The law, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed on Wednesday, sets a 10-year deadline for the change to take place.
A new law will make California the first state to phase some ultraprocessed food out of school meals.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation Wednesday that prohibits public schools from serving children what it describes as “ultraprocessed foods of concern” in breakfasts or lunches. The policy sets a 10-year deadline for the change to take place.
It defines such foods as those that pose the greatest risks to consumers based on scientific evidence of adverse health outcomes, and it directs the state Public Health Department to determine which particular products meet the definition by June 2028.
Love my state
Let’s see how the magat morons try to spin this as being un-american and biased…
Probably the same way the did when Michelle Obama tried the first time.
“it’s gunna kill jobs” “it’ll trample my right to profit off slowly killing others”
The term ultra processed us pretty controversial unless they explicitly define it in this legislation. A PB & J is considered ultra processed even if you make the peanut butter, the jam, and the bread yourself because those ingredients have been processed heavily from their natural state.
Edit:
It defines such foods as those that pose the greatest risks to consumers based on scientific evidence of adverse health outcomes, and it directs the state Public Health Department to determine which particular products meet the definition by June 2028.
Ah ok that makes sense.
There’s already a classification system in place used by researchers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_classification), but I imagine it has to be translated into legalese.
Also, according to that classification system, a PB&J wouldn’t necessarily be a UPF. You could use whole grain bread with no additives, jam made using raw sugar or honey and no other additives, and peanut butter with no additives.
Key factors to the Nova classification system seem to be whether it was made industrially and requires substantial processing, and the amount of additives, and whether those additives are heavily processed themselves.
My concern is that some of these “additives” could just be harmless preservatives, dyes, or even lab synthesized ingredients that are usually naturally occuring through some non industrial method, but they add them a different way because it’s cheaper at scale.
Not saying it’s the same but it gives me similar pause and concern as the the “natural dyes” initiative by RFK. The natural dyes are literally just the same chemicals just gotten from “natural” means rather than synthesized in a lab.
Another example is the fear mongering against high fructose corn syrup in the 00’s when it’s literally broken down into the same thing as sugar in your body before it’s used. The only difference between it and sugar, even down to flavor, is that it was created in a lab from corn because it was cheaper because of government subsidies.
PB&J is not healthy for you regardless of whether it’s ultra processed or not
Unless it’s directly harmful to you like alcohol, the term “healthy” when relating to food is very poorly defined, and is for the most part exploited by companies to make you feel bad about what you’re currently eating, and to sell you their food at a markup because it’s “healthy”
What’s healthy for is having a good idea of the levels of essential nutrients you intake, your caloric intake, and making sure you eat everything in moderation.
Listen, you only need sugar if you’re doing sports in the next hour. You can eat zero sugar and be perfectly fine. It’s not a nutrient necessary for life. So it doesn’t fall under necessary nutrient.
Bread, similarly, is mostly carbs with little nutritional value it has coming from added vitamins in the flour. The amino acid profile is trash (low in lysine)
Peanut butter has some protein, but it’s mostly fat. You need fat to live, so I’ll consider it healthy.
Overall, a PB&J sandwich is less healthy than a pack of peanuts. That is unless you’re a lumberjack or a professional athlete who needs the extra calories
So no more rectangular “pizza?” We used to have brownies that smelled like kelp too.
The rectangular pizza is not actually that processed. It comes from a US Department of Agriculture recipe and you can make it at home using common grocery store ingredients, although the USDA recipe is intended to make 100 servings.
The recipe does call for something called “pourable pizza dough” but there’s a recipe for that too and it’s basically just very thick pancake batter.
Edit: https://www.tastinghistory.com/recipes/schoollunchcheesepizza
didnt michelle obama already do this? i thought it was all figured out by now.
All she did was get rid of the high sugary stuff mostly.
Lies, she got rid of everything except the high sugary stuff aside from drinks in vending machines.
We lost basically everything with a Scoville unit over 10 in exchange for 35g sugar per serving chocolate milk and aspartame bullcrappary in the vending machines.
Plus the portion sizes dropped anywhere from 10-40% depending on the meal.
I even lost the fresh fruit bar for canned peaches.
It has been almost 2 decades and I still want revenge for my KIA flamin hot funyuns.
At my school, they got rid of any kind of regular soda and regular Gatorade. Diet only and the snacks had to be the healthier kind like Baked Lays. We still had a fruit bar though so you could have something like peaches or a banana but they still had fucking pop tarts in the morning though lol.
Clearly big pop tart got to the food purchaser.
:sad mr beast noises:
California and Minnesota getting good stuff done while the rest of us are lagging further behind.
My doc just recommended a book, Ultraprocessed People. Guessing I am about to have much stronger feelings on the topic as I learn more about it.
i thought the issue was that upf don’t have a standard definition… to be clear, for it, but from my last readings there’s not real definition. (looks at hella loose organic definitions)
The article addresses this. The legislation addresses it in even more detail.
Does it?
It defines such foods as those that pose the greatest risks to consumers based on scientific evidence of adverse health outcomes, and it directs the state Public Health Department to determine which particular products meet the definition by June 2028.
Why not just say “unhealthy food” rather than pretending that “ultra processed food” means anything useful?
10 year deadline
As an extremely experienced former K12 student/s , I can tell you this promise is worth absolutely jack shit.
My burning fury for the Democratic party pretending to care about its constituency started with Michelle Obama nuking my school lunch.
Although to be fair, a rotting prison meal is still better than the Republican alternative of no food at all.
Another victory for that entity called “Center for Science in the Public Interest” aka food police.
Personally, I’m grateful that California takes the time to investigate whether products are safe or not, and chooses not to force kids to eat unhealthy foods.
The question remains: what counts as “ultra-processed”? America is a country where ketchup counts as vegetable for school meals. Can you imagine them serving normal, freshly cooked and healthy food instead?
Ketchup is not considered a vegetable in America. That is a myth. Some random school official essentially made the equivalent of a shit post (said something stupid in a meeting with no serious intent) and local papers ran with it.
If it really is a myth, it is so fitting for the US that no one i know has ever questioned it.
Myth? No serious intent?
Reporting on the proposed directive, Newsweek magazine illustrated its story with a bottle of ketchup captioned “now a vegetable.” The proposal was criticized by nutritionists and Democratic politicians who staged photo ops where they dined on nutrition-poor meals that conformed to the new lax standards. Compounding this outrage, the same day that the USDA announced the cost-cutting proposal for school lunches, the White House purchased $209,508 worth of new china and place settings embossed in gold with the presidential seal.
Um… yes??
Did you read the linked article? The regulation doesn’t define ketchup as a vegetable. It explains how that was a thing people concocted to attack the proposed nutritional standards as being too lax.
