School meals are required to meet specific nutrition standards to operate the school meals programs. The standards align school meals with the latest nutrition science and the real world circumstances of America’s schools.
This memorandum informs stakeholders on the progress made by FNS in updating the food crediting system for all child nutrition programs. This is a first step towards improving the crediting system to best address today’s evolving food and nutrition environment and meet the needs of those operating and benefiting from the CNPs.
The new standards will allow schools to offer healthier snack foods for our children, while limiting junk food served to students. Students will still be able to buy snacks that meet common-sense standards for fat, saturated fat, sugar, and sodium, while promoting products that have whole grains, low fat dairy, fruits, vegetables or protein foods as their main ingredients.
This memorandum provides information relating to section 205 of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. This provision requires school food authorities participating in the National School Lunch Program to ensure that schools are providing the same level of support for lunches served to students who are not eligible for free or reduced price lunches (i.e., paid lunches) as they are for lunches served to students eligible for free lunches.