I applaud the intent but the devil dwells in the details. I keep up with the latest nutritional gurus in the US and UK and even staunch advocates of abstaining from Ultra Processed Food (UPF) self-admit to having a very hard time defining exactly what that means. In addition, there are not a wealth of studies to support the harm of UPF - its mostly, avoid till more is known and educated supposition. This frustrates attempt to be precise about what's in and what's out.
Secondly, why push the deadline out to 2032. Start banning the clear junk next week. Ok, maybe it takes a while to hammer out a definition that works but start with simple rules - ratio of dietary fiber to total carbs <= 5; at least one fresh veggie and one fresh fruit per meal (fresh = not the canned in syrup stuff). CA produces a significant portion of US produce so should be somewhat easy for them. Not so much for Minnesota but baby steps.
When I was in high school ages ago we had burritos that were cooked in an oven in their plastic which would sometimes melt into the food. It’s disgusting.
I firmly believe that post industrial dietary changes have much broader effects than we are aware of.
Some people say that the increased prevalence of trans people is due to societal acceptance, and nothing to do with pollution or pseudo-estrogens (found in plastics, and released even more with heat). Imagine the amount of BPA kids have been exposed to.
Which of course we cannot do studies on, because the subject is a taboo. As if studying what's causing something, invalidates the identity of people. The hyper individualistic west, eating itself from the inside out.
I’d tend to agree it’s worth studying. We really don’t understand this stuff. Unfortunately the political football aspect makes that hard.
The age of girls having their first periods is like 5% younger, while regular cycles are taking longer to start. I don’t have the data at my fingertips, but my understanding is that different cohorts have very different results with respect to this.
School cafeteria food is what is known as Institutional Foods, and it's the same mass produced, empty calorie food served to prisoners, soldiers, school childre, and other people who can't complain.
His crusade against mechanically separated chicken made me lose all respect for him. It's just chicken, you're literally just making better use of the animal. It's not magically less healthy because you used a machine to get at it.
It's not, it's an ultra-processed food, because you can't just eat mechanically separated chicken, it has to be made into a paste, a goo, to become edible.
So, in food production you can't just "make a paste". A lot of chemical stuff begins to happen very quickly. Oxidation being a major one, with separation being another.
How do we mitigate these issues? We add things. We'll add emulsifying agents, de-clumping agents, things to retain moisture, other things to retain color(or just treat it with gasses, or dye it), etc etc.
While it's easy to say "they're just making a paste", in reality that is not what's actually being done.
That said, there are plenty of mechanically processed foods that are fine but fall under the "processed" headline because they're technically processed.
The devil is in the details though and people really need to get educated on basic food processing/preparation. I don't mean raw milk or grass-fed carnivore Idiocracy, but even a basic understanding of what a preservative is would be helpful.
Maybe the most recent "revolution", but like with reading or math the politics of school lunches has a long history, with periodic (decadal?) waves of concern and subsequent systematic changes going back to the 1930s, when national school lunch programs were first instituted.
The underlying point of contention has always been money, not desire. Who doesn't want healthier kids? For the first 50 years or so the hurdle was the price of food, but since the 1990s the hurdle has been labor. California public schools today offer free breakfast and lunch to everybody, independent of ability to pay. The push for that change started circa 2010. But to make it work fiscally that appears to have accelerated the shift to centralized kitchens distributing prepared--and increasingly highly processed--meals to schools.
Before it was closed, my oldest son went to a parochial school that prepared hot lunches out of a tiny kitchen jammed into a corner, pricing them at cost. But it was only possible because of one very dedicated cook (who possibly may not have even been paid staff) assisted by rotating parent volunteers. When that school closed he moved to a new parochial school with a large, well-equipped (albeit old) kitchen. But the kitchen is unused. There's no budget to fund a reliable, affordable cafeteria program even with paid meals, so like most of the parochial schools in the city they contract a private company to deliver prepared "hot" meals, which are no better than the horrible prepared meals the public school district gives kids even though they're sold at "market" price. (The city has their own central kitchens, but the economic pressures result in the same product.)
If you were employed there was never a time in American history were food was expensive. When you consider the relative price increase needed to serve quality food to students cost becomes a bad joke. The reason is that nobody is America cares because there is no food culture there is food product and nationalization.
The idea that you can have a national lunch program, with 0 national dishes and no standard for preparation is only something that could come from D.C.
America has plenty of regional cuisine that is likely cheaper to source locally, people just rarely take into account the fact that money spent close is much more likely to come back to you, 90%/10% is a good rule here. For every dollar you spend you get 90 cents back if the entire supply chain is local and 10 cents if it's completely external.
Also, to suggest food has never been expensive in the United States seems quite a hyperbolic statement to make given the history of poverty in the 19th and early 20th centuries, at least up to the New Deal. You seem to be making a social (laziness) or political (greedy powers-that-be) point, but it's sort of irrelevant to people, including working class people.
It's really not that hard. We have to look at the ingredients. If an ingredient has been chemically altered then that is a "processed" food IMO. The easiest thing for consumers is if you can't pronounce the ingredients, or don't know what they are, don't buy it.
