Designing school meals is a complex task that involves navigating a web of nutrition guidelines.
“It is a puzzle essentially,” explained Lori Nelson from the Chef Ann Foundation, an organization that advocates for scratch cooking in school cafeterias.
“When you think about the guidelines, there’s so many different pieces that you have to meet. You have to meet calorie minimums and maximums for the day and for the week. You have to meet vegetable subgroup categories.”
For school districts receiving federal funding through programs like the National School Lunch Program, adhering to the guidelines from the Department of Agriculture (USDA) is mandatory.
Changes might soon be on the horizon.
In early January, the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services introduced new Dietary Guidelines for Americans along with an updated food pyramid.
The USDA’s school nutrition standards, which are derived from these dietary guidelines, are now focusing more on protein intake, recommending full-fat dairy, and reducing processed foods.
Here’s a look at how these changes might affect school cafeterias:
Cutting back on ready-to-eat school meals presents challenges
Ready-to-eat foods like mac and cheese, pizza, and packaged sandwiches, often high in added sugars and salt, are staples in many school cafeterias, according to Nelson. This is largely due to the lack of modern kitchen facilities suitable for scratch cooking in many schools.
“Many schools were built 40-plus years ago, and they were built to reheat food. So they weren’t built as commercial cooking kitchens,” said Nelson.
Nonetheless, schools have achieved reductions in sodium and sugar levels over recent years.
“They’ve been working with food companies to find a middle ground, to find recipes that meet [the current] standards and appeal to students and that schools can serve given the equipment that they have,” stated Diane Pratt-Heavner, spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association.
Further reductions in sugar and salt might require schools to increase scratch cooking, necessitating updates in kitchen equipment and staff, and requiring more financial resources, Pratt-Heavner noted.
Transitioning to scratch cooking is not instantaneous, as Nelson remarked, “You cannot go from serving heavily processed, heat-and-serve items to scratch cooking immediately.”
Emphasizing protein in school meals could raise costs
The new food pyramid places animal products like meat and cheese at the top, emphasizing protein and healthy fats in meals.
“That could cause a change in school breakfast standards,” said Pratt-Heavner. “Right now, there’s no mandate that breakfasts include a protein.”
Typical breakfast offerings might include fruit, milk, and a cereal cup or muffin, with some schools offering burritos or sandwiches.
Pratt-Heavner noted that schools would “absolutely need more funding” if protein became a requirement under the USDA’s School Breakfast Program.
Current standards allow schools to choose between grains or meats/meat alternates for breakfast, and “Protein options … are more expensive than grain options.”
Whether the USDA will mandate protein as a separate category or consider milk sufficient to meet protein needs remains uncertain.
Whole milk gains new prominence
Schools participating in federal meal programs must offer milk with every meal, though students aren’t required to take it. Previously, an Obama-era rule restricted schools to low-fat and nonfat milk only.
However, the revised food pyramid promotes whole fat dairy, such as whole milk. Concurrently, new federal legislation allows schools to serve reduced-fat and full-fat milk.
Although federal law limits saturated fats in school meals, whole milk, now exempt from these limits due to recent legislation, can be offered without concern for exceeding saturated fat limits.
Schools can now serve whole milk without risking compliance issues regarding saturated fat content.
Implementation of changes will take time
While the USDA creates regulations for schools following the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, there’s a time lag before these are implemented.
“The current school nutrition standards that we’re operating under were proposed in February 2023, finalized in April 2024,” said Pratt-Heavner. “The first menu changes in school cafeterias were not required until July 2025.” Additional changes are still being phased in.
This indicates that immediate changes in school cafeterias are unlikely. The guidelines mark the beginning of a regulatory change process that will unfold gradually.
“We’re going to have to see what USDA proposes,” said Pratt-Heavner.
Subsequently, she explained, “the public will comment on those regulations, and then final rules will be drafted and issued.”
The USDA then provides schools and food companies time to adjust recipes and align with the new nutrition standards.
