VOLUME 55 NO. 5 - JUNE 1996USDANEWS
VOLUME 55 NO. 5 - JUNE 1996
by Jim Borland, Office of Communications
One hundred eighty billion to be exact. That's how many school lunches have been served since the inception of USDA's National School Lunch Program 50 years ago this month.
In its five decades--since President Harry Truman signed the National School Lunch Act into law on June 4, 1946--the School Lunch Program has seen its fair share of changes. It was originally created to address nutrition-related health problems found in young military recruits during World War II.
Since then, from a program based mostly on removing surplus commodity and processed commodity foods like cheese and beef from the market to a program based on science-based, computerized school menu planning, USDA employees have been at the center of 50 years of changes in what America's school children are eating.
"Hotdogs, and pork and beans," recalled Stan Prochaska, director of the Communications Coordination & Review Center in the Office of Communications, referring to his first school lunch at Carrier High School in Carrier, Okla., in Sept. 1948. "School lunch in the cafeteria changed what we ate for lunch--but it also made the cafeteria the social center of the school," he said.
The cafeteria remains the social hub of most schools, but we've come a long way from pork and beans. Today's school kids are likely to have access to salad bars, several fruit and vegetable choices, and of course, school lunch staples like pizza and hamburgers. But that mozzarella cheese on the pizza is probably low-fat skim, and the burger is likely to be extra-lean.
USDA's implementation of amendments to the National School Lunch Act in 1962 marked a major change in the policy direction of the School Lunch Program. "Before 1962, states were given money by USDA based on the number of children in the state and the state's per-capita income," said Food and Consumer Service food program manager Alberta Frost. "Often, schools with high concentrations of low-income children simply couldn't afford to run a lunch program." The 1962 amendments created special assistance funding for states to ensure that America's neediest children had access to lunch at school.
Some say that 1976 marked another turning point in the School Lunch Program. That was the year in which the requirement that butter be served with each school meal was dropped. The change reflected the increasing health-consciousness of Americans in general, and the School Lunch Program in particular. And although the use of some surplus commodity foods--like butter--has declined steadily over the years, they still make up some 17 percent of the food in the School Lunch Program.
"Commodities are really very important to the schools that participate in the Program," said Les Johnson, director of FCS's Food Distribution Division. "What we're doing now is focusing on the nutritional value of commodities and their usefulness to school food service personnel."
Over the past ten years, employees with FCS, the Farm Service Agency, and the Agricultural Marketing Service have worked cooperatively to improve food quality, packaging, and distribution, as well as to lower fat, sodium, and sugar levels in commodity foods.
Improving the nutritional profile of commodity foods was just the beginning of a major effort by USDA to change what kids eat at school. Beginning in the 1996-97 school year, cafeteria fare in all participating public and private schools will be required to meet the "Dietary Guidelines for Americans."
The Guidelines, published jointly every 5 years by USDA and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services--and most recently updated and released in Jan. 1996--encourage adults and children alike to choose a diet with plenty of grain products, vegetables, and fruits, moderate in sugars and salt, and lower in fat.
The January 1996 issue of the USDA News carried a story on the most recent version of the Guidelines.
"It's a step forward for the School Lunch Program to use the Dietary Guidelines as a framework for healthful meals," said Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion chief nutritionist Carole Davis. "The Guidelines are as appropriate for school children as they are for adults; and they give specific, practical tips for school food service staff to use in planning menus."
And work to improve meals served to America's school children continues. FCS staff in regional offices across the country are working with children, their parents, and teachers--through USDA's "Team Nutrition" program--to educate kids about how to make healthy food choices for a lifetime.
They're also working with State and local food service staff to help them prepare healthier school meals for the coming school year.
Each morning, many of us send our kids off to school with lunch money in their pockets. Next time you do, remember that it's your fellow USDA employees who are helping to make school lunch possible, helping to ensure that today's healthy kids become tomorrow's healthy adults--and that we've been doing it for 50 years.¤
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