New rules would limit sugar in school meals for first time

[sl8]

https://apnews.com/article/new-school-meal-nutrition-standards-30963aeb9f56aae0ee743c26f1117f19

New rules would limit sugar in school meals for first time

By JONEL ALECCIA
today

U.S. agriculture officials on Friday proposed new nutrition standards for school meals, including the first limits on added sugars, with a focus on sweetened foods such as cereals, yogurt, flavored milk and breakfast pastries.

The plan announced by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also seeks to significantly decrease sodium in the meals served to the nation’s schoolkids by 2029, while making the rules for foods made with whole grains more flexible.

The goal is to improve nutrition and align with U.S. dietary guidelines in the program that serves breakfast to more than 15 million children and lunch to nearly 30 million children every day, Vilsack said.

[...]

Courtney Gaine, president of the Sugar Association, said the proposal ignores the “many functional roles” sugar plays in food beyond sweetness and encourages the use of sugar substitutes, which have not been fully studied in children. Sugar substitutes are allowed under the new standards, Vilsack said.

[...]

[Phoenix61]

1. Long over due. nt

[NickB79]

2. By 2030, HALF of all adult Americans will be obese at current rates

Not just overweight. 25% will be morbidly obese. If you include those who are "only" overweight, you see that number climb to 80%.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/half-of-us-to-have-obesity-by-2030/

Today's kids will join their ranks if we don't treat this like what it is: one of the biggest public health crises our nation has ever faced.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. The free breakfasts distributed to the kids in my school are all sugar.

Muffins, fruit bars, graham crackers, sugared cereals. It's not nutrition; it's there to raise their blood sugar levels.

[blueinredohio]

4. I don't know how they could be over weight from school lunches

when I went to grandparents day lunch we weren't even half finished and they were telling kids to take their trays to where ever they wash dishes and go outside.

[BlackSkimmer]

5. Anybody remember when they gave us the polio vaccine in a sugar cube?

I remember it well.

I'm one of those odd folks who doesn't care for sweets, and I'd probably rather have had a shot than eat that horrid cube.

But they fed us all sugar cubes saturated with vaccine and sent us back to our teachers. What a day that must have been.

[markie]

6. "many functional roles" of sugar?

...such as?? maybe 'functional', but definitely not necessary or healthy