SNA will still be pushing its legislative agenda, spokesperson Diane Pratt-Heavner says the organization also plans to use the occasion to pose its COVID-19-related concerns to USDA officials—including Perdue, who is scheduled to appear.

Whether and how the USDA responds to the SNA’s letter and concerns remains to be seen. An agency spokesperson told Civil Eats that the “USDA is monitoring the situation closely in collaboration with our federal and state partners” adding that “all of our programs—including SNAP, WIC, and the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs—have flexibilities and contingencies built-in to allow us to respond to on-the-ground realities and take action as directed by Congress.”

And in fact, the agency does have a good track record of relaxing regulations as needed to more nimbly feed school children during various crises. In 2017, for example, when schools in Oregon were closed due to poor air quality caused by wildfires, the agency approved the state’s request to allow children to take home individually sealed meals instead of eating them on site. Similarly, the USDA has waived certain meal requirements on an as-needed basis, such as allowing schools to not serve milk when it wasn’t locally available following a natural disaster, and it allowed New York City to serve free meals to all school children in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

“The USDA has taken a proactive approach in the past,” agrees Crystal FitzSimons, director of school and out-of-school time programs at the Food Research & Action Center. “And we’re hopeful that they continue to do so, because there may be a tremendous amount of need if school closures become more widespread.”

At the top of FitzSimons’s wish list would be allowing children to have access to multiple non-perishable meals if needed. “If a child is facing a two-week school closure, it would be great if USDA not only waives the congregate feeding requirement but also allows schools to say, ‘Here’s 10 breakfasts and 10 lunches that you can take with you and help carry you through.’ That would go a long way,” says FitzSimons. “Because in situations like this, it’s always the low-income people who get hurt first.”

Top photo CC-licensed by D.C. Central Kitchen.

The post As Coronavirus Closes Schools, USDA Offers Limited Help to Kids Who Rely on School Meals appeared first on Civil Eats.

So what’s the answer to this seemingly intractable problem?

The only true solution, of course, is offering all children a hot meal, regardless of their family’s income level—an idea that’s actually gaining currency, though it’s still far from being a reality.

But two federal bills now pending in Congress would at least lay down clear directives for what schools can—and can’t—do when debt-ridden children show up in the cafeteria.

Last month, Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) made headlines when they introduced the “No Shame at School Act.” Several months earlier, Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and Representative Deb Haaland (D-NM) had introduced the “Anti-Lunch Shaming Act of 2019“—the same bill Udall has introduced in every Congressional session since 2017, when lunch shaming first drew widespread public outrage.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, official Congressional portrait (Photo credit: Kristie Boyd; U.S. House Office of Photography)

Of the two bills, the Omar version is more comprehensive, not only banning more specified shaming practices than the Udall bill, but also allowing districts to retroactively seek federal reimbursement for meals served to debt-ridden children who later become certified for federal assistance. That innovative provision would be a boon to districts, many of which are struggling with skyrocketing debt as more state anti-shaming laws and local policies have been enacted around the country.

Another notable provision of the Omar bill is a ban on the use of debt collection agencies when districts seek overdue fees from families. “Debt collectors often end up adding their fees to the families’ debt,” explains Crystal FitzSimons, Director of School and Out-of-School Time Programs at the Food & Research Action Center (FRAC), “so a small debt can end up increasing, which puts the family further in debt, and can end up destroying a families’ credit.”

But even as these two bills are pending in Congress, lawmakers are also working to complete the long-overdue Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR)—the federal law which funds and reauthorizes a number of child nutrition programs, including the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program. As a result, the CNR presents the most obvious avenue for Congress to finally act on this issue.

“We are hopeful that the upcoming CNR will address lunch shaming,” FitzSimons says, and she’s optimistic that the Omar bill—which was endorsed by FRAC—will be substantially adopted in the CNR. “The bill strikes a good balance of protecting families, while providing some support to school nutrition finances, so we are hopeful that all of the provisions would be included.”

But it’s important to note that neither the Omar bill nor the Udall bill would ban the so-called “meal of shame”—that is, giving kids a stigmatizing alternate meal (such as a cold cheese sandwich)—despite the fact that such meals are the most common form of lunch-shaming. Instead, both bills use “Sense of Congress” provisions to discourage the use of alternate meals and, as I explained in Civil Eats in 2017, such provisions aren’t actually enforceable.

It’s a drafting choice which reflects a cold reality: Congress is very unlikely to provide the additional funding needed to serve hot meals for free to debt-ridden children. As FitzSimons explains, “The federal government only pays the full cost of the free meals, and the majority of the cost for the reduced-price, so it would be very difficult for Congress to say that all schools had to provide a meal to all children regardless of whether or not they pay for them. That is not how the program is designed.” FitzSimons also notes that if alternative meals were banned outright, it would “mean that schools cannot provide food to children if they cannot pay for it. Although not ideal, is it better for a school to offer [alternate meals] to a child who is hungry than to not? I would say yes.”

So even if the CNR does address lunch shaming, as FitzSimons and other experts believe it will, don’t expect to see the end of stories like this one, in which children with meal debt are served cold sandwiches instead of a hot meal. That kind of reform would require a stronger public outcry for universal school meals—an idea that’s gaining at least some traction among Democratic presidential candidates.

“The school meal debt districts are struggling with, combined with the large number of schools that have adopted community eligibility and demonstrated the value of offering free meals to all students, creates an opportunity for grassroots activism for offering free meals to all students,” says FitzSimons. “That really is the way we are going to completely deal with this issue.”

A version of this article originally appeared in The Lunch Tray, and is reprinted with permission.

The post Will a New Federal Law Finally Put an End to School Lunch Shaming? appeared first on Civil Eats.

“If kids are not eating what is being served,” he said at the time, “they are not benefiting, and food is being wasted.” And in an earlier statement about the rollbacks, he similarly noted, “It doesn’t do any good to serve nutritious meals if they wind up in the trash can.”

Intentionally or not, on both occasions Perdue echoed talking points from the School Nutrition Association (SNA), the 58,000-member group of school food professionals that had urged the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for years to allow districts to offer more refined grains and sodium than permitted by Obama-era regulations. (The third rollback, relating to the fat content in flavored milk, was primarily the result of dairy industry lobbying.) Having finally succeeded in this effort, the SNA “commended” the weakening of these nutrition standards, reiterating in a press release that they had led to the “unintended consequences” of lower student meal participation, increased food waste, and higher costs.

But now a remarkably comprehensive new study—one commissioned by Perdue’s own agency—pokes holes in all three of these stated justifications for prioritizing regulatory “flexibility” over the health of the 30 million children who eat school meals.

The USDA’s “School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study,” which was quietly released by the agency on April 23rd, claims to be “the first nationally representative, comprehensive assessment” of school meals following the implementation of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) standards. It draws mostly from data collected in the spring of 2015 at over 1,200 schools, and it covers such a wide range of topics that it’s been published in four separate reports, along with a summary of the entirety.

I’ve only just scratched the surface of the study, but perhaps the single most important finding is that school meals are significantly healthier—41 percent overall, for lunches—after the implementation of the HHFKA. As just two examples, in comparing lunches from the 2009-2010 school year to those served in 2014-2015, the Healthy Eating Index (HEI-2010) score for whole grains in school meals shot from 25 to 95 percent of the maximum score, while the score for greens and beans went from 21 to 72 percent of the maximum.

But did all that healthier food really increase food waste and costs, while sending kids running from the cafeteria? Here’s what the USDA’s own study has to say:

Plate Waste Is No Worse Than Before School Nutrition Reform

To assess plate waste, the USDA’s researchers measured whatever landed in the trash from over 6,000 lunch trays at 165 schools, and it confirmed that kids are in fact wasting food: elementary students wasted over one-fourth of their available school food calories and nutrients, while middle and high schoolers wasted around 12 to 15 percent. Vegetable and milk were the foods most likely to go uneaten, while desserts and entrees were the foods least likely to be wasted.

Any food waste is troubling, of course, but here’s the critical point: this observed plate waste was, in the study’s own words, “comparable to findings from studies that examined plate waste prior to implementation of the updated nutrition standards.” The study authors also made a point of noting that “small, local studies that examined plate waste before and after implementation of the updated nutrition standards [also] found that levels of plate waste were reduced or unchanged.”

If cafeteria trash cans aren’t any more full post-HHFKA than before, then waste can’t be used as a justification to serve kids saltier and more refined flour foods. But here’s what does significantly reduce food waste, according to observations from the study: (1) implementing “Offer Versus Serve” at elementary schools, which allows kids to select just three of five meal components and skip the food they don’t want; and (2) not forcing kids to eat lunch before 12pm—two common sense approaches don’t compromise students’ dietary health.

Kids’ Participation Was Highest Where School Meals Were Healthiest

Both Perdue and the SNA would have us believe that kids regularly turn up their noses at healthier school food, but the USDA’s own study found the opposite to be true:

Specifically, after measuring school meals’ nutritional quality based on their HEI-2010 scores, the researchers found that “[r]ates of student participation were significantly higher in schools with HEI-2010 scores in the third and highest quartiles (that is, the top half) of the distribution compared to the lowest quartile” and that there “was a positive and statistically significant association between student participation in the NSLP and nutritional quality of the NSLP lunches.”

Schools Are Strapped for Cash—But Healthy Nutrition Standards May Not Be to Blame

The federal school meal program has been chronically underfunded for decades, and the USDA study found that in 2014-2015, districts were spending around 50 cents more on meals for children entitled to a free lunch than they were reimbursed by the federal government. Even with other revenue, such as a la carte sales and student fees for full priced lunches, the study still found that the average district was operating at a “small deficit.”

But the study also found—somewhat surprisingly—that districts’ costs weren’t correlating with the healthfulness of their meals. Instead, the “mean reported costs per . . . lunch were not significantly higher in schools that prepared more nutritious meals—schools that had higher scores on the HEI-2010—than in schools that produced the least nutritious meals—schools that scored the lowest on the HEI-2010.”

