Agriculture Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services (FNS) Kevin Concannon announced yesterday that USDA is making permanent the current flexibility in meeting the daily and weekly ranges for grain and meat in school lunch programs, allowing schools to serve larger portions of lean protein and whole grains at mealtime. The Federal Register notice could be available as early as today with an effective date 60 days later.
“Earlier this school year, USDA made a commitment to school nutrition professionals that we would make the meat and grain flexibility permanent and provide needed stability for long-term planning. We have delivered on that promise,” said Concannon in a statement on Thursday.
Last year, NCC President Mike Brown wrote to Under Secretary Concannon requesting that his agency extend the program’s flexibility to include bone-in chicken and expressed his appreciation that FNS allowed for temporary flexibility in the school lunch program to include bone-in chicken. “FNS’s positive action regarding chicken will benefit program operators and students. Chicken’s wholesomeness, nutrition, and enjoyable taste appeals to a very wide range of students across America, and NCC is most pleased they continue to have chicken served on their school menus,” Brown said in his letter to Under Secretary Concannon.
As soon as USDA tried to implement weekly limits called for by the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, the department ran into a firestorm of resistance from students, parents, lawmakers, and food industry officials. The 2010 law updated lunch standards by requiring schools to maintain minimum and maximum calorie levels that vary by grade level, in addition to serving requirements of grains, meat/meat alternatives, vegetables, fruits, and milk. The law was aimed at increasing healthy foods while cutting back on sodium, sugar, and fats in an attempt to combat the challenge of childhood obesity. Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act was a top priority for the Obama administration and was an important component of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative.
Criticism, and threatened legislation, led USDA to a temporary lifting of the requirement for the 2013-2014 school year. The announcement this week cements those temporary changes put in place for 2013-2014. USDA said the change was called for in many of the comments it received on the interim rule.
Senators John Hoeven (R-ND) and Mark Pryor (D-AR) in 2012 introduced legislation to reduce the federal mandates on school lunch. Senator Hoeven said in a statement yesterday that he was pleased USDA made the changes permanent. “A one-size fits-all-approach to school lunch left students hungry and school districts frustrated with the additional expense, paperwork, and nutritional research necessary to meet federal requirements,” Hoeven said.
“With school nutrition professionals already planning menus and inventory for the 2014-2015 school year, eliminating the grain and protein limits is a key step to providing healthy menus that appeal to students,” said Leah Schmidt, president of the School Nutrition Association, which represents school nutrition professionals.
