In early January, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture released new Dietary Guidelines for Americans as well as a new food pyramid.
The USDA sets nutritional standards for schools based on these dietary guidelines, which now emphasize protein and encourage Americans to consume full-fat dairy products and limit highly processed foods.
Here’s information about how the new food pyramid affects schools:
Cutting back on ready-to-eat school meals isn’t easy
Highly processed ready-to-eat foods often contain added sugar and salt. Think macaroni and cheese, pizza, French fries, and individually packaged peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Nelson said these foods are also an important part of many school meals. This is because schools often lack adequate kitchen infrastructure to prepare meals from scratch.
“A lot of schools were built over 40 years ago, and they were built for reheating food. So they weren’t built as commercial cooking kitchens,” Nelson said.
Even so, schools have been able to reduce sodium and sugar content in recent years.
“They’ve been working with food companies to find the middle ground, to find recipes that fit the bill [the current] “Standards and appeal to students and what schools can deliver based on the equipment they have,” said Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association.
Pratt-Hefner said further reductions in sugar and salt may require food companies to adjust their recipes and schools to prepare more meals from scratch.
But getting started cooking isn’t easy. A recent survey of school nutrition directors conducted by the School Nutrition Association found that most programs need better equipment and infrastructure as well as better trained staff, and nearly all respondents said they also need more funding. “You can’t go from serving highly processed, heat-and-serve food to immediately cooking it,” Nelson said. “It’s a shift.”
Protein-rich school meals will cost more
At the top of the new food pyramid are animal products such as meat and cheese. The new guidelines prioritize protein as part of every meal and add healthy fats.
“This could lead to changes in school breakfast standards,” Platt-Hefner said. “Currently, there is no rule that breakfast must contain protein.”
A typical school breakfast today might include fruit, milk, and a cup of cereal or a muffin; some schools might offer a breakfast burrito or sandwich.
She said schools “absolutely need more funding” if the USDA’s school breakfast program requires schools to provide protein.
Current standards allow for school breakfasts to offer cereal or meat/meat alternatives, Platt-Hefner said, and “protein options…are more expensive than cereal options.”
It’s unclear whether the USDA will require the protein under its own category or whether the agency will consider milk sufficient to meet any new protein requirements, she said.
Whole milk gets a lot of attention
Schools participating in the federal school meal program must offer milk with every meal, but students do not have to take it. Until recently, an Obama-era rule allowed schools to serve only low-fat and skim milk.
But the new food pyramid emphasizes full-fat dairy products, such as whole milk. Meanwhile, recent federal legislation reverses Obama-era rules and now allows schools to offer low-fat and whole milk.
One more thing to know about milk: Federal law also limits saturated fat in school meals—and whole milk has more saturated fat than low-fat and skim milk. But recent federal legislation now excludes butterfat from these limits.
What does all this mean for schools? They can now start offering whole milk without worrying that whole milk will put them over the saturated fat limit.
It will take some time for these changes to trickle down to schools
While the USDA sets regulations for schools based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, it takes time to draft and implement new regulations after the new guidelines are released.
“Our current school nutrition standards were proposed in February 2023 and finalized in April 2024,” Pratt-Heavner said. “School cafeterias will not be required to change their menus for the first time until July 2025.” Other changes are still being rolled out.
That said: The new dietary guidelines won’t bring immediate changes to school cafeterias. They are only the first step in the regulatory process, which takes time.
“We have to look at the USDA recommendations,” Platt-Hefner said.
Then, she said, “the public will comment on the regulations, and then final rules will be drafted and published.”
The USDA then gave schools and school food companies time to update recipes and implement new nutritional standards.