On this point, though, it’s important to proceed with caution. Even the study’s authors admitted that this particular inquiry “posed a challenge for interpretation . . . because the multivariate models could only include a moderate number of variables,” and said it was possible that “increases in meal costs and nutritional quality over time were related but, by SY 2014-2015, this relationship was not readily identifiable given the reduced variability in HEI scores among schools and many other changes in the school meal programs over the period.”

But if in fact schools are struggling under the higher costs of healthier food, isn’t the obvious answer to increase their reimbursement rate instead of lowering the nutritional quality of school meals?

Why Isn’t the USDA Trumpeting the Good News About School Food?

As the federal agency overseeing school meal programs, one might think that the USDA would be eager to share some of the study’s most encouraging findings: that America’s school meals are signficantly healthier than the used to be, and that kids appear to be accepting healthier school meals more enthusiastically than meals that are less compliant with the new standards.

Instead, however, the USDA has been surprisingly mum. As of this writing, there is still no mention of the study on the USDA’s newsroom page, nor (to my knowledge) has Perdue offered any public statement about it. In fact, the study was removed from the Internet entirely for a period of time after its April 23rd release, then reposted under a new URL. It was eventually disseminated to the public yesterday morning via a USDA email blast, which went out a few hours after I asked the agency spokesperson why the study had not yet been publicized. (Though that’s likely just a coincidence.)

So yesterday I reached out to the USDA’s press office to learn its reaction to the particular findings I’ve outlined here. Specifically, I asked an agency spokesperson whether this new data, commissioned by the USDA  itself, might encourage Perdue to reverse course on his recent weakening of school meal standards. I also wanted to know whether the agency is at all worried about how these findings might play out in two federal lawsuits filed last month by a coalition of states and health advocates challenging the legality of the nutrition rollbacks.

Unfortunately, my two questions weren’t directly answered; instead, here’s the USDA spokesperson’s response in full:

Over the past few years, we have seen great improvement in school meals — and no one wants to lose that progress. Schools now serve whole grain-rich foods and meals with reduced sodium, and USDA has not reversed the progress made since the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was implemented.

The specific changes were targeted to assist on-going Program operator challenges while not changing the overall meal components, macronutrient, and calorie requirements for the school meal programs.  Even when in compliance with the requirements, the challenges identified by operators include decreased student participation and/or meal consumption, difficulties preparing whole grain-rich food items, and limited ability to offer appealing meals with lower sodium content. When USDA offered the ability for school districts to request exemptions to the whole grain-rich requirement in school year 2017-18, nearly 1 in 4 requested this flexibility. Additionally, 29% of milk served in the NSLP was wasted.

These changes affirm USDA’s commitment to giving schools more control over food service decisions and greater ability to offer wholesome, nutritious, and appealing meals to kids that reflect local preferences.

Regarding the lawsuit you mentioned, USDA cannot comment on ongoing litigation.

I’ll likely share more findings from the School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study in the days and weeks ahead. And thanks to Washington Post food columnist Tamar Haspel for alerting me to the report which, for the reasons cited above, I might not have otherwise seen.

This post originally appeared in The Lunch Tray, and is reprinted with permission.

The post Advocates Said School Nutrition Rollbacks Were Unnecessary. A New USDA Study Backs Them Up. appeared first on Civil Eats.

When Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced late last year that he was rolling back science-based nutrition standards for school meals, it was a blow to student health. But according to two lawsuits filed this week in federal court, his agency’s actions may also have been illegal.

The first lawsuit, filed in the District of Maryland by Democracy Forward, was brought on behalf of two health advocacy groups, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and Healthy School Food Maryland. The second complaint was filed in the Southern District of New York by the New York state attorney general on behalf of a multi-state coalition including California, Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont.

Both lawsuits center around a new rule issued by the Trump administration’s U.S. Department  of Agriculture (USDA) which slashed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act’s (HHFKA) whole-grain-rich standard, meaning that now only half of the grain-based foods served in school meals have to be whole-grain-rich. Previously, all grain foods served to kids having to contain at least half whole grains.

The rule also delayed further sodium reduction in school meals and eliminated an even more ambitious sodium reduction target. A third roll-back, one related to the fat content in flavored milk, is not being challenged in either lawsuit.

This excerpt from the Maryland complaint sums up the crux of the legal challenge:

In [rolling back school meal standards,] the USDA unlawfully departed from Congress’s unambiguous directive that it determine school meal requirements based on nutrition science, and instead relied on impermissible and unsound extra-statutory factors such as students’ perceived taste preferences for less healthy foods and some schools’ desire for operational “flexibility.”

The Department also failed to explain, or even acknowledge, that its actions constituted a fundamental change in its interpretation of key statutes, by which it untethered the nutrition standards from the Guidelines. Further, the Department provided no adequately reasoned explanation for modifying existing standards.

Nor did the Department adequately consider or respond to a wealth of evidence in the record or comments—from parents, advocacy groups, school nutrition experts, researchers, and food manufacturers alike—that opposed weakening the standards. Among other things, those comments suggested alternative approaches that would have preserved the standards’ scientific integrity, while addressing operational and practical concerns and protecting the health of children.

Finally, the Department employed a deeply flawed administrative process that deprived the public of fair notice of the nature and scope of the changes adopted in the final rule—all in violation of the basic dictates of the Administrative Procedure Act.

The New York and Maryland lawsuits both contend that in deviating from science-based nutrition standards, the USDA has now put approximately 30 million children, including approximately 22 million low-income children, at greater risk of poor health due to increased consumption of sodium and decreased consumption of whole grains.

And as CSPI noted in its press release, of the more than 85,000 public comments submitted by the public regarding the roll-backs, the vast majority favored keeping the original HHFKA standards for sodium (96 percent) and whole grains (97 percent). The USDA’s own data also showed that virtually all schools (99 percent) were already meeting both standards.

This article originally appeared in The Lunch Tray, and is reprinted with permission.

The post States Sue Trump Administration Over School Nutrition Roll-Backs appeared first on Civil Eats.

If social media is any guide, the idea of singling out kids with unpaid balances—by making them do chores, denying them a meal, serving them a cold cheese sandwich, or stamping their arms or hands—has been met with almost universal disapproval.

And while the recent coverage has lead to an apparent uptick in private philanthropy efforts to cover families’ meal debt—including one to honor Philando Castile’s legacy by paying off the lunch debt at his school—the question remains: Has the moral outrage by politicians, celebrities, and ordinary citizens done anything to meaningfully curb lunch shaming?

A recent survey of 50 large districts by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), an anti-hunger advocacy group, showed no significant sea change, even though districts were required for the first time to put their meal debt policies in writing by July 1.

Of the 40 districts surveyed that have written policies in place, only 13 have a policy requiring schools to serve school meals to all children regardless of ability to pay. The remaining 27 districts take a variety of approaches to meal debt, with 10 denying meals to high school students as soon as they have an outstanding balance—and some of those to middle school students as well. And 17 districts reported placing a cap on the number of regular meals served before a meal is denied, with some imposing the cap only on older children and taking a more lenient stance with those in elementary school.

The FRAC survey also found that when districts do provide meals to students who can’t pay, in many cases it’s still a cold, alternate meal such as a peanut butter sandwich. And when it comes to especially stigmatizing practices such as the use of hand stamps or wrist bands, FRAC found that “most school districts do not mention shaming acts in their policy [and] only a few have explicit language that prohibits the stigmatizing of children who cannot pay for their meals.”

FRAC reported that one district’s policy even states that kids with debt can only get a meal “in exchange for the student performing chores in the kitchen. The student must first apply and be accepted to work in order to receive the meal.”

“The more we learn about how kids are treated when their parents owe lunch money, the more obvious it becomes that national standards banning school lunch shaming are needed,” said Jessica Bartholow, a policy advocate at the Western Center on Law and Poverty, which conducted similar meal debt policy research to support anti-shaming legislation in California.

Painting a Bigger Picture of Lunch Shaming

While the sample size of the FRAC survey was relatively small—there are more than 13,000 school districts in the country—its findings are in line with the observations of the School Nutrition Association (SNA), an organization of over 57,000 school food professionals.

SNA spokesperson Diane Pratt-Heavner told Civil Eats that her discussions with members and the outside media reports she has seen all indicate there’s a wide variety of policies among districts, and even among different age levels within the same district.

According to Pratt-Heavner, schools try to prevent families from accruing debt in the first place by, for example, helping them fill out federal paperwork or using online technology that makes it easier for parents to monitor meal accounts. But when those efforts fail, the SNA defends schools’ continued use of alternate meals.

“School nutrition professionals want all students to receive a balanced, reimbursable meal,” Pratt-Heavner said. “But when meal charges and debt escalate, some districts offer students alternate meals as a way to preserve the financial sustainability of the program while making sure no child goes hungry during the day.”

A Slowly Turning Tide?

If the New Mexico law and its attendant publicity didn’t put an end to lunch shaming, it clearly did inspire several states to introduce their own anti-lunch-shaming bills. According to FRAC, new lunch shaming legislation is currently pending in New York and Pennsylvania, and has been signed into law in California, Hawaii, Texas, and Oregon. In West Virginia, the state amended its school nutrition policy to address the problem.

Even so, anti-shaming legislation now on the books still takes a varied approach in addressing the problem.

For example, the New Mexico and Oregon laws forbid schools from publicly identifying children with meal debt, including using hand stamps, denying a meal, or offering an alternate meal. But the Texas law doesn’t contain this broad language, and instead only requires districts to set a grace period during which children with debt must be given their regular meal; after that period expires, the statute is silent on how children are to be treated.

The Hawaii law forbids denying children a meal, but it doesn’t address other potentially stigmatizing practices such as the use of hand stamps. And the California law, passed just last month, would still allow a school to deny a meal to a debt-ridden child or serve her an alternate meal so long as it treats all children who show up in the cafeteria without funds (including those with no outstanding balance) the same way.

