School Food

What children eat at school is important for their health but also for planetary health and food justice. Every year at least 32 million children in the United States participate in child-nutrition programs; for many, school meals are an essential source of nourishment. For the planet, school meals are an opportunity to create sustainable food systems.

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With 7 billion school meals served annually in the United States, the impact of school food is substantial. Excessive consumption of meat and dairy products has a heavy price tag when it comes to greenhouse gases, pollution and habitat loss. And yet, the outdated menus at most U.S. schools continue to serve up environmentally harmful and nutritionally dubious foods like chicken nuggets, hamburgers, and hot dogs. 

Most school meals are derived from factory-farmed animal products. Studies have shown that of the top 15 most common school entrée virtually all of them were meat-based. And cheese is in nearly 60% of school menu items. Meat and dairy are part of animal agriculture, the leading agricultural driver of habitat and biodiversity loss and agricultural greenhouse gases. Globally our food system contributes more than one-third of all greenhouse gases — mostly from animal agriculture. 

The environmental effects of overproduction and overconsumption of meat, dairy and seafood also come through water pollution, water and land use, pesticides and eutrophication, and species endangerment. School food also is a source of food waste, with its own outsized environmental impact, and the most wasted item is dairy milk.

This is one reason students across the country are increasingly asking for plant-based options, which tend to have a lower environmental footprint. The demand for more plant-based and plant-forward school meals reflects a diverse and environmentally conscious student population at schools across the nation. (Learn more about how meat production harms wildlife).

Addressing the environmental impact of school food can make a big difference. Sustainable nutrition standards in the national school meal program effect change in student health but also drive change in consumer markets, influence institutional procurement, and establish dietary patterns and eating behaviors for a generation. And with farm-to-school and school-gardening programs, what’s served in cafeterias is a community opportunity to fight for planetary health.

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Every child has a right to healthy, sustainable, culturally appropriate meals at school. This means schools need to provide plant-based meal options that can meet students’ medical, religious and ethical needs, and are also better for the planet than the average school meal. Unfortunately, very few plant-based entrees are available in our public schools because of the policy and financial barriers schools face.

A significant number of the 32 million school meals served every day across the United States go to students who rely on them as a primary source of nutrition. Many of these students are Black, Indigenous or from other marginalized communities. Providing better meals is a crucial point of intervention to mitigate racial health disparities, which emerge early in life.

Healthy, plant-forward diets can also boost academic performance and address educational inequities, while reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and protecting against certain forms of cancer and other diseases. Enacting universal free, healthy and sustainable school meals will give children access to nutritious meals. It will also support public schools, which currently must expend time and resources trying to overcome many obstacles to reimbursements that help create the conditions of school meals today, where uncreative, environmentally harmful meals are the standard. Finally, it will bring greater equity to families. According to the Education Data Initiative, more than 30 million students can’t afford school meals in the United States and incur hundreds of dollars or more in debt. We can solve this by providing healthy, sustainable school meals to all students.

We must revitalize our school food system toward that end. Dairy milk is usually the only beverage option (besides water) on menus that are also heavily packed with cheese, yet the vast majority of people of color can’t effectively digest lactose. According to the National Institutes of Health, lactose intolerance is a question of health, racial justice, and equity that necessitates making plant-based school foods more widely and easily available.

Students request plant-based and plant-forward school menus, meals and entrées for health, environmental, cultural, ethnic, personal and religious reasons. For example, some religions restrict all or some animal products. Black, Indigenous, Asian, and other people of color are three times more likely to follow a plant-based diet. Plant-based menus more easily accommodate a range of medical and religious concerns and the needs and preferences of diverse student populations. 

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Food-service staff often face many challenges to offering healthy, Earth-friendly choices. To begin to build a better school food structure, we need to remove some of the barriers to structural change.

For some schools this may mean greater support for kitchen staff, equipment, and training in the preparation and benefits of plant-based meals. It also means incorporating educational opportunities into school curricula that are specific to eating habits — like nutrition, gardening, and cooking — and working to increase student choice and acceptance of plant-based options through activities like taste tests.

School food programs are shaped by a complex web of policies, but there are a few key policy solutions that are critical first steps to advancing more inclusive, sustainable school meals:

• Remove the dairy milk mandate in USDA school meal programs and make plant-based milks more available and easier to access.
• Support policies where plant-based, Earth-friendly meals are the default menu with the option for students to request animal products.
• Support and invest in infrastructure that supports local food hubs to build a smarter and more resilient supply chain that also encourages healthier and greener food.  
• Enact universal free meals for all students and ensure all students have access to healthy, sustainable school meal programs.

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The Center for Biological Diversity is working with a broad-based coalition to support the Healthy Future Students and Earth Act, introduced by Reps. Velázquez and Bowman (D-NY). This legislation is endorsed by more than 100 environmental and justice organizations and would help support a more just, sustainable food system — a first-of-its-kind effort that will provide much-needed financial support, culinary training, and other assistance to school districts to meet the growing demand for plant-based options. We even joined with legendary singer Billie Eilish, who spoke on behalf the Healthy Future Students and Earth Act at a Capitol Hill briefing. Learn more on our coalition website and take action.

Students can learn more about how to get involved by visiting our coalition website at SchoolFoodAction.org.

Sign up for our newsletter, Food X, where you can learn more about how we’re fighting for climate-friendly school food.

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The Center for Biological Diversity continues to advocate for Earth-friendly school food. We are currently working on a solutions-based guide that surveys the opportunities and obstacles schools, students, parents, and administrators face in improving plant-based offerings in school menus. This guide is informed in part by a collaboration with a graduate student capstone project at Columbia University.

We’re also part of several coalitions working to improve school food procurement and policy issues at the federal level. This includes the Healthy School Meals for All coalition working for national policy in support of universal free meals at school for all students (learn more here). We helped develop the website SchoolFoodAction.org and continue to push the USDA to better support healthy, just and sustainable school food through public policy comments, lobbying, feedback on USDA guidelines, and other pathways to plant-based menus.  

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Read

• 5 Ways USDA’s School Programs Fail ‘Start Simple’ – Food Dive, Jennifer Molidor.
• Why Climate-Friendly Menus Matter – Medium, Jennifer Molidor.   
• Billie Eilish Supports Healthy, Climate-Friendly School Meals – Food X, Jennifer Molidor.
• Broad Coalition Calls on Congress to Make School Food Free for All – Food and Environment Reporting Network, quoting Jennifer Molidor.

Listen

• Connecting Food with Our Environment in Daily Life – Duke World Policy Center, Interview with Center for Biological Diversity’s Jennifer Molidor. 

Watch

• Catering to the Climate: Menus for a Healthy Planet – Humane Society of the United States, Jennifer Molidor and Stephanie Feldstein.
• Tell Congress to Support Healthy, Climate-Friendly School Food. – Student action video. 

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