[forgive capitals, I'm copying this from their websites]
Amy's Macaroni and Cheese: ORGANIC MACARONI (ORGANIC UNBLEACHED DURUM WHEAT FLOUR, ORGANIC WHOLE DURUM WHEAT FLOUR, FILTERED WATER), ORGANIC LOWFAT MILK, WHITE CHEDDAR CHEESE (PASTEURIZED MILK, CULTURE, SALT, ENZYMES [WITHOUT ANIMAL ENZYMES OR RENNET]), BUTTER (CREAM, SALT), ORGANIC SWEET RICE FLOUR, SEA SALT, ORGANIC ANNATTO (COLOR). CONTAINS WHEAT AND MILK.
Kraft Mac and Cheese: PASTA (ENRICHED WHEAT FLOUR [WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, IRON (FERROUS SULFATE), THIAMIN MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID], WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR, GLYCEROL MONOSTEARATE), CHEESE SAUCE MIX (WHEY, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, MILK, MILKFAT, PALM OIL, MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, SALT, MILK PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, MALTODEXTRIN, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF CALCIUM CARBONATE, SODIUM TRIPHOSPHATE, MEDIUM CHAIN TRIGLYCERIDES, DRIED BUTTERMILK, CITRIC ACID, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, LACTIC ACID, CALCIUM PHOSPHATE, NONFAT DRY MILK, GUAR GUM, CHEESE CULTURE, WITH PAPRIKA, TURMERIC, AND ANNATTO ADDED FOR COLOR, SILICON DIOXIDE, ENZYMES, NATURAL FLAVOR, XANTHAN GUM), MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, MALTODEXTRIN, ACETYLATED MONOGLYCERIDES, SALT, MEDIUM CHAIN TRIGLYCERIDES.
There's a surprising amount of guidance on the UK government's website for school meal standards (follow the "standards for school food in England" link).
I'll accept many British people (including my mother) fail to season their food, and overcook things.
But, the quality of the raw food is comparable to elsewhere in Northern Europe, and low-processed foods like cheese, canned tomatoes, cream, milk and so on are European (i.e. no additives, no sweetener etc) rather than American.
I agree that we cannot compare Northern Europe to the Mediterranean, but take Copenhagen for example. Same (and even worse) logistics to get good produce, but you can find acceptable food both in grocery stores, and a quality restaurant culture for the average restaurant.
And it's not like the Danish had a cuisine traditionally, all they ate was pork and potatoes due to the geography.
How so ? I've lived in various EU countries, and spent extended periods of time in the UK. In practice I could not tolerate the food unless I paid exorbitant amounts. Both in grocery shopping, and eating out.
The problem with treating food in a reductionist manner is partly the reason why we have so much UPF. Just looking at the ratio between carbs and fibre will just mean that the UPF manufacturers will shove in some more sawdust to increase the fibre content. It's like with the "low-fat" foods that just have more water content to reduce the fat percentage.
Ultimately, looking at isolated parts of food is limited by our knowledge of how those ingredients work together and affect our minds/bodies. It should be a lot simpler than that - limit processing to simple things like removing skin or seeds or cutting into smaller pieces. Pulverising things into a paste might be fine for making houmous, but we shouldn't be doing it so that food companies get a higher profit margin.
Even if there were no reliable studies, the precautionary principle would suggest to limit food that is highly processed and somehow of a novel form, very different from what was consumed in the past.
Anticipating a critical misreading, this does not mean that everything that was consumed in the past is automatically good.
I'm grateful that this bill is taking a much more measured approach than the headline suggests. The bill is targeting specific additives, or "excessive" amounts of added sugar, salt, or fat (exact thresholds unnamed).
"Ultra-processed" gets thrown about as a big food quality bogeyman, but some definitions of the label are as broad as "contains any amount of added sugar". I'm glad California isn't following a standard that extreme.
Date Published: 02/21/2025 09:00 PM
Bill Start
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION
Assembly BillNo. 1264
Introduced by Assembly Member Gabriel
February 21, 2025
An act relating to pupil nutrition.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 1264, as introduced, Gabriel. Pupil nutrition.
Existing law requires the State Department of Education to develop and maintain nutrition guidelines for school lunches and breakfasts and for all food and beverages sold on public school campuses.
This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact future legislation limiting the sale of ultraprocessed foods in California schools.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: NO Local Program: NO
Bill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1. It is the intent of the Legislature to enact future legislation limiting the sale of ultraprocessed foods in California schools.
> To identify which ultra-processed foods should be eliminated from school offerings, scientists will consider whether a product includes additives that are banned elsewhere, whether it has been linked to health harms, whether it has been show to contribute to food addiction, and whether it contains excessive fat, sugar or salt, California Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, one of the lawmakers who introduced the bill, said on the call.
>The scientists will be required to publish a first report outlining this subcategory of especially harmful ultra-processed foods by July 1, 2026, said Gabriel, and will be required to update the list every two years as research on these foods evolves.
I guess the text just isn't available yet, but the article describes what is intended.
I’ll add my anecdote: my kids and their friends would have “rather starved than eat the food provided in hot-lunch.” We had a picnic day and the ham sandwich my kid bought was two stale pieces of bread with a single slice of ham. No lettuce, no tomato, no mayo, mustard. Just two pieces of stale bread and a slice of ham. I came home pretty livid that day.
Banning foods that contain any amount of added sugar, except for sweets that are explicitly marketed as such, is very reasonable and would go a long long way in helping manage the obesity crisis.
Would it, though? What matters is glycemic index, and that depends on the overall composition of the food, not just on levels of simple carbohydrates. Focusing purely on one nutrient or on total caloric content is hopelessly reductionist.