Similarly, as Civil Eats previously reported, a federal anti-shaming bill introduced in Congress in May would ban some stigmatizing practices but would do nothing to prevent children from being given an alternate cold meal nor would it ban the outright denial of a meal. On top of that, the bill has only been given a 1 percent chance of passage by legislative analysts.

The weaknesses in some anti-shaming laws may come down to money. If districts are required to provide unlimited hot meals to children without payment, they could well be saddled with more bad debt. But legislatures haven’t shown any interest in appropriating funds to cover those potential shortfalls.

Advocates don’t necessarily see this lack of funding as problematic, however. “I’m not convinced [the New Mexico law] is going to dramatically increase the amount of unpaid debt at the end of the year,” said Jenny Ramo, executive director of New Mexico Appleseed, the anti-poverty group that spearheaded the state’s law.

For example, Ramo points to provisions in the law (adopted in several other states’ versions) intended to reduce debt, such as requiring districts to sign up more qualified children for federally subsidized meals to expand the overall budget and provisions regarding the use of debt collection agencies.

“I think schools have been a bit complacent about getting bills paid and just using the cheese sandwich and other shaming as leverage,” Ramo said. “Districts now have to be more aggressive about enrolling eligible children.”

But the SNA’s Pratt-Heavner notes that the organization’s 2016 annual survey found that nearly 75 percent of 1,000 surveyed districts were already grappling with unpaid meal balances. And since bad debt can’t be covered by federal meal reimbursements, districts have to find the money some other way, such as through the sale of “a la carte” snacks or state matching funds.

If these sources don’t pan out, Pratt-Heavner warned, “the school district must pay the loss out of general education funds. So state legislatures, school boards, or other officials that mandate school meal policies without providing funds to cover the cost must realize that these policies could impact education.”

A Federal Program that Could End Lunch Shaming

Of course, lunch shaming wouldn’t be an issue if schools could simply provide meals at no cost. Schools and districts in certain high-poverty areas can do just that under the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), a federal regulation that allows them to serve free meals to all students, regardless of income level and without the need for paperwork.

In September, New York City became the largest district in the country to take advantage of the CEP, and some observers implicitly linked that development to current interest in lunch shaming. But Liz Accles, executive director of Community Food Advocates, was a leader of the effort to persuade New York City to use the CEP and doesn’t think lunch shaming was a major factor, given that the campaign had been going on for decades.

That said, Accles does report that “the language [of lunch shaming] seeped into the debate” in New York City when the New Mexico law was passed. She says that the discussion may have raised New Yorkers’ overall awareness of the plight of impoverished kids in the cafeteria.

“It certainly helped enhance the imagery in the public mind, where it hadn’t [been] before,” she said. “People understand poverty stigma, but lunch shaming somehow resonates in a certain way. People just feel it in their hearts differently.”

Right now, only about half of the districts that qualify for the CEP take advantage of it, but Accles hopes the new concern over lunch shaming and New York City’s recent example will encourage more of them to consider doing so.

“The things that localities do to try to twist around shaming [in their meal debt policies] can be so complicated, rather than just making meals free for all,” she said. “Using the CEP means just being done with it.”

Photo courtesy of the USDA.

The post Kids with School Lunch Debt Still Face Lunch-Shaming, Despite Outrage appeared first on Civil Eats.

The move follows a pilot program instituted in 2014, in which all of the city’s stand-alone middle schools have been offering free meals.

By making lunch free for all, New York City joins several other major districts—including Detroit, Chicago and Dallas—in taking advantage of the Community Eligibility Provision. The CEP allows districts and schools to serve free meals without paperwork if at least 40 percent of their students qualify for federal meal assistance.

Prior to the announcement by New York City, a total of 8.5 million impoverished students around the country were already being offered free meals under the CEP, according to a report from the Food Research & Action Center  and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Here in Houston, the nation’s seventh largest district, over half of our 300 schools have been offering free meals since 2014. (This year, due to hurricane Harvey, all HISD students will receive them.)

In prior Congressional sessions, House Republicans have tried to make it much harder for districts and schools to take advantage of the CEP by raising the qualifying 40 percent poverty threshold to 60 percent. Proponents of this idea argue that raising the threshold would keep free meals from going to kids who aren’t actually economically distressed, while critics charge that doing so would harm children legitimately in need of assistance because the 40 percent threshold doesn’t come close to capturing all the impoverished kids in a given population. It remains to be seen whether there will be future attempts in Congress to limit the CEP.

On a personal note, I was gratified to read that recent national attention focused on “lunch shaming” may have played some small role in the decision-making in New York City. As I reported in two stories in the New York Times this spring, lunch shaming is the practice of singling out children in the cafeteria over school meal debt by offering them alternate cold meals such as a cheese sandwich, marking them with a wrist band or hand stamp, or, in rare cases, requiring them to do chores in exchange for a meal. Many children would rather forgo a meal entirely than endure the stigma of lunch shaming.

And even apart from the issue of meal debt, many children are teased just for eating school meals, which can be associated with poverty in particular schools. For example, some impoverished students here in Houston have been photographed with cell phones in the lunch line and shamed by their peers on social media.

As New York state senator Liz Krueger said in a statement: “In the 21st Century we simply should not allow our children to go hungry in school. Universal school lunch is a proven policy that takes the shame and stigma out of free meals and ensures that all our kids have full stomachs and the best chance to learn and grow in school.”

This post originally appeared on The Lunch Tray.

The post NYC to Offer Free Lunch for All Students appeared first on Civil Eats.

Oliver’s on-air quizzes were purely anecdotal, of course, and surveys attempting to quantify American children’s food literacy are scant. But a British study released in June found significant food confusion among children in that country, and it’s unlikely that children in the U.S. know any more considering the fact that 7 percent of Americans actually believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.

Most kids today are at least a generation removed from the farm. Whereas 100 years ago, around one third of Americans farmed, only 2 percent of the American population still works in agriculture, with 72 percent of surveyed adults now admitting they know “nothing or very little” about farming. Our diet, too, reflects this agricultural disconnect, with almost 60 percent of Americans’ daily calories coming from ultra-processed foods sold in supermarkets and restaurants.

One group working to address this growing literacy gap is the Center for Ecoliteracy. The Berkeley-based organization has been working with schools for the last two decades to teach sustainability and help kids get familiar with the basics of where their food comes from and how it gets to their table.

In collaboration with the Whole Kids Foundation, the organization has just released a new, free tablet app called Starting with Soil, designed to use colorful, interactive experiences to teach kids about our food system’s most fundamental building block, including how soil is formed, the roles animals and people play in keeping it healthy and fertile, and the basics of seeds, pollinators, and organic farming practices.

Civil Eats spoke recently with Zenobia Barlow, the organization’s co-founder and executive director, about the genesis of the Starting with Soil app and what the organization hopes it will accomplish:

What inspired you to create Starting With Soil? And why did you choose to focus on soil?

We asked ourselves, “What is the thing we would most like young learners to experience and understand?” We chose soil because it contains most of the life on earth, and is literally the foundation for everything we eat, and everything that supports our lives and the lives of the beings around us. Our hope is that the app instills in children enthusiasm and curiosity about the world around them, and a profound sense of understanding about their role as part of this larger, vibrant world. It provides a real opportunity for families to learn and garden together, too.

But is “soil” too esoteric a topic for kids who might not be able to name even common fruits and vegetables?

We realize that children may come to the app with very little food literacy, so we designed Starting with Soil to be highly interactive. For example, young learners are able to plant a seed, take a microscope underground to see who lives there, and journey through the last 500 years to watch an inch of topsoil form. Time-lapse photography, animation, and stunning visuals tie it all together. In other words, we made it colorful, dynamic, and fun. That’s one way to get kids—even those with little prior knowledge—to dig in.

How was the app funded and developed?

The app came about through conversations with the Whole Kids Foundation [founded by Whole Foods Market in 2011] over an extended period, and then United Natural Foods, which distributes natural and organic foods, helped fund it through a grant to the Whole Kids Foundation. We kicked off the effort in 2105—a nice coincidence, as that was the United Nations International Year of Soils—and spent two years developing and refining the content.

Did you design the app with a particular age group in mind?

The app was created at a third-grade reading level because it’s a time when many science teachers create lessons to help students understand the relationship between soil, plants, and humans. But much of the content is appropriate for older children, too. We also think parents will find that it helps them to initiate conversations with their kids about how fruits and vegetables grow. So, really, we’re striving to reach learners between the ages of six and 12.

How are you planning to get the app into the hands of as many kids as possible?

We’re working hard to make parents, garden educators, and other outdoor educators aware of the app, which is free. Since school gardens are becoming increasingly common, the hope is that the experiential learning students do in the garden augments classroom science instruction. And Starting with Soil compliments both.

Why did you choose the tablet as your teaching platform? And is there any concern that you won’t reach underprivileged kids?

We felt the tablet offered something we wanted to leverage: the ability to show movement and sound, and convey the wonder of living diversity in ecosystems. We’ve also seen a trend in schools away from PCs to tablets, including iPads and Androids. They are cheaper than laptops and can be shared more easily. Also, because they don’t have a “lid,” it’s harder to hide things from the teacher. And they are more portable, which make them usable in outdoor and garden settings.

If families or schools are inspired by the app to start a garden for the first time, does the Center offer any resources?

In collaboration with Annie’s Foods, we offer Creating Gardens of Goodness, a downloadable booklet that offers advice for designing, creating, and maintaining five types of educational gardens. We also offer Getting Started: A Guide for Creating School Gardens as Outdoor Classrooms. Parents who are learning to garden will enjoy the sections on nurturing a child’s curiosity and understanding nature’s cycles.

What’s next for the Center in terms of new teaching tools for kids?

We’re currently working on an interactive guide for grades 6-12 called Understanding Food and Climate Change, which uses food as a lens to explore how climate change affects our food system and how our food system affects climate change, and presents promising strategies.

Ultimately, what do you hope young users will take away from Starting with Soil?

