High-calorie sports drinks and candy bars will be removed from school vending machines and cafeteria lines as soon as next year, replaced with
diet drinks, granola bars and other healthier items, the Associated Press reports. The Agriculture Department said Thursday that for the first time it will make sure that all foods sold in the nation’s 100,000 schools are healthier by expanding fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits to almost everything sold during the school day. That includes snacks sold around the school and foods on the “a la carte” line in cafeterias, which never have been regulated before…
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Think carrots, not candy as school snack, group suggests
Junk food may soon be hard to buy at American public schools as the U.S. government readies new rules requiring healthier foods to be sold beyond the cafeteria – a move most parents support, according to a poll released on Thursday, Reuters reports. With childhood obesity rising, the survey found most people agreed the chips, soda and candy bars students buy from vending machines or school stores in addition to breakfast and lunch are not nutritious, and they support a national standard for foods sold at schools. The findings from the advocacy group Kids’ Safe and Healthful Foods Project came as the federal government prepares to roll out a nationwide standard that may set up another battle among health experts, schools and the food industry…
…Read MoreColo. lawmakers consider trans-fat ban in schools
The nation’s leanest state is taking aim at junk food in school cafeterias as it considers the nation’s toughest school trans-fat ban, the Associated Press reports. A Colorado House committee was scheduled to hear a bill Thursday to forbid any trans-fat in school food – not just the food served through regular cafeteria lunches. That would mean vending machines, after-school bake sales and popular “a la carte” items on lunch lines such as ice creams or pizza would have to be produced without artery-clogging trans fats. Several states already limit trans-fat in school cafeterias, but none has a trans-fat ban that extends before and after school. Delaware and California, for example, both ban school food with trans-fat, but not at all after-school activities…
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