ARE SCHOOLS ‘OUT TO LUNCH’?: Great vegan food is everywhere, except in America’s public schools

It's decades of lobbying... There's a ton of dairy influence in schools, they can't even legally promote water over milk... It's a challenge to get through the serious regulatory barriers.

BETH GREENFIELD: Between the explosion of products like Oatly and Just Egg and Beyond Meat — even on menus at KFC, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s — you’d be forgiven for believing that plant-based eating is taking over nearly every kitchen in America.

But there’s at least one major setting that’s been slow to follow the trend, even though it’s what one vegan advocate called “the biggest restaurant chain in any county”: public school cafeterias, where healthy meal innovation faces a myriad of barriers, from food budgets and pandemic-related supply-chain problems to pressure from the meat and dairy industries.

“It’s decades of lobbying,” said Kari Hamerschlag, deputy director of food and agriculture at Friends of the Earth, where the Healthy Climate-Friendly Food Program works to counteract that by shifting K-12 (plus state, municipal and university) food service purchasing dollars to support healthier, “plant-forward” sustainable food. But it’s a challenge to get through the “serious regulatory barriers,” she said.

“There’s a ton of dairy influence in schools — they can’t even [legally] promote water over milk,” echoed Maggie Neola, a registered dietitian with the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which educates the public about the benefits of plant-based diets. “Nothing can interfere with the sale of dairy milk.” A Florida charter school with support to transition into having the first all-vegan public lunch program in the U.S., for example, saw milk requirements create a stumbling block…

Still, in spite of the hurdles, these grassroots advocates, as well as parents to school food directors, are working every angle to try and make school lunch programs healthier for both students and the planet. “I really am seeing more of a movement of schools being interested in vegan options, and students are requesting it — because of benefits to the environment, because it’s cost-effective and because it’s more of a trend,” Neola said, noting that her organization is part of a coalition that meets with about 20 organizations nationally, all aiming to help schools add plant-based lunch items…

Fourteen percent of all school districts across the country provided vegan lunches for kids in at least one school; that’s according to the nonprofit School Nutrition Association’s 2018 biannual report (the latest data available, due to 2020’s pandemic disruption). That number was up from 11.5 percent in 2016… Despite the steady stream of advances, it’s still a slow-moving effort.

A Friends of the Earth report from earlier this year focusing on California’s school lunches, for example, found that that the offerings in the state’s 25 largest K-12 districts fell short. Specifically, the analysis discovered that “cheeseburgers, meat pizzas, chicken nuggets and hot dogs are among the most widely served items on the menu,” and that “only 4 percent of menu entrees were plant-based and 16 percent contained processed meat, which is considered carcinogenic by the World Health Organization”…

So, what’s standing in the way?… Much of the meat and dairy for schools, she explained, is procured through a subsidized USDA foods program, through which $1.5 billion allots budgets for schools each year. The schools then purchase lunch items with that entitlement funding — roughly three-quarters of which is spent on ground beef for burgers, cheese for pizza and chicken… Plant-based proteins such as lentils and tofu “can’t even begin to compete against these animal products [which] are freely provided,” Hamerschlagsaid…

Neola said that more plant-based options largely come about locally, because of the requests and efforts of motivated individuals — something the USDA spokesperson nodded to as well, telling Yahoo Life, “It is important to reiterate that individual foods available to students in school are planned by the local school districts and are based on local preferences, financial considerations, available staff and physical facilities.” Neola said that the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine can help support parent requests as well as offer culinary training and meet with school boards or principals to help “make it a real community effort”. SOURCE…

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