For instance white bread has a high glycemic index not because of added sugar, but because all of the fibre and most of the protein have been removed. Proper whole grain, brown bread has a low glycemic index and tons of protein. And that's true even if there's some syrup added for flavour, which is not uncommon.
I believe sugar is added to sliced bread primarily as a preservative and to retain moisture. When fresh I've never noticed much of a difference between "no sugar added" and comparable sliced bread with corn syrup or honey, but the former goes stale more quickly.
The economic pressures are at odds because as people eat less bread shelf stability, both at the grocery store and at home, becomes increasingly important to maintaining a desirable yet competitively priced product. People don't want added sugar and are more carb conscious generally, but what they dislike even more, without realizing it, is stale bread. So you get a positive feedback loop that turns people off of bread, I think.
There is almost no whole-grain bread on the market in the US that does not have added sugar.
AIUI this is because the whole wheat flour tends to impart a bitter taste, so the sugar balances it. The sugar also enables the yeast to raise the bread faster, helping mass production.
Interesting, the only mass-produced whole-grain bread I have on hand is Ezekiel and it didn't list any added sugar, or indeed any sugar at all. It's also not listed as an ingredient on the (partially) whole-grain bread I got from our local bakery.
Having said that, I see your point that setting too low a threshold might be unnecessarily onerous on cafeterias and manufacturers. Perhaps a threshold of ~1g sugar per slice would be more reasonable?
Ezekiel bread is one exception, but they are also (at my local big box store) 3x the price (by kcal) of the white-label whole wheat bread AND less shelf-stable (thus will incur more process losses and expenses).
Interesting. Near me Ezekiel is a little less than 2x more than the cheapest bread-like sponge loaf but only about 50% more than the cheapest whole wheat bread that doesn't dissolve if you spread peanut butter on it.
That's not nothing of course, especially for a school trying to minimize food costs. Many schools (like the one I attended growing up) procure the cheapest possible USDA/NSLP-approved product.
But kids at these sorts of schools seem like they'd see the greatest benefit from this sort of legislation to raise the threshold of what constitutes a healthy lunch.
Couldn't agree more. I see this a lot here in Norway too. So much talk of "ultra-processed" food and its dangers, and recommendations to avoid it but the category is so wide as to include even things like baked beans, because they may have some salt, sugar and modified starch added; or peanut butter because it may have some sugar added to help it stay emulsified and some saturated fat added to make it less runny.
Does that processing suddenly turn the beans from one of the healthiest foods we know of to an unhealthy one? Probably not. Does it make them easier to use in cooking vs dried beans, leading more people to eat beans? Probably yes.
Same thing for the peanut butter. As part of my breakfast, I often have a slice or two of brown, whole grain bread with peanutbutter(the non-disgusting kind with additives mentioned above, about 89% peanuts) and banana. That's a meal rich in protein, various kinds of fiber, polyunsaturated fats, slow carbs, various vitamins and minerals. The fact that the PB has a little sugar and sat fat in it doesn't really matter very much. I've tried PB That's 99% peanuts and frankly it's disgusting. It separates, it's runny and it has an off taste too. If that was the only PB on the market I wouldn't even use it.
The problem is 1. That government recommendations and public discourse place far, far too much emphasis on population studies based on overly vague categories like this and 2. That there's an almost singular focus on things people should avoid rather than things people need more of, especially fibre and protein. Fibre is crucially important, and maybe this is a hot take, but I think lack of fibre is maybe the most important factor when it comes to public health and food.
Fibre increases satiety and bulk, leading you to eat less calories, lowers glycemic index avoiding insulin resistance and diabetes, improves intestinal function(via interaction with gut biome) and therefore micronutrient uptake, and it(specifically beta-glucans found in oats and other grains) even lowers LDL cholesterol. Not to mention it prevents hemorrhoids, which might not affect longevity, but it's certainly nice. And indeed, no surprise, a lot of "ultra-processed" food happens to be devoid of fibre.
I think "fibre-depleted" and "protein-depleted" would be more useful categories to use than the much more vague "ultra-processed".
Modified starch seems like a prime candidate for an ultra-processed ingredient. I don't know which one is used in baked beans, but there's a whole list of enzymes, acids and alkalis used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_starch
I didn't realize we could buy 89% peanut butter in Europe. At my nearest supermarket in Copenhagen I have the choice of 99.5% (Machandel), 99.6% (Urtekram) or 99.3% (Salling). The other 11% of yours is probably palm oil, sugar and salt, so less questionable than the modified starch but it's still additives to increase shelf life and make the boring, natural peanut more appealing.
It's by far the most sold one. I just checked, and it's not palm oil(which I would be opposed to for environmental reasons), but sunflower oil(probably high-stearic, though it doesn't say), diglycerides and monoglycerides, salt and glucose. probably most of the additive is the sunflower oil.
Anyway, it doesn't really matter, that's my point. the 89% peanuts gives me lots of protein, fibre and healthy fats, which is making it easier for me to diet and lose weight, thereby improving my health. That almost certainly outweighs any potential risks from the 11%. The 11% honestly helps in that it makes the whole thing palatable. I can't overstate how much I hate pure peanut butter; just thinking about it makes me gag.
I mean, adding stuff to food to make it more appealing or longer-lasting is what humans do. It's what we've always done. Just concluding that it's bad and shouldn't be done is silly. I'm much more interested in specifics.