We always envisioned this as working beautifully as a companion learning tool in school and home gardens. Learn some principles on the tablet, see what microorganisms and pollinators look like and how they function and interact. Then go outside, get your hands dirty, and viscerally connect that learning to growing real food.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

The post A Soil App Aims to Get Kids Deep into Dirt appeared first on Civil Eats.

But a closer reading of the federal Anti-Lunch Shaming Act reveals that by far the most common form of lunch shaming—giving a child an alternate meal, usually a cold cheese sandwich—would not be prohibited if the law were enacted. Nor would the law ban the outright denial of a meal to a debt-ridden child.

Lunch shaming has become a topic of national conversation following two recent New York Times stories about the practice, which in turn led to significant and ongoing coverage of the phenomenon by other local and national media outlets.

The federal bill was introduced in the Senate yesterday by New Mexico Senator Tom Udall and two Democratic co-sponsors, Martin Heinrich (NM), and Bob Casey (PA). An identical companion bill was introduced in the House of Representatives on a bipartisan basis by Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Rodney Davis (R-IL), and Bobby Scott (D-VA).

The Anti-Lunch Shaming Act was modeled on New Mexico’s recently enacted Hunger-Free Students’ Bill of Rights Act, the first comprehensive state effort to address lunch shaming. But while the New Mexico law expressly requires that all children receive a reimbursable school meal, regardless of meal debt, the federal bill does not.

Instead, the federal law would ban four specified and notably stigmatizing practices: requiring a debt-ridden child to wear a wrist band, stamping the child’s hand or arm, requiring the child to do chores, and taking away a child’s hot meal after it has been served. (The latter practice typically occurs after a child’s outstanding balance is discovered by a cashier at the end of the meal line.) The federal bill also follows New Mexico’s lead by requiring that any communications regarding meal debt be directed only to a child’s parent or guardian.

But other key aspects of the New Mexico state law are replicated in the federal bill as “Sense of Congress” provisions, which means that even if the law were enacted, these provisions would not be legally enforceable. These provisions include the requirements that: all children receive a reimbursable meal; no alternative meals be served; applications for free and reduced price lunch be made available and accessible to parents; districts coordinate with their local liaison for homeless students; and foster children be automatically enrolled for federal meal benefits.

Ned Adriance, press secretary for Senator Udall, said the decision to use the Sense of Congress approach was critical to getting bipartisan support in the House. “Senator Udall wanted to target the most egregious shaming tactics as a national standard,” he added. “But having that Sense of Congress language there is also important because it will guide Congress going forward. It doesn’t mean our work is done on this issue.”

Both the New Mexico state law and the new federal effort were spearheaded by New Mexico Appleseed, an anti-poverty non-profit. The organization’s executive director, Jennifer Ramo, praised the federal bill despite its narrower scope. “I don’t think it is realistic to get bipartisan support for a bill that requires that everyone get a reimbursable meal,” she said. “But we can and do put an end to some of the stigma. I think it’s a really good start.”

Whether the Anti-Lunch Shaming Act will gain traction in Congress remains to be seen. I’ll of course keep you updated here.

This article originally appeared on The Lunch Tray.

The post ‘Lunch Shaming’ Still on School Menus, Even After Proposed Law appeared first on Civil Eats.

Given the Trump administration’s zealous quest to roll back many other food policy advances achieved under President Obama—restaurant menu labeling, improved Nutrition Facts boxes, food safety measures, and more—it’s understandable why Perdue’s announcement has caused a lot of consternation among those who support healthier school meals.

The fact that the USDA’s press release about the announcement was titled, “Ag Secretary Perdue Moves to Make School Meals Great Again”—coupled with President Trump’s avowed love of fast food—likely only ratcheted up the alarm.

But while I’m certainly no supporter of any weakening of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) nutrition standards, I do think it’s important to put this latest development in context.

Let’s start with whole grains. The HHFKA standards currently require that all grain foods served to kids (pasta, bread, etc.) be “whole grain-rich,” meaning they must contain at least half whole grains. That standard never struck me as extremely rigorous; there are varieties of whole grain “white” flour out there that, at least for my own kids, can easily be slipped into baked goods without notice. But some school districts have long complained that procuring palatable whole grain-rich products on the open market has been a challenge, at least in some parts of the country.

Perdue announced yesterday that districts facing this problem will be able to obtain a waiver to serve grain foods that are not whole grain-rich. But while that might sound like a big step backward, this is exactly the same system we’ve had in place ever since the 2015 appropriations bill (remember the “CRomnibus?”). So while health advocates (rightly, to my mind) believe the 100 percent whole-grain-rich standard should be enforced across the board, Perdue’s announcement didn’t change the status quo.

Similarly, the announced relaxing of sodium standards also will have no effect on current school meals, which are already meeting the HHFKA’s preliminary lower sodium standard (“Target 1”). However, schools are now relieved having to meet the laws more rigorous sodium-reduction targets 2 and 3. This move has been decried by many health advocates, including the American Heart Association, which said in a press release, “Children who eat high levels of sodium are about 35 percent more likely to have elevated blood pressure, which can ultimately lead to heart disease or stroke. Earlier this year, the USDA gave schools a one-year extension for target two compliance. We should stick with that plan.”

Finally, while opponents of flavored milk in schools were likely alarmed by Perdue’s statement to reporters yesterday that “I wouldn’t be as big as I am today without chocolate milk,” it’s important to remember that even under the HHKFA standards, kids can take flavored milk daily. Now, however, schools will be able to offer flavored milk in a 1 percent variety (as opposed to fat-free), which was already the case with white milk.

The upshot? The Perdue announcement does move school meals in the wrong direction, but most of the very significant gains made by the HHFKA remain intact. We still have common sense calorie limits for school meals, for example, as well as a ban on trans fats and a requirement that kids get a greater variety of vegetables each week. And despite years of lobbying by the School Nutrition Association, Perdue made no change to one of the most important advances of the HHFKA—a requirement that kids must take a half-cup serving of fruits or vegetables at lunch, instead of passing up those healthy foods on a daily basis.

In other words, we’re not going back to the days of the “all-beige” tray.

That said, there may be future Trump administration efforts to further weaken HHFKA advances, including a possible gutting of the “Smart Snacks” rules that cleaned up the junk food sold to kids via fundraisers, vending machines, school stores and a la carte lines. And we may also see attempts to undercut other laudable provisions of the HHFKA such as the Community Eligibility Provision, which currently allows schools and districts in high-poverty areas to provide free meals to all students, without paperwork or stigma.

My message to concerned parents is this: voice your opposition to Perdue’s actions, but don’t over-inflate them. We may have bigger battles yet to come.

The post School Meal Standards Just Got Weaker—But Not As Much As You Think appeared first on Civil Eats.

But the FFVP has been under constant threat by lobbyists for fruit and vegetable processors and canners who’ve tried to shoehorn their clients’ frozen, dried, and canned produce into the program. If they succeed, the FFVP could theoretically include far-from-fresh products like this brightly colored 100 percent fruit ice—or even items in which fruits and vegetables are only one component, like fruit yogurt or trail mix.

If the “fresh” is taken out of the FFVP, would it make a meaningful difference to students? The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has just released the results of pilot program trying to answer that question.

The USDA opened the pilot to any states interested in including canned, frozen, and dried produce in the FFVP, but only four states—Alaska, Delaware, Kansas, and Maine—opted to join. Even within these states, the idea of shifting away from fresh produce seemed to have little appeal: Just 58 schools from across all four states chose to participate, and the majority of those schools were small, rural schools located in Alaska, where procuring fresh produce can be a challenge.

The non-fresh produce the schools typically offered during the pilot were dried cranberries, raisins, and trail mix, along with canned mandarin oranges and applesauce. Less than 1 percent included frozen fruits or canned vegetables and no schools offered frozen or dried vegetables.

Comparing data from the fall of 2014 (when only fresh produce was offered) to the spring of 2015 (when canned, dried, and frozen products were allowed), the USDA found that the pilot led to a significant decrease in students’ produce consumption. It also found that the total amount of fruits and vegetables eaten during the pilot fell by a quarter-cup, from 1.72 cups per student in 2014 to 1.46 in 2015. In addition, fresh fruit consumption fell by 30 percent in the same time. Calories in school snacks increased an average of 20 calories per day due to the higher sugar content of dried and canned fruit. The shift even affected the produce served during the rest of the school day, with participating schools serving more canned and less fresh fruit at both breakfast and lunch.

Students said they preferred fresh fruits and vegetable over the non-fresh produce. Specifically, they said they preferred raw vegetables to cooked, fresh oranges over canned mandarins, fresh pears over canned pears, and fresh apples over applesauce or dried apples. They liked all the non-fresh fruits the least. And two-thirds of the parents at these schools said they wanted the FFVP to continue to serve only fresh produce.

Despite those findings, school food service directors and principals at pilot schools said they felt the inclusion of non-fresh forms of produce had improved snack variety, quality, and quantity. But, tellingly, even among the 58 schools in the program, on an average school week, 41 percent continued to offer only fresh fruits and vegetables, indicating there may be little interest overall in changing the status quo.

The USDA’s findings offer solid support for keeping the fresh in the FFVP, but that doesn’t mean the processed produce industry will give up the fight. In the last Congressional session, industry lobbying succeeded in getting language into the House Education and the Workforce Committee’s draft Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR) bill that would have allowed all FFVP schools to serve “all forms” of produce, expressly stating that the program is “no longer limited to only fresh fruits and vegetables.”

Most observers believe the CNR won’t be taken up again by Congress any time soon, but the FFVP remains under threat. That’s because the program “lives” under two different pieces of legislation—the CNR, which authorizes it, and the Farm Bill, which actually pays for it. Given that the processed produce industry has been jealously eyeing the FFVP for over a decade, a reappearance of the “all forms” language in the upcoming Farm Bill negotiations seems all but assured.

A version of this post originally appeared on The Lunch Tray blog.

The post Keeping the ‘Fresh’ in Kids’ Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program appeared first on Civil Eats.

