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A transitional kindergarten educatee eats dejeuner at his Sacramento school. Credit: Lillian Mongeau, EdSource Today

The two-ounce hamburger is no longer the rule for school lunches, later on the federal government this month permanently removed limits on the amount of protein and grain allowed in meals under the federally subsidized National School Lunch Program. But does this mean the much-heralded healthier school lunches are returning to super-sized portions?

Not at all, said Lynette Rock, president of the Burbank-based California School Nutrition Association.

"The new healthy school tiffin meals are still healthy," said Stone, who is besides the managing director of diet services for the Torrance Unified Schoolhouse District. "The relaxation of regulations on grain and protein take had no negative touch on on the healthiness of the meals, because you still have the limits on the calories."

She does non foresee the rise of colossal hamburgers – although she says the change allows more flexibility to provide filling meals students want to consume, such as melting a piece of reduced-fat cheese on top of a hamburger or adding a larger whole-grain ringlet to tiffin trays.

"From a business organisation point of view, you're not going to serve a lot of protein because it's expensive," Rock said of the change. "It's not going to be more protein, it'southward going to be more than grains."

Under the original regulations issued in 2022 by the U.S. Department of Agronomics, servings of grain and protein had, for the outset fourth dimension, maximum size limits. The guiding principle of the new lunch menus, which were part of a school dejeuner overhaul called for by the Good for you, Hunger-Gratuitous Kids Act of 2010, was to reduce childhood obesity and encourage salubrious eating.

Meat or protein equivalents, for instance, could exist no larger than a two-ounce serving; in unproblematic schools, grain servings were express to 9 per week, meaning that schools could not offering a sandwich v days a week. At the same time, the regulations required schools to serve fat-gratis or depression-fat milk, a multifariousness of fruits and vegetables, including nighttime leafy green vegetables and orange vegetables, reduced-fat and reduced-sodium foods and more whole grains. The meals had to meet strict calorie limits: 550-650 calories in simple school, 600-700 in middle school and 700-800 in high school.

Some schoolhouse nutritionists balked, saying the two-ounce limits on protein and grains made information technology hard to provide appealing, filling meals that had enough calories. Some students reportedly boycotted the healthy meals; students and teachers in Kansas made a video, "Nosotros Are Hungry," complaining that the smaller portion sizes made them weak with hunger. A few school districts around the country said they would quit the National Schoolhouse Tiffin Program, saying its menu restrictions were too cumbersome.

Only others, including writer Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York Academy, said the restrictions appropriately encouraged students to eat more fruits and vegetables, and that efforts to overturn the restrictions were driven past the agronomics industry.

Nonetheless, the federal government removed the maximum limits on grain and protein temporarily in belatedly 2022 and now has eliminated the maximums permanently.

"I am ecstatic about it," Rock said. "It makes carte planning and then much easier."

Barbara Lee, director of campus catering for the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School Commune, described how the protein and grain restrictions of the past drove her reluctantly to turn to loftier-fat salad dressing to provide enough calories in an entree salad served with grilled chicken and a pocket-size whole-grain roll.

"You have this wonderful, beautiful salad merely it doesn't have enough protein or calories, so yous back-fill it with total-fat dressing," Lee said. "The better selection is we can increase the protein and likewise look at the grain that's offered."

Schools appear to take made the adjustment to the new regulations. By March 2013, more than 70 pct of U.Due south. school districts reported they had met the new standards and 94 percent of districts said they expected they would meet the standards by the cease of the 2012-xiii schoolhouse year, according to a report released in fall 2022 past the Kids' Rubber and Healthful Foods Project, an initiative of the philanthropic organization the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The push for healthier school meals continues, according to the agriculture department, which cited its farm-to-school programs that provide fresh vegetables and fruits to schools, besides as new grants for school kitchen equipment. Last month, the department appear that California is among fourteen states, the District of Columbia and Guam to receive a full of $11 million in grants to aid schools purchase new kitchen equipment to make it easier to set up healthier meals.

Jane Meredith Adams covers pupil health. Contact her and follow her on Twitter @JaneAdams.

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