You can even make a health-positive argument for preservatives. Preservatives prolong shelf life -> means I can keep more diverse food around with less time expenditure(not going to the store every day) and with less waste because there's only so much food I can eat in a given time -> means I can follow a more varied diet in practice -> better health outcomes.
Now, if there's a specific problem with one preservative or other additive, fine. replace it with something else.
I grew up in Vietnam, where freshly cooked meals were a daily staple. Getting them was effortless—just a few steps from home.
Coming to the U.S., however, turned this into a major challenge, especially while raising my own kids. Ultra-processed food is everywhere, and preparing fresh meals takes significant time, even though I’ve become quite efficient (a typical meal takes 30–60 minutes).
While this doesn’t fully solve our food challenges for kids, it’s a step in the right direction for the future.
For zoning, there's plenty of places that don't allow commercial operations near residential zones- hence the push for more mixed-use zoning. Unfortunately, urban environments still have very high rents, so to stay cheap enough you'd have to get permission to operate a good truck or sidewalk stand.
For regulations, there's no way to run (or rent) a commercial kitchen and sell low cost freshly made food and make enough money, especially if you aren't operating out of a food truck. There's several other licenses involved depending on the nature of the business.
The US is a rich country (compared to Vietnam), so I'd have thought they'd have the resources to automate much of the process of making healthy meals, and thus cheaply. Yet here we are.
That is such a huge question! I feel like the answers are many and varied.
For one obvious one, US health codes are much stricter, and your average Vietnamese food cart or street vendor would probably be flat-out illegal anywhere in the US, because they probably don't have the equipment to handle safe food holding temperatures. Not to say that the vendors aren't skilled and capable of serving safe food; just that the US health codes don't take that as a given and require you to prove it. It's why the hot dog stand is about the only iconic American food stall these days. Consider also the fairly prolific business of selling home-cooked food on Facebook Marketplace. Totally illegal, but it fills an underserved niche.
A second factor might be the cost of doing business. Ingredients are much more expensive, and so is labor, and that makes cheap food harder to produce cost effectively. The labor is probably the most expensive part of any prepared meal in the US, so you see "fast food" shift towards ultra processed foods that are quick to produce and serve.
Likewise, US real estate is just less conducive to this behavior. In cities, sure, you might see foot traffic that can support a food stall or small restaurant. But even a small location in a busy city area can be very expensive to rent, and the US has less by way of semi-permanent market areas that vendors can leverage to have easy access to customers. There's a Thai Buddhist temple in Dallas that runs a weekend market with food vendors after their Sunday services, and it's always busy. There's almost certainly demand, but reasonable locations are hard to come by.
Lastly, I just want to point out that fresh does not necessarily mean healthy! Consider salt, for example. If your freshly cooked dish is over seasoned, then you might not be getting something as healthy as you wanted, even though you might recognize all the ingredients and their sources. Be careful to avoid biases in labeling certain foods healthy and some foods not based on perception and not actual contents.
While US food codes focus on safety, they don't necessarily equate to healthy food either. Many processed items that meet regulations are loaded with unhealthy additives. Freshly made food, even if it contains a lot of salt, at least provides more control over ingredients and is often more digestible. The challenge is educating people on how to cook fresh food in a balanced and nutritious way. We need to look beyond just 'safe' and focus on whole, minimally processed foods.
This is the bill text: "SECTION 1. It is the intent of the Legislature to enact future legislation limiting the sale of ultraprocessed foods in California schools."
That's it.
It's fairly well understood what makes junk foods tasty without much nutritional value.
Salt and sugar play a big role. Those aren't "ultraprocessed".
Bread is "ultraprocessed". The number of steps from wheat to bread is large, and the output looks nothing like the input. Here's how "artisanal bread" is really made.[1]
Not passed, just introduced. It's a placeholder that can move forward to committee. Then, if it goes anywhere, details will be filled in by amendment. This is the legislative equivalent of a function stubbed out in code.
Once met a guy who set up a whole rooftop garden in LA for a couple of schools so they could teach their students about growing food and as well about the importance of fresh ingredients. Part of the program was that kids would take turns (in groups) preparing (under the supervision of a chef) the lunch the school would eat that day, teachers included.
The results were awesome, and then the program got cut because it was too expensive. The dude is now a management consultant, ironically enough.
I feel for that dude. I worked in public service for a while and eventually burnt out because I felt like I wasn't making much progress. Even as a vegan today I often ask myself if it's worth it when Cletus is proudly eating 5x the beef anyone should just to "stick it to the soy boys".
So yeah not 100% ultra-processed but generally the mains are and a lot is fried. Pizza is at least one a week. They also have a penchant for questionable vegan food like impossible burgers or the fake chicken fingers.
Ours is all school made and still offers pizza. Pizza is both fast and easy to make. It's "funny" because oftentimes our kids won't eat the school's version of things because they're too used to the processed crap version.
I'm not the first person to say this, but the school food should be easily accessible to parents. Maybe have a quarterly parent lunch where the adults try the same meals served to their children. If they are grossed out, that would be a good place to start the discussion on how to improve.
I think this is a great step in the right direction. The first six years of my career were in food safety, specifically public policy, technology, and what to do when an outbreak occurs. The FDA is woefully, exceedingly, ridiculously myopic about these kinds of definitions. [T]he first statutory definition of what qualifies as an ultra-processed food will be the mother of all political fights, just like GMOs, just like artificial dyes, just like high fructose corn syrup. It's almost a losing fight because these are MASSIVE conglomerates that do not want to make anything but super cheap, super profitable, mass produced, ultra processed foods.