So what’s the true story?

A comprehensive report released last week by the Kids’ Safe and Healthful Foods Project (KSHFP) goes a long way toward answering that question. The KSHFP surveyed 489 school nutrition directors from across the country about their implementation of the new standards as of the 2014-15 school year, then shared their responses with a panel of 11 expert food service directors who offered their own insights and recommendations. Here are the key findings:

Cost and Availability of Suitable Foods Remain a Challenge

The KSHFP says “districts have emerged from the most challenging phase of the transition to healthier meals,” but when you drill down into the details of the study, the picture is a little less rosy: About 60 percent of the directors surveyed still report “some” or “a great deal” of difficulties implementing the new standards at lunch, and about 40 percent felt the same way at breakfast. The most commonly cited issues were the availability and cost of compliant foods that are acceptable to students.

But it’s worth noting that districts that improved their meals in anticipation of the new rules experienced somewhat fewer challenges than those that waited until after the rules went into effect; newer data might therefore show even fewer districts still experiencing difficulties.

Financial Concerns

More than half of the directors surveyed said their revenue stayed the same or increased following the implementation of the HHFKA standards, while just under half had seen declines. But overall, 87 percent of the directors reported having financial concerns, often relating to the costs of labor and equipment. Interestingly, the directors only rarely reported that their financial concerns stemmed from factors such as food costs, decreased revenue from competitive food sales, drops in student participation, or an adverse effect of meal price increases.

Increased Plate Waste for Fruits and Vegetables

Under the HHFKA rules, children now have to take a half-cup serving of a fruit or vegetable at lunch, rather than being able to pass those foods by. The SNA has maintained that this change increases plate waste, while other studies, such as this one from the Harvard School of Public Health, found no such increase. But to the extent one can rely on the impressions of school food directors (as opposed to actual measurement), the KSHFP survey bolsters the SNA’s position: More than half of the directors surveyed reported increased plate waste for fruits, and 75 percent said that the amount of vegetable waste had increased.

However, districts using strategies like cutting up fresh produce, offering a wider array of produce and serving it in salad bars felt those techniques were particularly effective in increasing student acceptance of fruits and vegetables. It’s also important to note that the survey took place in the 2014-15 school year, which means children have since had an additional year and half to become accustomed to the new rule; arguably, the more fruits and vegetables become the norm, the less likely kids are to spurn them.

Salad Bars and Scratch-Cooking Increase Participation

Notably, directors who prepared more foods from scratch and increased their use of salad bars were more likely to report that student participation either increased or remain unchanged, while declines in participation were seen most often by directors who purchased more pre-made foods or had fewer menu options. These findings should bolster efforts by parents around the country who would like to get salad bars into their kids’ schools, but are told by their district that they’re too expensive or won’t be popular with kids.

Illegal Junk Food Sales Continue

Only two-thirds of the directors said that all the foods and beverages sold “a la carte” in their meal programs met the Smart Snacks standards for competitive food, and only two in ten directors reported that products sold by other departments and groups on campus (e.g., through student fundraisers) were Smart Snacks compliant. Those figures are shockingly low, but it’s again important to note that the survey was taken in 2014-15—the first school year in which the Smart Snacks standards were in effect. One would hope that overall compliance is now significantly improved. (Then again, see this 2016 post regarding thriving junk food sales in my own district, Houston ISD: “Dispatch From Houston: Junk Food Sales Are Alive and Well.”)

Not Enough Time for Kids to Eat

Many districts remain challenged by lunch periods that give children too little time to eat, and nearly half have used some strategies to expedite service, such as offering “grab and go” options, increasing the number of cashiers and adding more serving lines.

The report contains pages of advice from the expert panel on how districts can overcome challenges, making it a valuable resource for districts that are still struggling. But as I read through all that advice, I could only think of a post I wrote back in 2014 in which I mused that “there are few jobs on this planet harder than managing a district’s school food program.” It’s hard to read the KSHFP report without feeling tremendous empathy for school food directors, who have to juggle an array of competing concerns—financial constraints, regulatory compliance, a lack of equipment, student acceptance, parent input, too-short lunch periods—all on a budget that can be generously described as “meager.”

It’s also impossible to read the report without wondering if all the work districts have so far put into adapting to the new standards will go up in smoke when/if the Trump administration and the new Republican-controlled Congress decide to roll those standards back.

In a wide-ranging interview last week with Politico‘s senior food policy reporter Helena Bottemiller Evich, outgoing Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says he remains confident that most of the Obama nutritional reforms will be preserved: “”I don’t think that any administration, coming in, following this administration, would be able to roll back everything that’s been done in the nutrition space. I think there is a consensus—and I believe it’s a bipartisan consensus—that we have had, and continue to have, a challenge with obesity. We have, and continue to have, concerns about the impact that’s going to have on our military, on our children’s futures, on medical expenses.”

We’ll see.

This post originally appeared on The Lunch Tray.

The post Most Schools Are Serving Healthier Meals, Despite Challenges appeared first on Civil Eats.

The CNR is the every-five-year Congressional review and reauthorization of all child nutrition programs, including the school lunch program. The 2010 CNR ushered in the greatly improved school nutrition standards championed by Michelle Obama (Think: more whole grains and more fruits and vegetables). Then, just two years later, the School Nutrition Association (SNA) proposed rolling back some of those reforms. The SNA found allies in Congress among conservative House Republicans, and the debate over school food became unusually rancorous and partisan.

In January, the Senate Agriculture Committee managed to hammer out a bipartisan agreement that seemed to satisfy the major stakeholders, and it looked like the school food fight was coming to an end. But the CNR bill drafted by the House Education & the Workforce Committee in April was another story.

As I outlined earlier this year, the House CNR bill would have weakened nutrition standards, significantly limited the Community Eligibility Provision (which provides free meals to students in low-income areas without paperwork or stigma), and opened the junk food floodgates on school campuses by gutting the Smart Snacks rules for competitive food. The House bill also proposed a three-state block grant pilot for school meals, an idea which was seen by some as a precursor to dismantling the entire National School Lunch Program.

In his statement yesterday, Roberts said he’s “very disappointed that the bipartisan, bicameral Child Nutrition Reauthorization negotiations have come to an end for the 114th Congress” and he accused his colleagues in the House and minority members of the Senate of putting “certain parochial interests and the desire for issues rather than solutions . . . ahead of the wellbeing of vulnerable and at-risk populations and the need for reform.”

It remains to be seen what will happen with the CNR in the next Congressional session, but if this year’s House bill is any indication, it doesn’t look good. Two days after the presidential election, I expressed my own grave concerns over the fate of school food reform and other child nutrition programs under a Trump White House and a Republican-controlled Congress.

Indeed, today’s Politico Morning Agriculture newsletter reports that negotiations over the CNR fell apart precisely because, “House Republicans felt entitled to a much more conservative bill after sweeping GOP victories in the election.”

That sentiment doesn’t bode well for our children.

This post originally appeared on The Lunch Tray.

The post There Will Be No School Food Bill By the End of the Year appeared first on Civil Eats.

At one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, we’ll have a Republican-controlled Congress taking up the long-overdue Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR) next year. House Republicans have already shown a willingness—indeed, an almost vengeful eagerness—­to roll back the improved school nutrition standards championed by the First Lady.

They want to get rid of the “Smart Snacks” rules that cleaned up on-campus junk food fundraising, slash the number of schools able to use the Community Eligibility Provision to serve free meals without paperwork, and allow schools to sell “a la carte” items like pizza and fries on a daily basis. They’ve also proposed a three-state block grant pilot for school meals, an idea which could cripple school meal programs in the event of an economic downturn, and which is seen by some as a precursor to dismantling the entire National School Lunch Program.

Of course, school meals are not the only federal program on which hungry kids rely. Forty-four percent of supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP) recipients are children, but the current Republican party platform advocates divorcing the program from the farm bill, thereby making it far more vulnerable to significant budget cuts. Indeed, House Speaker Paul Ryan has already indicated he hopes to drain $1 trillion from the program over the next ten years.

Then there’s President-elect Trump himself. While the fast-food loving candidate didn’t talk much about food policy on the campaign trail, what little he did say was rather alarming, including a plan to eliminate many food safety regulations, along with the nonexistent “FDA Food Police.”

As for school food in particular, Trump didn’t join his primary opponents Ted Cruz and Chris Christie in mocking Michelle Obama’s school food reform efforts on the campaign trail. (See: “If Heidi’s First Lady, French Fries Will Return to the Cafeteria” and “Christie on School Food: “I Don’t Care” What Kids Eat.”)

Instead, the only time Trump spoke about school food (to my knowledge) was when he appeared on the Dr. Oz show in September. According to The Atlantic, a teacher in the audience asked about childhood obesity and Trump responded: “That is a school thing to a certain extent. I guess you could say it’s a hereditary thing, too. I would imagine it certainly is a hereditary thing. But a lot of schools aren’t providing proper food because they have budget problems, and they’re buying cheaper food and not as good of food.”

If you squint a little, that rambling response could actually be construed as supporting healthy school meals served by well-funded districts, but I’m not holding my breath.

After all, Trump is the same person who tapped Sid Miller, the Texas Agriculture Commissioner, as one of his advisors on food policy. Miller caused an uproar just last week by calling Hillary Clinton the “c-word,” but well before that incident (and before a whole lot of other outrageous and despicable behavior in my state), Miller’s first act in office was bringing back soda, deep fat fryers and birthday cupcakes to Texas schools.

Now, Politico‘s Morning Ag newsletter reports that Miller is actually on the short list as a possible (if unlikely) pick for Agriculture Secretary, the official who, among other duties, oversees all federal child nutrition programs. That Miller is even being considered for such a position tells us all we need to know about the relative importance of these issues to Trump and his advisors.

I unwittingly launched The Lunch Tray right in the middle of the last CNR, in the summer of 2010. Back then, it was thrilling to have a devoted champion like Michelle Obama in the White House, willingly spending her political capital to push for the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. For advocates like me and for concerned parents around the country, it’s going to be excruciating to watch the likely dismantling of many of those reforms in the days ahead.

