Here are some of the other highlights of what this bill would do (From The Slow Cook):
* Allow students to eat breakfast in the classroom in schools where more than 40 percent of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals.
* Require a minimum 30 minutes for lunch.
* Eliminate trans-fats and introduce specific nutrition standards, including weekly portions of vegetables, over a four-year period.
* Regulate the amount of sodium in school food, but still allow more than the most recent USDA standards for commodity vegetables.
* Continue to allow snack and junk food, but in managed portion sizes.
* Continue to allow vending machines outside school lunch rooms, but no longer stocked with sodas, sports drinks, ice teas or other sugary beverages, including “fuit juices” with minimal actual fruit.
* Prohibit “foods” containing more than 35 percent sugar by weight, but continue to allow flavored milks some are now calling“sodas in drag,” as well as 100 percent fuit juices that are dense with sugar by virtue of the fructose they contain.
* Encourage schools to serve minimally processed agricultural products that are sustainably grown on local farms, and without the use of non-therapeutic antibiotics and hormones.
* Establish a school gardens program to aid in garden construction and incorporate gardens into school curricula.
* Eliminate Styrofoam and other non-recyclable materials from school lunch rooms and report on recycling efforts.
* Begin a pilot composting program for school food waste.
* Require minimum levels of physical exercise in grades K through 8.
* Establish “wellness centers” in the city’s high schools.
* Nutrition standards, including ban on sugary beverages, would not apply at sporting events. But foods not meeting the standards could not be offered as prizes or incentives in schools.
What can you do to help:
1. Sign the D.C. Farm to School Network’s in support of farm to school in the Healthy Schools Act.
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