IF we can define it, and my experience tells me it's a pipe dream at best, it will be a tremendous step forward for better quality in food. Then we can tackle other labels slapped on EVERYTHING such as "all natural" (when it's not) "healthy" when it's not, and my favorite, "sugar free" when it is absolutely not.
IMHO, and experience, food companies will do anything to stop these kinds of measures.
>If signed into law, Assembly Bill 1264 would establish the first statutory definition of what qualifies as an ultra-processed food…
>Ultra-processed foods, which have typically undergone many industrial changes such as the addition of preservatives, sweeteners, and artificial flavors…
Would like to see the definition… that second quotation was the best I could see
All that would be needed for that statement to be true is if Flynn's lawyer talked to one of Newsom's. Follow the money. Baking bread has nothing whatsoever to do with how much it costs to live in CA. It's a carve-out. 325_290_8544
I am not sure why this needs a bill. Giving parents a greater power over choosing the food in the schools would have worked. Palo Alto parents can afford to ensure the schools have fair trade, organic, locally produced food with vegan options but in stockton having decent colorie intake with some vegetables might be a win.
In Hungary, hospitals and schools and kindergartens make their own food from scratch (they all have their own kitchen), from healthy ingredients. Crazy how different it is in the US. We don't give chips to students, we give them real, healthy food. Every single day. We have been doing this for many decades.
When I was in elementary school in the US in the early 90's lunch was made in the school kitchen. Every school in the district did the same. By the time I was in 7th all of the lunches were Food Service items warmed and shoved in a foil pouch at one school to drive to every other school.
It is completely my bias but to me this is the result of cronyism. A couple corporations make an enormous amount of money off shit food sold to schools. The problem is that it is way cheaper to buy prepared food and have a few people warm it than having cooks at each school.
> A couple corporations make an enormous amount of money off shit food sold to schools. The problem is that it is way cheaper to buy prepared food and have a few people warm it than having cooks at each school.
I don't get it, are the corporations making a shit ton of money or is it cheaper for the school? If both of these things are true, then it's a win-win.
I don't think it's necessarily about pre-packaged or not, just the type of food. If anything, having it outsourced would make change a lot easier. No need to install a kitchen and hire cooks, just call up the giant corporations, tell them you want apple slices instead of Takis. They would almost certainly accommodate very quickly, because you know, they're making a shit ton of money. Or others would jump in
Unfortunately I think a lot of this is demand driven. It's like the few pieces of rotting fruit in a bodega. They don't stock them because kids don't want to eat them. So I imagine supply side won't do as much as you think. But it still might be worth it because it might be better for the kids to be a little hungrier than stuffing their face with poison and they might eventually come around.
> I don't get it, are the corporations making a shit ton of money or is it cheaper for the school? If both of these things are true, then it's a win-win
It's a win for the corporation, but a loss for the children and the healthcare system. They're selling unhealthy food that causes diseases at a good profit margin.
> They would almost certainly accommodate very quickly, because you know, they're making a shit ton of money
No they wouldn't. They'd tell you apple slices will raise the price by 50 cents per student per day (or whatever) and then you're back to the school budget issue.
The US system has for decades managed agricultural subsidies to ensure massive amounts of corn and soybeans are grown and sold at low prices to food processors and as livestock feed. The outcome is that your high-fructose corn syrup drink, white bread bun made with high fructose corn syrup and hamburger from a cow that got 80% of its lifetime calories from corn is very cheap, but many fruits, vegetables and nuts are expensive. (With occasional carve-outs for things like almonds being cheaper than they should be due to water management in California, but that's a separate issue).
The centralized preparation is a lesser evil from the description. You can still cook well tasting very healthy food that was done early in the morning and then distributed, there is 0 reasons why it should be worse and no need for any bad chemistry to make it last. After all, check what first class is served in airplanes, it often looks and tastes amazing yet it was done 4-15 hours before.
The issue I think is way more fundamental - look at general US portions everywhere - at home, restaurants, school. Those ain't normal sizes for any human being to eat sustainably. How much physical effort is paired with that, also how the dinner looks like (cue - it should be lightest meal in both size and content of whole day). Kids eat what they see parents eating and whats available home. Can't expect kids of obese parent(s) to have some healthy habits. And so on
In the US, it used to be much more common to pack a lunch to school. A school lunch was either a luxury, or subsidized for low income families.
But there has been a big push to make school lunches universal in the US. Compared to what I had growing up, what my kid receives is pretty mixed. On one hand, so much more is pre-cooked and pre-packaged. On the other hand, there is much more focus on "natural" ingredients and less "snacky" kids foods like pizza or nuggets.
Ironically, now packing a homemade lunch is a luxury.
I was always against school lunches because I know my government- they will serve worse food than I can buy myself. Forget organic produce.
But then I started to do research and there are children out there who are literally starving because their parents suck. So if school food can save more kids than it kills it's probably a good thing. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
I went through school in the 70s and 80s and always had school lunch. I hardly saw anybody bring lunch to school. Maybe it was because of the schools I went to, but they were public schools. They were "good" schools though (some of the best in the major metro area), so maybe that changes things. In high school I honestly don't remember seeing anybody bring lunch, obviously people did, but it would have definitely been the super minority and definitely not common by any means.
As long as we're speaking anecdotally, I very rarely took lunch to school in grade school (1980s). Even as a vegetarian in red-meat-eating Utah, I got a hot lunch prepared by real people and the food tasted good.
