{"id":2647,"date":"2012-01-26T12:43:19","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T16:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=2647"},"modified":"2012-05-04T15:53:01","modified_gmt":"2012-05-04T19:53:01","slug":"new-usda-nutrition-standards-for-school-lunch-%e2%80%93-lots-of-positive-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/26\/new-usda-nutrition-standards-for-school-lunch-%e2%80%93-lots-of-positive-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"New USDA Nutrition Standards for School Lunch \u2013 Lots of Positive Changes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The newly-released USDA <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ofr.gov\/OFRUpload\/OFRData\/2012-01010_PI.pdf\">nutrition standards for school meals<\/a> include requirements for more fruits and vegetables, more whole-grains, and less salt and fat.  In a welcome addition for many vegetarians, schools now have the option to use tofu as a meat alternate for school lunch and school breakfast programs.  According to the USDA, approving tofu &quot;allows schools to diversify the sources of protein available to students and better meet the dietary needs of vegetarians and culturally diverse groups in schools.&quot; (This is what VRG had suggested in spring, 2011 when we <a href=\"http:\/\/www.regulations.gov\/#!documentDetail;D=FNS-2007-0038-1867\">commented<\/a> on the proposed regulations.)<\/p>\n<p>Here are a few more key changes:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The new lunch standard calls for &frac34;-1 cup of vegetables PLUS &frac12;-1 cup of fruit per day; the old standard required only \u00bd-\u00be cups of a combination of fruits and vegetables.<\/li>\n<li>The new standard for school breakfast doubles the amount of fruit required to be served.<\/li>\n<li>At least half of the grains served must be whole grain rich (more than half of the product must be whole grain), effective July, 2012; by 2014, all grains served must be whole grain rich.<\/li>\n<li>Schools are required to serve specific amounts of dark green and red\/orange vegetables each week; in the past requirements were merely for total amounts of vegetables with no requirements for these more nutritious vegetables.<\/li>\n<li>Schools must serve at least &frac12; cup of dried beans or peas each week.<\/li>\n<li>Schools are no longer required to serve a meat or meat alternate at breakfast.<\/li>\n<li>Any food served must have 0 grams of trans-fat per serving.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These changes will be implemented over the next several years.<\/p>\n<p>To learn more about vegetarian options in school meals programs, please visit: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vrg.org\/fsupdate\/index.htm\">http:\/\/www.vrg.org\/fsupdate\/index.htm<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The newly-released USDA nutrition standards for school meals include requirements for more fruits and vegetables, more whole-grains, and less salt and fat. In a welcome addition for many vegetarians, schools now have the option to use tofu as a meat alternate for school lunch and school breakfast programs. According to the USDA, approving tofu &quot;allows [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,10,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-service","category-kids","category-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647","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=2647"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3201,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2647\/revisions\/3201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}