For hungry children, the impact could be devastating.

This post originally appeared on The Lunch Tray.

The post How Hungry Kids Will Fare Under Trump appeared first on Civil Eats.

To answer that question, the Urban Institute and Feeding America recently convened 20 focus groups of teenagers across 10 communities to better understand how hunger affects this particular age group. Their joint report, issued last week, provides some disturbing findings.

According to the report, because teens are particularly sensitive to peer approval, a fear of social stigma can prevent them from taking advantage of food assistance even when it’s available. But teens are also often overlooked by many charitable anti-hunger efforts, such as weekend backpack programs that send home food with elementary-aged children.

As a result, in households where hunger was most acute, teens reported engaging in all kinds of risky behavior to obtain food, including: shoplifting food directly, selling drugs for cash and/or engaging in “transactional dating,” i.e., engaging in sexual relationships with older adults in exchange for food and money. In a few communities, some teens even viewed going to jail as a viable option to ensure regular meals. The report also revealed the degree to which hungry teens look out for each other and for their younger siblings, often forgoing meals or sharing their food with those also in need.

An executive summary of the report, called “Impossible Choices,” may be found here and I encourage you to read it. It offers an array of policy recommendations, including an expansion of SNAP (the federal food stamp program), creating more and better youth job opportunities, and creating teen-led food distribution programs.

But I was of course particularly interested in the role of school meals in addressing teen hunger. After all, one of the core purposes of the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program is to reach food-insecure children at school. But according to a companion report from Feeding America, “Bringing Teens to the Table,” many obstacles still prevent hungry teens from taking advantage of school meals:

• Many teens seem to be unaware of their eligibility for free school meals, or their families may not have applied for meal assistance. One teen interviewed said, “A lot of kids ask me to get lunch for them because I get free lunch, but they don’t get it.”

• When school breakfast is served early in the morning and only in the cafeteria, many teens can’t or won’t take advantage of it.

• While some hungry teens viewed school meals as life-saving, others found the quality of the food so poor that they avoided school meals despite their hunger.

• Many of the teens interviewed perceived that the investment in school food was too low, especially as compared to other school expenditures. As one teen noted, “They don’t spend to get good food but they can afford them iPads and laptops.”

Clearly, there’s more work to be done. We know that:

• Schools which offer breakfast in the classroom and/or during expanded hours during the school day (say, until 10am) do a better job of reaching hungry children.

• The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which makes school meals free for all students in high-poverty areas, effectively expands children’s access to food while also eliminating stigma. Yet the CEP is currently at risk of being significantly curtailed by House Republicans in the pending Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR).

• The current federal school meal reimbursement is widely considered to be too low to allow most schools to prepare fresher, from-scratch meals, but there’s no indication that this funding will be raised significantly any time soon.

• Schools need adequate kitchens to prepare better food, yet current federal school kitchen infrastructure funding (around $30-35 million annually) pales in comparison to actual need (estimated at around $5 billion nationwide).

All of this (with the exception of changing breakfast service) would obviously require more significant taxpayer investment in school meals. As a nation, however, we apparently lack the political will to make this investment. Indeed, efforts in the House, if successful, would begin to dismantle the national school meal program through the use of state block grants, a proposal that’s been sharply criticized by anti-hunger groups and the School Nutrition Association.

We know that chronic hunger seriously undermines kids’ physical and mental development, increases behavioral problems, encourages risky behavior and has lasting, detrimental effects on academic achievement and later job performance. So doesn’t a greater investment in school meals seem only prudent – indeed, highly cost-effective in the long run? Maybe my liberal leanings run too deep, but I’ll just never understand this disconnect.

This article originally appeared on The Lunch Tray.

The post A Disturbing Report on Teens and Hunger appeared first on Civil Eats.

The four final rules, announced yesterday on a media call by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Deputy Under Secretary Katie Wilson, specifically pertain to: the “Smart Snacks” standards for competitive foods, i.e., foods sold to children through school stores, vending machines, a la carte lines and fundraisers; local school wellness policies; the Community Eligibility Provision, which allows free meals for all kids in high-poverty areas without paper applications; and administrative review.

Overall, the final rules don’t vary significantly from their prior iterations. But here are a few issues worth noting:

Local School Wellness Policies: Ban on School Junk Food Marketing

Districts participating in the federal school meal program have been required since 2006 to formulate a wellness policy to promote student health, but such policies often consisted of boilerplate language stashed in the drawer of a district official. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, however, required far more robust wellness policy rules. Proposed in 2014, they directed schools to include: greater community involvement in formulating wellness policies; specific, measurable goals for nutrition and physical activity; and increased reporting and oversight. Now those proposed rules have been made final, with few material changes.

One notable aspect of both versions of the rule—likely to receive media attention this week, in light of USDA’s announcement—is a requirement that wellness policies prohibit the on-campus marketing of foods and beverages which don’t meet the Smart Snacks nutritional standards. The intent of this junk food advertising ban, according to the USDA, is that children will be “presented with images and signs that promote healthier foods and beverages and that the products that are marketed will match the snack foods and beverages that will be available in schools.”

The USDA received a significant number of comments seeking to also ban marketing by companies selling “copycat” snacks in schools, i.e., Smart Snacks-compliant versions of junk food available in supermarkets. But the agency declined to take on this issue, instead leaving the decision up to local districts.

The USDA also failed to squarely address whether “marketing” in this context includes incentive programs, such as Box Tops for Education or fast food coupons passed out to kids for reading books. Arguably, though, such programs would fall into USDA’s broad definition of “advertising and other promotions in schools,” including “oral, written, or graphic statements made for the purpose of promoting the sale of a food or beverage product made by the producer, manufacturer, seller, or any other entity with a commercial interest in the product.” And, of course, a district could expressly include such programs in the definition of “marketing” in its own policy.

Another notable feature in both the proposed and final rules—one likely to be of special interest to elementary school parents—is a requirement that wellness policies set nutritional standards for foods and beverages that aren’t sold but instead made available to children at school, such as offerings at classroom parties or treats given out by teachers as a reward. Many districts will likely use the Smart Snacks standards to fulfill this requirement, but with no specific nutritional guidelines offered by the USDA rule, they could also opt for a weaker or more rigorous standard.

Smart Snacks: Return of the Hard-Boiled Egg

Back in 2014, I noted that many House Republicans were decrying the inability of schools to sell hard-boiled eggs (banned under Smart Snacks because of their fat content) as a prime example of federal “nanny state” overreach. But given these same representatives’ dogged quest to gut healthier school meal standards, this talking point struck me as more than a little disingenuous. That was particularly true when I discovered that one school superintendent lamenting the egg ban—frequently mentioned by Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL) in his campaign to roll back meal standards— hailed from a district making almost $3 million a year by selling junk food and fast food to kids. (“I’m Getting *Really* Sick of Hearing About Those Hard-Boiled Eggs”)

But now I’m eating crow—along with a few hard-boiled eggs—because apparently enough commenters complained to USDA about this issue that the final Smart Snacks rule expressly allows the sale of “whole eggs with no added fat.” Other similarly minor changes to Smart Snacks include allowing the sale of low-sodium canned vegetables and tweaking nutritional requirements to allow for the sale of “paired exempt foods” such as peanut butter and celery or reduced-fat cheese with apple slices.

Noting that the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans don’t suggest a daily limit on total fat, and because many healthy foods such as avocados and legume dips currently exceed the Smart Snacks total fat limit, USDA is also seeking comment on whether to remove the total fat standard entirely. Comments on this issue must be submitted within 60 days of the publication of the final rule in the Federal Register.

In short, the final Smart Snacks rule closely tracks the interim final rule that’s been in effect on campuses since the 2014-15 school year. And while the rule’s nutritional standards are certainly not perfect (a lot of “better-for-you” junk food sneaks in, so long as it’s “whole grain rich”), they’re still an enormous improvement over the glut of junk food commonly seen on school campuses prior to their implementation.

Community Eligibility Provision and Administrative Review

In yesterday’s media call, USDA Deputy Under Secretary Wilson and other speakers used the opportunity to reiterate their strong support for the CEP, which brings free meals to children in high-poverty areas without paperwork or stigma. Donna Martin, the school nutrition director in Burke County, Georgia, noted, “In school, kids are transported for free, we give them free books, we give them free access to teachers. So why not free meals? It’s as important as everything else in the school day.” The current CEP isn’t significantly changed by the final rule, which codifies previous policy guidance.

Changes to current administrative review process can be found here (scroll to the chart on page 45).  According to the USDA, these tweaks will help “establish a unified accountability system designed to ensure that school food authorities offering school meals comply with program requirements” and are “expected to strengthen program integrity through a more robust, effective, and transparent process for monitoring school nutrition program operations.”

* * *

With the finalization of these four rules, the historic work of the Obama administration in improving children’s school food environment is now complete. But, of course, we’re already one year overdue for the next CNR, a process which could easily roll back or weaken these reforms – many of which have already been overtly threatened by House Republicans.

Stay tuned.

This post originally appeared on The Lunch Tray.

The post USDA Finalizes School Nutrition Rules: What You Need to Know appeared first on Civil Eats.

Hundreds of families have had similar experiences thanks to Lisa Helfman, a 40-year-old Houston real estate attorney and mom of two (pictured below). Helfman conceived of Brighter Bites five years ago after her family joined a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and she noticed how the weekly influx of fresh produce gradually improved her sons’ less-than-perfect eating habits. When her five-year-old spurned a slice of birthday cake in favor of fresh blueberries, a light bulb went off. She recalls asking herself, “How could I do what I did with my son for families living in the inner city?”

Helfman envisioned recreating the CSA experience for underserved parents in her community, thereby improving the diets of their kids. So in the 2012-13 school year, she piloted the program at a low-income Houston public charter school, distributing free produce to the families of 150 fourth graders, once a week for eight weeks in the fall and spring semesters. The Houston Food Bank, which was already collecting unsold produce from local supermarkets and farmers, acted as the program’s supplier, providing between 50 and 60 servings of fresh produce per week. That was enough for two servings a day for a family of four, with each distribution containing eight to 10 different types of fruits and vegetables.