We pack lunch for our three kids because the free lunch at school is low quality and they don't like it.
I'm not claiming it's an overwhelming amount of work, and if we just packed sandwiches it would be easier, but it's easily 30 minutes a day of food prep and cleaning lunch boxes.
My middle schooler can't eat whole apples because of trauma to one of his front teeth. The fruit with school lunch every single day is a whole apple, and he isn't allowed to bring a knife to school to cut it.
I usually cook something healthy for 2-3 days. Yesterday I just made a stew of broccoli with potatoes (with seasoning and whatnot) and it tastes quite nice, and it was very easy to do so. It was my first time, did not even need to check the recipe. You just make it as you would any stew, you just boil the vegetables in seasoned water, then after it is soft, you can turn it into a stew by mixing oil + garlic + flour, heating it up a bit, and then putting it all into the boiling vegetables. I am sorry if this explanation may not be adequate, however, but I hope you know what I mean. The last thing we put into the boiling veggies is called "rántás" in Hungarian, but I am sure the translator would bork on this, because "rántott" is an adjective, and probably the past tense of "rántás", but they mean two very different things.
This thing about eating slowly that they mention is something I've begun to think is worth it. I've noticed that the stomach is more relaxed and happier if one chews carefully and lets the eating take some time.
Can you point to a single public school in the US that does this? Not being snarky, I would love to have one to show as an example.
My public school had a kitchen ... that it used to heat up pre-packaged deep fried chicken and pizza from Sysco. Sometimes we would get some withered celery on the plate as well.
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to think — did you share this just to show handmade food, or is it also healthy food?
1 April seemed a good start, "Oven Fried Chicken Leg", but then I searched for what it meant. It's chicken in breadcrumbs rolled in oil! Are the potatoes and cucumber slices the vegetables that accompany it?
The following day has "Orange Chicken", so chicken covered in a sugary sauce.
"Pork Carnitas Tacos" sounds good. But then "Churro"?!
"Philly Flatbread" — essentially pizza, which is an option every day anyway.
Followed by "Chicken Nachos with cheese sauce" (10 April), "Popcorn Chicken Bowl" (22nd), etc.
Full credit to them if they're preparing it all from scratch, and most of it I'd be pleased to try if I visit the USA, but it's a lot of fried or high-fat food to be serving every day at school.
The obvious difference is there's no daily pizza/hot dogs/burger options, but looking at each week I suspect they're limited to one fried dish per week or two fried sides.
It seems the food is partially prepared in a large kitchen, and then sent to the schools for "final preparation" and serving.
("Pork and roe deer meatloaf", "pheasant stew with bacon", "sushi bowl with baked salmon", they have better food than my work canteen.)
Our enthusiasm for food translates directly into a better experience for K-12 lunch students: meals made with fresh, high-quality ingredients. Dishes prepared from scratch. Menus and display cooking sessions inspired by our Chef Council’s world travels. Plenty of healthy options, supplemented by nutrition information and education.
In other words, we want your students to eat the best food possible, now and for life.
CLASSIC CAFE STATION
"The cycle-menu entrée choices are made from scratch daily, offering a minimum of two selections every day. This station is available for students to choose from on a daily basis."
PIZZA AND PANINI STATION
"A daily Panini or pizza choice. Taher’s Signature Pizza starts with a specially formulated crust. After smothering it with our zesty, old-world recopy pizza sauce and fresh mozzarella, we finish it off with a variety of toppings."
FRESHWICH®
"Deli Sandwich Station offering made-to-order fresh deli sandwiches and wraps, on choice of bread, served with all pickles, peppers, sauces, condiments, or simply tacos, burritos, wraps, ets."
HOT SANDWICH & INTERNATIONAL GRILL
"Presenting burritos, tacos, wraps, burgers, chicken, fish, and other popular items."
GRAB-N-GO
"Our A la Carte offerings will include healthier food, snacks and beverages selections, including our exciting and delicious line of Grab-n-Go products; made fresh, they are also available for students on the run Items offered include freshly-made salads, sandwiches, wraps, and homemade soups."
FRUIT AND VEGETABLE BAR
"An accompaniment to every meal. This station utilizes self-service and offers students a selection of fresh and canned fruits, and fresh vegetables."
It's a tiny school district - 3200 people in the town. I'd guess it's much easier to cook fresh on that scale vs one of the suburban/urban mega-districts? Either way, it is nice to see some places still value nutritious meals for kids.
Right, and my original comments about plenty doing it was sort of based on this idea that there are lots of small districts out there which I assume could be similar no?
So while the number of kids being served healthier from scratch cooked food might be low, the total number or percentage of schools might be a lot higher.
I realize that it's more important to consider the percentage of kids than the percentage of schools, but my initial comment was just a simple take on this as in there are probably a lot of schools that still cook their food.
Yea, I was under the impression that Sysco absolutely dominated the market for providing cheap, ultra-processed "food-like product" to schools and prisons.
The food is one of many aspects where it's hard to tell the difference between a US school and prison.
Sysco dominates the commercial food service market across all tiers.
Hint for anyone running a small commercial kitchen and considering buying ingredients from Sysco: unless something has changed in the last 20 years or so (I doubt it), they will completely screw you over if you don’t negotiate pricing effectively. If a service like Instacart undercuts your commercial prices, you’re doing it wrong.
You may be interested in what Brigaid is doing. They help schools transform to this style of food prep. They are having success in some areas at least.
