After months of stalling on school lunch reauthorization, the Senate is finally buzzing with activity. The new child nutrition reauthorization bill, a bi-partisan piece of legislation that mandates the nutrition requirements for school meals, is scheduled for a vote today. 

According to a news release from the School Nutrition Association (SNA), the US Department of Agriculture, the White House, and the Senate Agriculture Committee worked collaboratively with the SNA to agree on school nutrition requirements, so that they can (finally) reauthorize the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act.

While the proposed Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill covers a range of different issues (from delaying additional sodium restrictions, to increasing farm to school grant funding), we are most closely watching what happens to whole grain requirements. 

Perhaps the most talked-about aspect of the proposed bill (called the Improving Child Nutrition Integrity and Access Act of 2016) is the decision to roll back whole grain requirements to 80% whole grain rich. As a refresher, “whole grain rich” simply means that at least half of the grains in a food are whole — NOT that the food is 100% whole grain. So “80% whole grain rich” is actually a euphemism for making a meager 40% of your grains whole. Major media outlets are calling this agreement agreement a truce, as it doesn’t honor the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act to its full extent, but also doesn’t back-pedal all the way to the measly 50% whole grain rich, which was rumored in some circles.

While we exhaled a huge sigh of relief when whole grain requirements didn’t get rolled back to an embarrassing 50% whole grain rich, the new rollback is still a step in the wrong direction. The change to make 80% of foods whole grain rich (in other words, only 40% of grains must be whole grain) is not in alignment with the newly released 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which recommend making at least half your grains whole.

Policy makers and public health officials alike understand that nutrition change is almost always incremental. That said, “make half your grains whole” first showed up in the Dietary Guidelines in January 2005 – eleven years ago – and school children have already proven they are ready to move beyond this increment. June 2015 data from the USDA show that 97.1% of schools across the US are certified as meeting the updated (100% whole grain rich) nutrition standards. Similarly, Margo Wootan, of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, reports that less than 10% of schools are asking for waivers for the whole grain requirements. With so few school districts left struggling, it is a shame that our elected leaders perpetuate the myth that kids aren’t eating whole grains.

Talented school foodservice directors passionately push back against that myth. We agree with Mellissa Honeywood, RD, Director of Food & Nutrition Services, Cambridge (MA) Public Schools, who told us, “If we don’t give kids an opportunity to try new healthy things, they will never try new healthy things. If you don’t give them a chance to experience that, then that’s a fault on us, it’s not a fault on the kids, because we never gave them the benefit of the doubt. We never gave them a chance to try something new. We are deciding for them that it’s too difficult. We are deciding for them, that they won’t like it. Give them a chance. You will see the changes in the students.”

No matter what Congress votes, we know the best school foodservice professionals will find a way to meet and exceed the standards, and give kids what they need to thrive: plenty of healthy choices. (Kelly)