From the beginning, though, Helfman was determined to offer more than a free handout. “People could easily be annoyed,” she says, if they were suddenly burdened with perishable food they didn’t know how to prepare or weren’t inclined to eat. Instead she wanted to deliver the produce in a “thoughtful and dignified manner,” which included tucking into the grocery bags recipe cards for less familiar items and creating a festive atmosphere at the after-school distributions, including passing out samples of the week’s featured recipe.

To get parents further invested, Brighter Bites asked them to volunteer with the sorting and bagging process each week. And to provide an educational component, the nonprofit paid to train teachers in CATCH, a state-approved nutrition and health curriculum for kids. Participating parents were reached through free bilingual materials, written at a third-grade reading level, to teach basic food literacy and cooking skills.

From the start, Helfman also wanted to quantify participants’ lifestyle changes through independent study. So she brought on as her Brighter Bites co-founder Dr. Shreela Sharma, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas School of Public Health, seeking her expertise in designing the program and conducting ongoing studies to see if it really could improve families’ eating habits long-term.

Early successes and a rapid upward trajectory

The results of the 2012-13 pilot were encouraging. According to a study published in The Journal of Primary Prevention, 96 percent of the families reported eating all or most of the produce provided each week. They also showed improvements in mealtime practices such as a decrease in eating in front of the television and drinking sugary drinks and an increase in family dinners and children asking for fruits and vegetables as snacks.

Anecdotally, the organization was told that kids were throwing away less produce in the cafeteria because they were used to seeing it at home, and parents were pleased to save around $34 a week on their grocery bills. They also appreciated what Brighter Bites calls the “risk free trial” aspect of the program, which allowed them to experiment cost-free with unfamiliar fruits and vegetables.

Armed with this promising data, Helfman has sought out and received millions in financial and in-kind support to advance her vision. The Texas Department of Agriculture was among the first major supporters, granting Brighter Bites $1.2 million in 2013 to foster its expansion within the state, followed by an additional $500,000 in 2015. (More Texas state funding is likely on the horizon, Helfman says.)

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) initially awarded the nonprofit a $148,000 SNAP-Ed grant enabling it to operate in three Texas cities—Houston, Dallas, and Austin. Last September, the department provided an additional $2.4 million in SNAP-Ed dollars, which covers most of the nonprofit’s operating budget.

Perhaps most significant of all is a new partnership with Sysco, the largest food distributor in North America, which could allow Brighter Bites to go national while also helping to tackle the significant problem of wasted “ugly” produce.

Rich Dachman, Sysco’s vice president of produce, learned of Brighter Bites last spring and cold-called Helfman, asking how the company could help. Now trucks loaded with unsalable produce that would otherwise be tilled under by Sysco’s network of farmers head toward Texas food banks, where it’s specifically earmarked for Brighter Bites. (Any extra produce goes into the food banks’ general supply.)

Helfman is thrilled by the new arrangement: “To have this fleet [of 9,000 trucks] behind us is really surreal,” she says. Harvesting potentially wasted produce, she continues, “turns out to be the most effective way to find food for our families. We actually think this is a major opportunity to fix the food waste problem in the country, because we have families that will eat it.”

Promising new data and looking toward the future

All of this external support has enabled Brighter Bites to increase its impact quickly. To date, it has distributed more than 8 million pounds of produce to more than 20,000 families at around 90 distribution sites including schools, Head Start programs, and YMCAs. It’s also brought national attention to the organization, which had speaking slots at last May’s Partnership for a Healthier America summit and a recent Congressional hearing on SNAP-Ed.

The organization’s profile may rise even higher when a recently completed two-year study of 760 Brighter Bites families is published later this year. In addition to corroborating many of the positive findings of the pilot study, Sharma’s research team found that 74 percent of participating families reported maintaining the same level of produce buying and consumption even after the distributions ended–precisely the outcome Helfman hoped for when she conceived of the program.

Estrada-Perez, for example, says that eating more produce has improved her family’s health, ending her children’s chronic constipation and improving her own blood work. Brighter Bites “was seriously a godsend,” she says. “We had it, it changed our habits and now we’re keeping up with it because we feel so much better.”

With the new Sysco partnership and the USDA reportedly considering an increase in the organization’s SNAP-Ed funding, Brighter Bites is now poised to grow dramatically. Still, Helfman doesn’t want to risk the program’s success by expanding too quickly. “Every city takes a thoughtful rollout,” she says. But since Brighter Bites’ survey data has been remarkably consistent across all three Texas cities in which it operates, Helfman believes that replicating those results outside the state is within reach.

“This is all just starting,” she marvels. “And now I think we’re unstoppable.”

The post This Texas Nonprofit is Helping Low-Income Families Eat More Fruits and Vegetables appeared first on Civil Eats.

Now, actions in Congress could undermine the program’s core purpose, angering both child health advocates and the fresh produce industry.

Starting out as a small four-state pilot in 2002, the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program was so well received that it has grown steadily ever since; schools in all 50 states now participate and the program’s current annual budget has grown to $177 million. States direct their share of that funding to elementary schools with the highest enrollment of children qualifying for free or reduced price lunch, and at least 50 percent of a school’s students must qualify in order for it to participate.

Although the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program is considered a federal child nutrition program, its underlying goal is arguably less about feeding kids and more about education and long-term behavioral change. For example, schools are encouraged to serve not only familiar carrot sticks and apple slices, but a wide variety of fresh produce. Exotic fruits like persimmons, papayas, and green plums have been offered in some schools, as well more common produce that’s rarely seen on cafeteria trays, such as avocados, blueberries, radishes, and asparagus. Participating schools are strongly encouraged to incorporate nutrition education into their daily curriculum, preferably while the snack itself is being served, and some schools even include information about the day’s fruit or vegetable in their morning announcements.

These concerted efforts to expand kids’ palates and teach them the benefits of eating fresh produce appear to be paying off. A 2013 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) evaluation of the program found “strong evidence” that the FFVP boosted children’s fruit and vegetable consumption both inside and outside of school, and that it created more positive attitudes about fresh produce generally, including an improved willingness to try new fruits and vegetables. Moreover, schools participating in the FFVP provided significantly more nutrition education than other schools.

Even more impressive, perhaps, were the findings of a 2015 study published in Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy which compared the BMI scores of Arkansas students at FFVP-participating and non-participating low income elementary schools. The upshot: Participation was found to reduce student obesity from an average of 20 percent to 17 percent, suggesting that the FFVP can also be viewed as “a very cost-effective obesity prevention tool.”

Almost from the beginning, though, limiting the program to fresh fruits and vegetables has been a challenge. Citing the affordability and availability of their own products, lobbyists for fruit and vegetable processors and canners have repeatedly fought to expand the FFVP to include frozen, dried, and canned produce as well.

The financial upside of their fight is limited. (The FFVP’s $177 million budget is minuscule compared to what’s spent on other child nutrition programs.) But, as Politico reported last fall, some in the frozen and canned produce industries are less than pleased with the idea that kids are being implicitly taught that only fresh produce is healthy. Moreover, these companies may hope to get their products in front of impressionable kids to form early food preferences that could pay off down the road.

On the other side of the fight, lobbyists for fresh produce growers point out that there’s hardly a shortage of processed produce in school food. Canned and frozen fruits and vegetables are common additions to cafeteria meals and dried fruits and fruit juices often dominate school breakfast menus. According to the fresh produce lobby, the USDA spent over $2.8 billion on processed produce for school meals between 2010 and 2014, making the FFVP a welcome opportunity for kids to enjoy the fresh, whole versions of these foods.

But now, with the Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR) pending in Congress, fruit and vegetable processors are working hard to exploit this latest opportunity to muscle their way into the program.

The Senate Agriculture Committee’s CNR bill, which has yet to be voted upon by the full Senate, would allow any schools new to the FFVP to serve up to 100 percent frozen, dried, or canned produce in the first year of participation, but it would require them to incrementally move toward serving only fresh produce by the fourth year. (Schools already participating in the program would continue to serve only fresh produce.) The provision represents a negotiated compromise between the warring factions and therefore isn’t viewed with much alarm by health advocates or the produce industry.

The House Education and the Workforce Committee’s own draft CNR bill (discussed recently on Civil Eats), on the other hand, would go much further. It would allow all FFVP schools to serve “all forms” of produce, expressly stating that the program is “no longer limited to only fresh fruits and vegetables.”

So, what might FFVP snacks look like if the House’s vague “all forms” language makes it into the final CNR bill without further clarification?

No one can say for sure, because the USDA would likely have to issue regulations or a guidance document to help schools comply. The language seems certain to include items like natural fruit roll-ups and canned and dehydrated fruit and vegetables. But it might also allow products like this 100 percent fruit ice, which is already considered a “fruit” for the purposes of the National School Lunch Program, or possibly even items in which fruits and vegetables are only one component, such as fruit yogurt or trail mix:

Whether the House’s expansive “all forms” language will make it out of committee, let alone into the final law, remains to be seen. But given the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program’s proven benefits in its current form, this could be yet another case—reminiscent of the 2011 fight over treating pizza as a school food vegetable—of the processed food lobby’s interests trumping kids’ health. Stay tuned.

Top image courtesy of the USDA.

The post Is the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program About to Get Sliced and Diced? appeared first on Civil Eats.

Here’s the background. Congress reviews and reauthorizes federal child nutrition programs every five years, and the 2010 Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR) made headlines for ushering in significant changes to those programs. Among many other provisions, it set new, greatly-improved nutritional standards for school meals, created meaningful curbs on school junk food sales, and made access to school meals easier for economically distressed kids.

