How school lunch menus can help fight climate change

Outside of Michelin-starred restaurants, few menus are as hotly debated as public school lunches.

In the US, school lunches have to adhere to nutrition standards mandated by Congress. These were updated in 2010 for the first time since the 1940s, and again in 2015—each time under intense pressure from agriculture industry groups that pushed for menus giving a starring role to meat, dairy, fruit, and processed grains, and bit parts to vegetables and whole grains. They’re a lucrative target: Nutrition standards for the National School Lunch Program shape a $14 billion market across nearly 100,000 schools.

But those menus may be misaligned with the latest nutritional science, according to a new study—and have a much bigger environmental impact than they should.

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