{"id":22100,"date":"2023-11-10T09:00:05","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T14:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=22100"},"modified":"2023-10-25T11:42:39","modified_gmt":"2023-10-25T15:42:39","slug":"new-report-highlights-plant-based-trends-in-school-lunches-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2023\/11\/10\/new-report-highlights-plant-based-trends-in-school-lunches-in-california\/","title":{"rendered":"New Report Highlights Plant-based Trends in School Lunches in California"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screenshot-2023-10-25-at-09-07-31-Plant-Based-Trends-in-California-School-Lunches_Final.pdf.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-22101\" src=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screenshot-2023-10-25-at-09-07-31-Plant-Based-Trends-in-California-School-Lunches_Final.pdf.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"256\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD<\/p>\n<p>When you think of school lunch, do entr\u00e9es like Thai Chili Tofu, Chana Masala, Vegan Tostadas and Tamales, and a Tofu Katsu Bowl come to mind? These are just some of the vegan entr\u00e9es that were served in California\u2019s 25 largest school districts in October 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The non-profit Friends of the Earth developed a progress report on school lunch entr\u00e9e offerings that were served in the largest districts in California and compared these to what was served in 2019 (1). The report uses the term \u201cplant-based entr\u00e9e\u201d which they define as \u201cthe main course of the meal utilizing beans, peas, lentils and\/or soy products as the main protein component. A plant-based meal contains no animal products or byproducts (e.g., no milk, yogurt, cheese, or meat products).\u201d In other words, in this report, \u201cplant-based\u201d means \u201cvegan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here are some of the report\u2019s findings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In October 2022, 68% of California\u2019s largest school districts served plant-based entr\u00e9e offerings daily or weekly, compared to 44% in 2019. Fourteen out of 25 middle and high schools offered a plant-based entr\u00e9e every day compared to 9 out of 25 in 2019. The number of elementary schools offering plant-based entr\u00e9es weekly has more than tripled. Despite these positive trends, plant-based entr\u00e9es are only 8% of all entr\u00e9es offered.<\/li>\n<li>Eighty different vegan entr\u00e9es were offered in October 2022 compared to 61 in October 2019. This suggests that progress is being made in terms of the variety of offerings.<\/li>\n<li>School menus frequently offer more than one entr\u00e9e per day. Nearly one in five entr\u00e9es offered in 2020 included processed meat, an increase since 2019; 57% of all entr\u00e9es contained cheese.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The report was not able to include information on how often vegan entr\u00e9es are selected by students; it looked at how often these entr\u00e9es were offered.<\/p>\n<p>The report spotlights the second-largest high school district in California, Sweetwater Union, which offers vegan options daily in all school cafeterias. Offerings include falafel wraps, hummus-based entr\u00e9es, and vegan burritos. Hot vegan entr\u00e9es are offered three out of five school days each week.<\/p>\n<p>Friends of the Earth offers a hypothetical scenario \u2013 if all school districts in California replaced a beef burger with a black bean burger one day a month, it would save 220 million pounds of CO2, which would be equivalent to eliminating 22,000 cars from the road for one year (2).<\/p>\n<p>The report includes many recommendations for policy changes to promote healthy, climate-friendly school meals. This makes it a valuable tool for those working to improve school meals.<\/p>\n<p>References<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Stewart N, Hamerschlag K, et al. Plant-based trends in California\u2019s school lunches. <a href=\"https:\/\/foe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Plant-Based-Trends-in-California-School-Lunches_Final.pdf\">https:\/\/foe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Plant-Based-Trends-in-California-School-Lunches_Final.pdf<\/a>. 2023.<\/li>\n<li>Kraus-Polk J, Hamerschlag K, et al. The state of school lunch in California: Opportunities for improving the health and environmental profile of school food. <a href=\"https:\/\/foe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/SchoolFoodReport_No-Execsummary.pdf\">https:\/\/foe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/SchoolFoodReport_No-Execsummary.pdf<\/a>. 2021.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>To read more about school meals see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/fsupdate\/index.htm#School\">the section on VRG\u2019s website about School Food Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD When you think of school lunch, do entr\u00e9es like Thai Chili Tofu, Chana Masala, Vegan Tostadas and Tamales, and a Tofu Katsu Bowl come to mind? These are just some of the vegan entr\u00e9es that were served in California\u2019s 25 largest school districts in October 2022. The non-profit Friends of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22102,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22100\/revisions\/22102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}