Many still have the kitchens, but the two in my hometown rarely cook from scratch anymore. I live in a small 5k person town in North Carolina, and recently got involved with the school PTO. And the cafeteria is basically just heating up premade meals these days.
>Plenty of schools in the US have kitchens and cook their foods from scratch...
Well, plenty of schools in the US used to cook food from scratch! They even had awesome cookbooks provided by the US government![1] (btw, it includes the recipe for that bomb-ass school pizza they used to have in the 80s and 90s! Credit to Max Miller from Tasting History for tracking it down.) That started getting privatized in the late 90s. Now they mostly just heat up things.
Hungarian kids eat chips or other sweets, including as part of lunch. Sometikes they get pirely sweet lunch or pizza. And American kids don't have chips as lunch given by school to them.
Hungarian kids don't eat chips as part of lunch (unless their parents packed them it for breakfast, but for lunch they do not give them chips). Where have you have gotten this from? I have never encountered a place where it is common, at all, and I have been to many schools, kindergartens, hospitals, and rehabs.
Used to in the USA. when I was in school lunches were all made from scratch from a full time kitchen staff. Guessing today the MBAs have figured out how to reduce costs by automating and centralizing food production so that schools only need to heat-up lunches and thus reducing tax burden.
America has highly developed industrial food manufacturing and supply lines and a public willing to accept it. Just different values about how food is made, priced, and brought to market.
Well, in cities it is usually fine. The breakfast and supper sucks, however, at hospitals. :P Lunch has always been great everywhere in my experience. I was at rehab as well (in another county), everything was healthy, from breakfast, to lunch, to supper, and good portions. You could even get more ("repeta") if you wanted to, and of course it was "free" (TB-based).
Well, I don't know, I live in Hungary and just this morning I checked what's on the menu at my child's kindergarten. For breakfast they have margarine with honey on white bread, I'm not sure if that's good. For afternoon snack they got "kakaóscsiga" which is a pastry full of chocolate and sugar.
In the US? We have never been given harmful, ultra-processed food here, let alone pizza. The differences are wild. Pizza costs a lot here, to be honest. It is cheaper here to just make food from scratch from fresh, healthy ingredients.
Pizza is flour, tomatoes, yeast, salt and cheese with a splash of oil. Cheese is heavily subsidized by the us govt so the only expensive piece is tomatoes. It's made on an assembly line and shipped out as frozen slabs or as constituent ingredients that are then baked on demand.
Fresh tomatoes are cheap here, although I have to admit their taste has deteriorated over time. The canned ones are better to use as an ingredient due to this reason.
The US has a lot of 'food deserts', areas where there's no easy access to a supermarket with fresh food. But there's usually plenty of fast and processed food available, and it's often cheaper than fresh.
We used to, but with the Reagan deregulation in the 80's, corporations seized control. Ketchup is a veggie according to their rules, so pizza is now "healthy"
"The story is so convoluted that it defied simple explanation at the time. Even today, the episode can be plausibly presented (depending on the political leanings of the presenter) as either a simple bureaucratic screwup or an unsuccessful effort by the right to pursue its agenda at the expense of the nation’s kids."
in either case, ketchup was not actually ever classified as a vegetable in approved legislation:
"When the proposed new rules were released for comment in September 1981, food activists went ballistic. Democratic politicians staged photo ops where they feasted on skimpy-looking meals that conformed to the new standards. The mortified administration withdrew the proposal and the USDA official in charge of the program was transferred, a move widely interpreted as a firing."
I'm too young to remember anything from the time. I have many times heard people say "american schools classify ketchup as a vegetable" as if it actually was put into practice or true today, both in the states and while talking with people in europe. it's one of my earliest memories of realizing firsthand how "truth" is so easily manipulated.
I’ve never heard it put that way, more like “condiment as vegetable typifies republican thinking” as a shorthand for perceived attacks on national infrastructure.
Why should the federal government be involved in schools or school food at all? School lunches should be as local as possible with standards set by the community. At the school my kids went to in France, the local school decided the menu and it was spectacular as the ingredients came from the local farms in the area. Fresh goat cheese delivered by the guy that made the stuff less than 1km away for example.
The basic purpose of the USDA is to keep US Agriculture as a sustained business, so that the US has continued access to locally grown food resources.
The USDA sets our basic dietary standards, and sets the standards for school meals. The primary purpose of standards for school meals is to ensure agriculture has a market for its products and a secondary purpose of feeding children. The USDA also runs SNAP, commonly known as food stamps, which provides a market for agricultural products as a primary purpose and a secondary purpose of feeding families.
If the primary purpose of these things was health, they would come out of the department of Health and Human Services, possibly from its Food and Drug Agency.
You should Google “does the French government regulate food in schools” before commenting about how the US government should be more like France and not regulate food in schools, as the French government very much is involved in regulating food in schools.
Pshaa, the US didn't become the richest country on the planet by letting their kids eat caviar and green beans. Why learn if you already live like a king? Struggle builds character.
I have zero hope this will improve things when they throw around worthless terms like "ultra processed foods" on top of leaving it essentially a blank page of rules to be filled in at a later date by whoever pays off the right people.
I noticed that carbs were the main ingredient in our school district lunch. A really bad idea if you want kids to be able to focus, rather than alternating cycles of hyper/sleepy.
I don't expect a school's judgement on proper brain food to be better than for actual food. If they don't much care about the body, why trust them with the mind.
