The California Assembly has passed a bill that would create a plant-based diet program in the public schools. The schools are not going exclusively vegetarian, but the plant-based diet will be heavily promoted and encouraged.
Victory! Bill Promoting Nutritious Plant-Based School Meals Passes California Assembly
Excerpt:
The Child Nutrition Act of 2022 (AB 558), a bill co-sponsored by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, passed the California State Assembly today. The bill incentivizes K-12 public schools across the state to offer healthier, climate-friendly plant-based meals and beverages.
“As the country continues to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring that California’s students have access to healthy plant-based meals that promote overall wellness and help support their immunity is a more urgent need than ever,” says Maggie Neola, RD, a dietitian with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
This bill would require the State Department of Education to develop, and to post on its internet website by July 1, 2023, guidance for local educational agencies participating in the federal School Breakfast Program that maintain kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 6, inclusive, on how to serve eligible nonschoolaged children breakfast or a morning snack at a local educational agency schoolsite. The bill would define “eligible nonschoolaged child” to mean a child who is not enrolled in school and who is a sibling, half sibling, or stepsibling of, or a foster child residing with, a pupil who is eligible for a free or reduced-price breakfast. The bill would require a guardian of an eligible nonschoolaged child to be present in order for the nonschoolaged child to receive breakfast or a morning snack. The bill would require the department to evaluate the guidance and to submit the evaluation to the Legislature by January 1, 2025. The bill would require a local educational agency that chooses to implement the department’s guidance to submit to the department certain information relating to serving breakfast and morning snacks to nonschoolaged children.
