Summary of school meal standards

A summary of the 2012 nutrition standards in the NSLP and SBP includes:

• Require offering fruits and vegetables as two separate meal components; 
• Require offering fruit daily at breakfast and lunch; 
• Require offering vegetables daily at lunch, including specific vegetable subgroups weekly (dark green, orange, legumes, and other as defined in the 2005 Dietary Guidelines) and a limited quantity of starchy vegetables throughout the week; 
• Require offering a daily meat/meat alternate at lunch; 
• Meals must meet specific calorie ranges for each age/grade group;
• Prepare meals using food products or ingredients that contain zero grams of trans fat per serving; 
• Use a single food-based menu planning approach; 
• Use narrower age/grade groups for menu planning; and
• Free drinking water must be available in the cafeteria during lunch and breakfast.

A summary of the 2022 transitional standards for milk, whole grains and sodium final rule includes: 

• Milk: schools and childcare providers serving participants ages six and older may offer flavoured low-fat (1%) milk in addition to non-fat flavoured milk and non-fat or low-fat unflavoured milk;
• Whole grains: at least 80% of the grains served in school lunch and breakfast each week must be whole grain-rich; and
• Sodium: the weekly sodium limit for school lunch and breakfast will remain at Sodium Target 1 in SY 2022-2023. For school lunch only, there will be a 10% decrease in the limit in SY 2023-2024. These standards were informed by the US Health and Human Services (HHS) Food and Drug Administration’s recently released guidance that establishes voluntary sodium reduction targets for processed, packaged and prepared foods in the US.