I hate to break the news to you, but 2032 is only 7 years away, and the article says it'll be another year still until the list of foods to phase out will be finalized. The phaseout of gasoline cars is set to take 15 years from 2020 to 2035, over twice as long, and IIUC some plug-in hybrids will still be allowed even after then.
I wish these sort of articles would stop using vague, catch-all categories like "ultra-processed" and instead explain the specific ingredients in these foods that are thought to be harmful.
Valid but insufficiently detailed arguments are indistinguishable from bullshit, and public discourse today is swimming in bullshit.
And unless someone is are adding tar and nicotine to chicken nuggets and ginger ale, saying these "ultra-processed" foods have more in common with a cigarette than to fruits and vegetables is disingenuous bullshit.
> Industrially manufactured food products made up of several ingredients (formulations) including sugar, oils, fats and salt (generally in combination and in higher amounts than in processed foods) and food substances of no or rare culinary use (such as high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, modified starches and protein isolates). Group 1 foods are absent or represent a small proportion of the ingredients in the formulation. Processes enabling the manufacture of ultra-processed foods include industrial techniques such as extrusion, moulding and pre-frying; application of additives including those whose function is to make the final product palatable or hyperpalatable such as flavours, colourants, non-sugar sweeteners and emulsifiers; and sophisticated packaging, usually with synthetic materials. Processes and ingredients here are designed to create highly profitable (low-cost ingredients, long shelf-life, emphatic branding), convenient (ready-to-(h)eat or to drink), tasteful alternatives to all other Nova food groups and to freshly prepared dishes and meals. Ultra-processed foods are operationally distinguishable from processed foods by the presence of food substances of no culinary use (varieties of sugars such as fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, 'fruit juice concentrates', invert sugar, maltodextrin, dextrose and lactose; modified starches; modified oils such as hydrogenated or interesterified oils; and protein sources such as hydrolysed proteins, soya protein isolate, gluten, casein, whey protein and 'mechanically separated meat') or of additives with cosmetic functions (flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents) in their list of ingredients.
What is in the chicken nugget that is harmful to you? I read the entire ingredient list and all shit I have in my kitchen cabinet for everyday cooking.
I didn't claim it was harmful, I said it met the definition of "ultra processed".
There's more to the ingredients than most people realize.
> Canola oil is made at a processing facility by slightly heating and then crushing the seed. Almost all commercial canola oil is then extracted using hexane solvent, which is recovered at the end of processing. Finally, the canola oil is refined using water precipitation and organic acid to remove gums and free fatty acids, filtering to remove color, and deodorizing using steam distillation. [Wikipedia]
Other processes are hydrogenation, flour bleaching and modification of starch (starches treated with chemicals and/or enzymes), and whatever makes "lemon juice solids" and "yeast extract".
I certainly don't have those leavening agents or dextrose in my kitchen, or all the oils, or the modified starches.
The canola oil stuff is uninteresting. Canola oil is one of the oldest cooking oils known, the process just makes it taste less shit. Hexane is inert and easy to remove during processing and has basically 0 toxicity (just don't drink a bottle of it), water precipitation and organic acid and steam distillation is whatever, sounds fancy for things that are harmless.
> hydrogenation, flour bleaching and modification of starch
All harmless
> lemon juice solids
You evaporate lemon juice and whatever is left are the solids.
> To identify which ultra-processed foods should be eliminated from school offerings, scientists will consider whether a product includes additives that are banned elsewhere, whether it has been linked to health harms, whether it has been show to contribute to food addiction, and whether it contains excessive fat, sugar or salt, California Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, one of the lawmakers who introduced the bill, said on the call.
Should make it a rule for people to read the post instead of merely the title.
Ah yes, we should wait for irrefutable proof to determine whether nutrient-dense real foods are better for our children than the ubiquitous ultra-processed food made up of ingredients that are entirely foreign to the human body.
Over 50% of American kids are dealing with chronic illness. The food supply is the #1 culprit.
If you can figure out how to include real meat and still account for dietary preferences and allergies for the entire student populace for $2.15 a day then you should publish a book.
As someone who went to public schools and has food allergies, schools I went to just… didn’t account for students with allergies beyond “don’t include nuts.”
We spend about $22,000 a year per student in California. A lot of it is wasted on well meaning but ineffective policy. I think we can afford real meat.
Extremely processed. Only choice is to buy it directly from a factory. I would like my kids to have real food options. The only way I can do that is to pack their lunch most days. They’re young so that works for now, but they will probably not be packing a lunch in high school.
as an American, I saw a documentary xxxxeditxxxxx about food in schools. Some of the French cried actual tears when they saw what American (mostly poor) students ate at school. edit: oh maybe that was "Where to Invade Next?"
This used to be widely accepted and non-controversial. We want kids to have access to whole foods. Organic even better.
It's my opinion that climate change activists are responsible for demonizing the whole foods because ultra -processed foods are more sustainable, more efficiently produced etc.
I remember a NYT interview of Bill Gates a few years ago where he said organic farming was bad for the environment.
Secondly, why push the deadline out to 2032. Start banning the clear junk next week. Ok, maybe it takes a while to hammer out a definition that works but start with simple rules - ratio of dietary fiber to total carbs <= 5; at least one fresh veggie and one fresh fruit per meal (fresh = not the canned in syrup stuff). CA produces a significant portion of US produce so should be somewhat easy for them. Not so much for Minnesota but baby steps.