On Jan. 20, the U.S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee approved the Improving Child Nutrition Integrity and Access Act of 2016—a compromise to keep first lady Michelle Obama’s healthy school meal standards in place while giving schools more flexibility. According to The Hill, schools will now have until 2019 instead of 2017 to hit the lower sodium levels required by the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. Sodium content for the week will be expected to drop from 1,360 mg to 1,035 mg in middle schools, and from 1,420 mg to 1,080 mg in high schools.
In addition, the bill proposes rolling back the whole grain requirements to 80% whole grain rich, which means that at least half of the grains in a food are whole. In response to this decision, the Whole Grains Council released the following statement:
“While we exhaled a huge sigh of relief when whole grain requirements didn’t get rolled back to an embarrassing 50% whole grain rich, the new rollback is still a step in the wrong direction. The change to make 80% of foods whole grain rich (in other words, only 40% of grains must be whole grain) is not in alignment with the newly released Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which recommend making at least half your grains whole. Policy makers and public health officials alike understand that nutrition change is almost always incremental. That said, ‘make half your grains whole’ first showed up in the Dietary Guidelines in January 2005—11 years ago—and school children have already proven they are ready to move beyond this increment.”
The non-profit School Nutrition Association (SNA), however, lauds the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee for crafting bipartisan child nutrition reauthorization legislation and urges Congress to act quickly to advance the bill through the legislative process. “The School Nutrition Association greatly appreciates the leadership of the Senate Agriculture Committee in crafting a bipartisan reauthorization bill that offers practical solutions for school meal programs and the students they serve,” said SNA President Jean Ronnei.
No specific date has been set for a vote on the Senate floor.
