Less sugar, less salt: USDA proposes nutrition changes to school meals

February 3, 2023

The Agriculture Department on Friday proposed new nutrition standards for school meals that would impose the first limit on added sugar in lunches and breakfasts served by school cafeterias…

To make Friday’s proposed rules more effective, nutrition experts urged USDA to enforce them immediately…Others argued the proposal was too strict…

The Sugar Association, a trade organization, also took issue with the proposed rules, arguing that limiting sugar in foods such as cereal and yogurt will result in other deficiencies.

“These product limits not only ignore the many functional roles that sugar plays in food beyond sweetness but will also lead to reduced consumption of important nutrients,” the association’s president and CEO Courtney Gaine said in a statement. “It also encourages the use of sugar substitutes, which are not addressed in USDA’s proposed rule, and their health effects on children are not adequately studied.”

Read the full article here: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/less-sugar-less-salt-usda-proposes-nutrition-changes-school-meals-rcna68973