A slice of pizza isn't junk food when it's served at school. It's considered both a serving of a vegetable and grain under the new U.S. Department of Agriculture school lunch requirements.
Tomato paste is the vegetable and the dough is the grain.
Cookies also are OK. When they're made with whole-grain flour, they count toward the students' weekly total of grain.
- The five components of a school meal are: meat/meat alternate, grains, fruits, vegetables and milk.
- Students must have one fruit or vegetable on their tray in order for the meal to be complete and reimbursed by the federal government.
- Schools are required to serve both fruits and vegetables each day, not one or the other.
- At first, half of grains offered must be whole grain. In two years, all grains must be whole grain.
- Elementary school students can have 550 calories to 650 calories per meal, middle school students 600 to 700 calories, and high school students 750 to 850 calories.
- Schools must reach goals for sodium content in food by 2014-15, 2017-18 and 2022-23. The final goal includes maximum sodium content at 740 milligrams per meal for high school students, down from 1,420 in the 2014-15 school year.
- The USDA estimates the rules will add $3.2 billion to school meal costs over five years because healthy food costs more.
- The changes, the first in more than 15 years, will affect nearly 32 million students who eat hot lunch every day.
- The Healthy Hunger-Free Act of 2010 authorizes funding and sets policy for USDA's core child nutrition programs: the National School Lunch Program, the
School Breakfast Program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, the Summer Food Service Program and the Child and Adult Care Food Program.
MLive.com is taking a look at the new school guidelines this week in a series of articles. Follow the full coverage here and join us in a discussion about school lunches.