THE U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

CSPI urges the USDA to maintain the provisions outlined in the proposed rule and, in addition, strengthen the sodium reduction targets and whole grain-rich requirements to better align school meals with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). [...] School meals are one of the healthiest sources of foods for school-age children1, with some children consuming as much as half of their daily calories at school.2 In 2012, the USDA followed requirements from the HHFKA to update school meal nutrition standards for the first time in several decades, which successfully improved the nutritional quality of school meals and increased the amount and vari. [...] These findings demonstrate the prevalence of added sugars in the school meal environment and in children’s diets and support the need for establishing an added sugars standard for reimbursable school meals in alignment with the most recent DGA recommendations. [...] children ages 5 to 18 do not meet the recommended intake for whole grains and exceed the recommended limit for refined grains.55 Prior to the 2018 rollbacks to the school meal nutrition standards, less than 15 percent of SFAs requested a whole grain-rich waiver.56 Regardless, in 2018, the USDA halved the amount of whole grains required in school meals, from the DGA-aligned standard requiring 100 p. [...] To do this, the USDA should develop new final limits based on the CDRR amounts, using the same process developed by the NASEM in the School Meals: Building Blocks for Healthy Children report.70 The final sodium reduction limits should be set at 21.5 percent of the CDRR (and corresponding DGA recommendation) for breakfast and 32 percent of the CDRR (and corresponding DGA recommendation) for lunch.