FNS Documents & Resources

The final rule - Child Nutrition Programs: Revisions to Meal Patterns Consistent with the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans - is the next step in an ongoing effort toward healthier school meals that USDA and the broader school meals community have been partnering on for well over a decade.  This table is a reference tool for stakeholders to visualize the proposed implementation timeline.

This final rule - Child Nutrition Programs: Meal Patterns Consistent With the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans - is the next step in continuing the science-based improvement of school meals and advancing USDA’s commitment to nutrition security.

Updated School Meal Standards: working towards a common goal of healthy children and helping them reach their full potential.

School meals will continue to include fruits and vegetables, emphasize whole grains, and give kids the right balance of nutrients for healthy, tasty meals. For the first time, schools will focus on products with less added sugar, especially in school breakfast.

School nutrition professionals continue to make school meals the healthiest meals children eat in a day! To take school meals to the next level, USDA is updating the school nutrition standards after considering recommendations from the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans and listening to a diverse range of voices with experience in child nutrition and health.

Provisions in the final rule that could impact CACFP and/or SFSP.

Inspired by Team Nutrition’s CACFP Halftime: Thirty on Thursdays Training Webinars, these ready-to-go presentation slides can be used by state agencies, sponsoring organizations, and others to train providers, operators, and menu planners on the CACFP meal patterns.

Estas diapositivas están inspiradas en los seminarios web de Team Nutrition de Medio tiempo del CACFP: Treinta los jueves. Las agencias estatales, las organizaciones patrocinadoras y otros pueden usar estas diapositivas para capacitar proveedores, operadores y planificadores de los menús sobre los patrones de comidas del Programa de Alimentos para el Cuidado de Niños y Adultos (CACFP, por sus siglas en inglés). 

Comparison Chart: Current Standards vs. Proposed Standards

The CACFP Halftime: Thirty on Thursdays webinar series is a set of interactive, skills-building webinars that focus on hot topics related to the updated Child and Adult Care Food Program meal patterns. This webinar will focus on how CACFP operators can use a food’s ingredient list to identify whole grain-rich items for their menus, with a focus on how to treat flour blends.