But not long after healthier school meals started appearing on trays in 2012, the School Nutrition Association (SNA), the leading organization of 55,000 school food professionals, staged a revolt. Although it had initially supported the improved school meal standards, it cited increased costs and food waste in an aggressive effort to weaken them.  And it was that push for nutritional roll-backs, which found support among many House Republicans, which has been at the heart of an unusually rancorous and partisan school food fight ever since.

With the passage of the 2015 CNR already overdue, it looked as though a truce had finally been reached in January. The Senate Agriculture Committee managed to hammer out a bipartisan compromise that seemed to reasonably satisfy all parties—one that gave schools a bit more flexibility, but kept the improved nutrition standards mostly intact. 

Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, lauded the deal for “balancing food service providers’ concerns with the need to ensure that school food continues to support children’s health, while protecting the $15 billion per year taxpayer investment in school meals.”

There was just one remaining question: would the House Education & the Workforce Committee choose to adopt the Senate compromise, making passage of the CNR in 2016 more likely, or would the committee rock the boat by offering its own proposed changes? Last Thursday, when a discussion draft of the House CNR bill first became available online, the answer was clear: the school food boat is officially rocked.

The 175-page discussion draft covers a myriad of provisions, but there are three facets of the bill in particular which could significantly impact school meals and student health. Here’s what you need to know:

1. It Takes an Anti-Science Approach to Nutrition

The most controversial school meal standards now require districts to boost whole grains and gradually reduce sodium, while requiring kids to take a half-cup of fruits or vegetables at lunch instead of it passing up. The House bill seeks to “review” (and likely significantly weaken) the whole grain standard and to further slow or even stall sodium reduction. But those nutritional roll-backs aren’t what have health advocates most alarmed. 

Currently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is supposed to revisit nutrition standards every five years to reflect updates to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. But the House bill would allow nutritional re-jiggering to take place every three years. Moreover, even though the current school meal standards reflect the Institute of Medicine’s evidence-based recommendations, the House bill would take a decidedly less scientific approach. 

First, the bill seems to disinvite scientists and other health experts from the table by expressly seeking the input of stakeholders such as “school leaders, school boards, local educational agency administrators, and school food nutrition directors.” And while the bill does mention the need to consult health studies, it also allows other factors to enter into the calculus, such as whether serving healthier food results in increased food costs or a drop in student participation.

The upshot? If school administrators think kids are buying fewer school meals because their favorite unhealthy foods are no longer served, the House bill would allow those lost sales to justify lowering nutrition standards—even if the science strongly counsels otherwise. 

Meanwhile, even though nutrition standards would be up for more frequent review under the House bill, schools’ actual compliance with those standards would be monitored less often.

2. The Junk Food Floodgates Could Re-Open

Before the 2010 CNR, two significant sources of junk food on school campuses were fundraisers and snack bar lines. Once the Smart Snacks in School rules went into effect in 2014, though, campus fundraisers have been restricted to healthier fare (except on so-called “exempt” days) and cafeterias can’t sell individual items from a meal, like pizza and fries, on their snack bar lines unless they were served as part of the school meal that day or the prior day. But the House bill would toss out both of those protections, essentially re-opening the school junk food floodgates.

3. Free Meals For Poverty-Stricken Kids Could Be At Risk

Finally, the House bill would also seriously undercut one of the most lauded innovations of the 2010 CNR, the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows high-poverty schools or districts to serve all students free meals without any burdensome paperwork. To be eligible for CEP, schools or districts currently have to demonstrate that at least 40 percent of their students are already certified for free meals through other federal programs (such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) or because, for example, they’ve been identified as homeless, migrant, or in foster care.

In its first two years of nationwide implementation, CEP has been a remarkable success. According to a new report from the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, more than half of all eligible schools in the country are already providing 8.5 million impoverished students free meals without paperwork or stigma. 

But the House CNR bill would raise the qualifying threshold from 40 percent to 60 percent. The move is arguably intended to keep free meals from going to kids who aren’t actually economically distressed, but in reality the change would harm those legitimately in need of assistance. Because that 40 percent threshold doesn’t come close to capturing all the impoverished kids in a given population, Politico calculates that bumping the threshold to 60 percent would mean that even “schools with between 65 and 96 percent of their students qualifying for nutrition assistance would likely have to drop CEP.”

The SNA, USDA, and anti-hunger advocates are united in their opposition to the proposal. USDA Under Secretary Kevin Concannon, who oversees all federal child nutrition programs, cautioned: would be unwise to roll back standards, saddle parents and school administrators with more paperwork or weaken assistance for our most vulnerable children,” while the SNA said it “strongly oppose[s]” the idea.

To be sure, not all of the House bill’s provisions would undercut the school meal program. For example, the bill has been praised by the SNA for providing districts with much-needed additional funding for school breakfasts, and, like the Senate bill, it preserves the controversial provision that requires kids to take a half-cup of fruits or vegetables at lunch.

Now it remains to be seen whether these two CNR bills, with their significantly different visions for school food, can be reconciled in Congress. Last week, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan), ranking member of Senate Agriculture Committee, told Politico Pro that she predicts a deadlock that could further delay passage of the overdue 2015 CNR: “If folks do try to go backwards, there just won’t be a bill, I can assure you.”

The post 3 Things You Need to Know About the House’s New School Food Bill appeared first on Civil Eats.

But unlike the recent controversy over federal school food nutritional standards, which attracted significant media attention and a lot of highly-charged partisan debate, school kitchen equipment is often an afterthought — even though it’s just as vital.

After all, what good is a shipment of fresh, nutritious vegetables if a school lacks adequate refrigeration to store it, enough cutting boards and knives to prepare it, or the proper equipment to prepare healthy meals?

In recognition of this critical link, President Obama’s just-released fiscal 2017 budget proposal seeks $35 million from Congress for school kitchen equipment grants—an increase of $5 million over last year—to support the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act’s 2010 school meal overhaul.

Similarly, the Senate Agriculture Committee’s recently approved bipartisan Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill also provides for at least $30 million per year in kitchen equipment grants, as well proposing a new low-interest loan program for districts’ larger infrastructure needs.

A 2014 Pew Charitable Trusts report found that 88 percent of districts currently lack at least one piece of equipment needed to serve kids healthy meals, forcing many to engage “workarounds that are expensive, inefficient, and unsustainable.” And most lack much more than that. According to Pew, “more physical space” was the most commonly reported need. But that’s not where the list ended. Here are a few additional examples:

• In Alabama, 41 percent percent of schools reported needing more sets of knives with cutting boards.
• In California, 51 percent of schools reported needing walk-in refrigerators in order to safely and efficiently store large quantities of perishable foods and beverages.
• In New York, 54 percent of schools said they needed industrial scales to weigh bulk ingredients.

Given these numbers, it’s not surprising that the school food community has welcomed the idea of additional funds. Diane Pratt-Heavner, spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association (SNA), says the 55,000-member group of school nutrition workers was “pleased” to hear about the proposed increased funding for school kitchens.

She points to a recent SNA survey that revealed that many school districts have used the money they might have spent on new equipment to offset financial losses in their meal programs. “These grants will help support ongoing efforts by schools to invest in the necessary equipment to increase scratch-prepared recipes and serve more fresh produce,” Pratt-Heavner told Civil Eats.

But just how far will $30 or $35 million go to overhaul underequipped school kitchens? The short answer is: Not very far.

Forty-three percent of today’s public schools were built in the 1950s and 60s. And while the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Equipment Assistance Program was intended to keep school kitchens up-to-date, Congress failed to fund the program for three decades, starting in the 1980s.

The effect of that long period of neglect became manifest in 2009-10, when Congress finally did provide $100 million for kitchen infrastructure as part of the federal stimulus package and another $25 million in the fiscal 2010 budget: Grant requests from school districts came to five times that amount, or $630 million. And, of course, that figure only takes into account the districts that applied for funds. The Pew survey actually pegs total school kitchen infrastructure and equipment needs at $5 billion nationwide.

So while no one would criticize the Obama administration’s well-meaning $35 million appropriation—it’s more than any budget has provided since the 2009 stimulus hand-out—the sum is a drop in the bucket. Jessica Donze Black, director of the Kids’ Safe and Healthful Foods Project (a joint initiative of Pew and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), calls recent appropriations “critical to addressing the equipment challenges in schools,” but she acknowledges that they fall short. “Truly resolving the current situation will require investment and innovation at the federal, state, and local level,” she adds.

Absent sufficient federal funding, where can struggling districts turn to finance needed kitchen upgrades? Black suggests they maximize their revenue by employing strategies such as “expanding meal service to include breakfast and afterschool programs” as well as “offering catering to increase facility utilization,” and then invest the additional funds in kitchen equipment. There’s also the possibility of seeking outside philanthropy; some districts have successfully partnered with health-minded or anti-hunger nonprofits willing to foot the bill for salad bars or other equipment likely to improve student nutrition.

But districts in need of larger kitchen upgrades, such as creating more storage space or replacing outdated plumbing, may well be interested in the low-cost loan program proposed in the pending Senate child nutrition bill. Modeled on the USDA’s existing Community Facilities Direct Loan & Grant Program, the program would allow districts to finance these costly improvements at a very low interest rate to be paid back over a long period of time. And the risk to the federal government would be low, as few districts would be likely to default on such loans.

In practice, though, it might not be easy to get districts to take advantage of the program. At a 2013 Kids’ Safe and Healthful Food Project workshop on school kitchen equipment, some school nutrition directors complained that “many districts may not understand how to incorporate equipment needs into capital budget plans. Others reported a lack of collaboration with food service staff when school districts budget for and coordinate capital expenses.”

It remains to be seen whether Obama’s $35 million appropriation will survive the 2017 budget negotiations and whether the final Child Nutrition Reauthorization law will in fact contain the Senate’s proposed low-interest loan program. But one thing is clear, school districts have been charged with serving healthier food to 31 million kids every day, yet many of them lack—and may continue to lack—the equipment they really need to do the job.

The post In the Case of School Lunch, Kitchens Might Be as Important as Ingredients appeared first on Civil Eats.