Some progress in healthier school meals

Source http://www.foodpolitics.com/2017/01/some-progress-in-healthier-school-meals/

I am late in getting to this report on school meals from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundations, which came out in early December. 

Their jointly sponsored Kids Safe and Healthful Foods Project took a good hard look at how schools were faring under the Obama administration’s rules for healthier lunches, breakfasts, and snacks. 

Some of their findings:

  • 6 in 10 directors said they faced only a few or no ongoing obstacles to meeting updated breakfast requirements; 4 in 10 said the same of the lunch guidelines.
  • For breakfast and lunch, the commonly cited challenges were sodium and whole grain targets.
  • Most programs use a mix of strategies—three, on average—to encourage students to eat nutritious meals (e.g., salad bars).
  • Holding taste tests with students and redistributing uneaten, sealed foods were among the most effective ways to reduce waste (but only about 40% of schools were doing this). 
  • Programs preparing more foods from scratch and increased the use of salad bars were more likely to report that student participation rose or was unchanged from 2011-2015.
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Source http://www.foodpolitics.com/2017/01/some-progress-in-healthier-school-meals/

I am late in getting to this report on school meals from the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundations, which came out in early December. 

Their jointly sponsored Kids Safe and Healthful Foods Project took a good hard look at how schools were faring under the Obama administration’s rules for healthier lunches, breakfasts, and snacks. 

Some of their findings:

  • 6 in 10 directors said they faced only a few or no ongoing obstacles to meeting updated breakfast requirements; 4 in 10 said the same of the lunch guidelines.
  • For breakfast and lunch, the commonly cited challenges were sodium and whole grain targets.
  • Most programs use a mix of strategies—three, on average—to encourage students to eat nutritious meals (e.g., salad bars).
  • Holding taste tests with students and redistributing uneaten, sealed foods were among the most effective ways to reduce waste (but only about 40% of schools were doing this). 
  • Programs preparing more foods from scratch and increased the use of salad bars were more likely to report that student participation rose or was unchanged from 2011-2015.
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