National School Lunch Program

Vegetables are vital for dietary fiber, magnesium, potassium, vitamins A and vitamin C. Due to cost and availability, it is hard for schools to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to the children. The Fruit and Vegetable Access for Children Act proposes federally funded programs to allow fresh fruit and vegetables be substituted with canned, frozen, or pureed versions. This substitution is supposed to decrease food waste, hardship of administration, and budget costs while still having the minerals needed.19 Schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program, spend 82% of entitlement dollars on meat and cheese, whereas 13% on fruits, vegetables, legumes, and fruit juice.6 Programs like the National School Lunch Program are expressed

The children that participated in the study were in kindergarten through fifth grade who selected at least one vegetable as part of the National School Lunch Program. When the program started providing more fruits and vegetables, the students were simply not eating them. If they are not consuming the necessary vitamins and minerals at school, then they are most likely not receiving any at all. For the program to actually work, the children need to be consuming the fruits and vegetables provided.20 When the children do not eat the fruit and vegetables it increase the plate weight. For 1,092 meals, plate waste averaged 35% of entrees. There was a 37% waste for milk. 30% of fruits and 72% of vegetable plates were wasted by the children participating in the National School Lunch Program. Before and after the changes in the program, the vegetable plate waste was more than 50%, so clearly the changes did not help this too much.21 Majority of the children do not eat the recommended amount on a daily basis which makes packed lunches even less nutrient dense than the National School Lunch Program. Therefore, the National School Lunch Program consumes more fruits and vegetables, even though that still is not enough. It is hard to find cheap vegetables that children are going to actually like enough to eat. Beans and peas are the most wasted forms