N.M. experts call USDA's new guidelines a learning opportunity for students

Apr. 29—Students at Hózhó Academy enjoyed teriyaki meatballs with steamed brown rice and asparagus for their Monday lunch.

Milk, applesauce, pears and an assortment of veggies from the school's salad bar accompanied the entree.

Hózhó Academy, a state-chartered school in Gallup, serves breakfast and lunch to about 550 students every day, said Eva Carpenter, the school's food service director.

Perhaps surprisingly, the MVP of Monday's lunch meal was the asparagus — locally grown, in season and roasted in the school's kitchen.

Carpenter said she makes an effort to encourage positive experiences while introducing new foods to students.

"It's trying to, especially when they try that food for the first time, [make] sure that it's the best sample they can get," she said. "I think that will really encourage them to make good food choices when they come through the lunch line."

With a new set of rules governing school lunches, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is seeking to encourage healthier eating on a nationwide scale. The new rules, made official last week, are designed to reduce added sugars and sodium in breakfasts and lunches served at school. The rules are scheduled to go into effect gradually, with full implementation expected by 2027-28.

In addition to dovetailing with New Mexico's own commitment to universal free school meals — a policy signed into law by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in 2023 — making school meals more nutritious is a learning opportunity, said Elizabeth Yakes Jimenez, a professor at the University of New Mexico's Health Sciences Center and a dietician specializing in pediatric and public health nutrition.

It's a chance to teach kids across the state what a healthier diet might look like, she said.

"We would hope to see kids having exposure to a lot of these nutritious foods that we'd like to see them consume for a lifetime," Jimenez said. "And we know that school meals, they're really ideal for exposing kids to nutritious foods."

Data paints a harrowing picture of childhood nutrition in New Mexico.

New Mexico Voices for Children's 2023 Kids Count Data Book shows rates of food insecurity — or limited and uncertain access to adequate food — outpaces the national average. Nearly 1 in 5 children in the state are food insecure; the national average is closer to 1 in 10.

Rates of childhood obesity in the state are high, too, exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. A New Mexico Department of Health report published in 2023 found nearly 30% of the state's third graders could be categorized as obese, with higher-than-average rates of obesity among Indigenous and Hispanic youth.

Childhood obesity places youth at an increased risk of developing chronic illnesses later in life, such as heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, Jimenez said.

All of that means "school meals are often the most nutritious and balanced meals that kids receive during the day," she added.

With the USDA's new rules, school meals are expected to become even healthier, said Anupama Joshi, a longtime advocate for school meals and vice president of programs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The new rules bring school meals closer in line with latest edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans — a list of recommendations, based in nutrition science and promulgated by the USDA every five years — by doing two main things.

First, they impose the first-ever limits on added sugars in school lunches, which Jimenez noted can increase children's risk of cavities, heart disease and other chronic illnesses.

The decrease in added sugar is particularly important for breakfast foods, Joshi said, like sugary cereals and sweetened yogurt.

"I think this is a really important and pivotal move," she said. "For the first time, we are seeing any action at all on added sugars."

Second, the new rules mandate a reduction in sodium — something 90% of Americans are consuming too much of and can elevate the risk of heart disease, Jimenez said.

Both changes must be implemented by fall 2027. Jimenez predicts the change will yield benefits in the future.

Through school meals, Jimenez said, "Kids get multiple exposures to these different fruits and vegetables, these foods that are lower in salt and sugar, over time. It makes a big difference, in terms of influencing their eating habits in the long term."

Starting next school year, the rules will also be an incentive to serve locally sourced foods, many of which carry cultural meanings and reflect what families might eat at home.

At Hózhó Academy, healthy school meals doesn't mean getting rid of New Mexico staples, Carpenter said. The menu often features Frito pie, posole and veggies of local significance, like blue corn — which counts as a whole grain.

"We do try to incorporate some local and Indigenous items that are familiar to the kids on our menu," Carpenter said.

Implementing the new requirements will be relatively easy for Carpenter; she already works to minimize added sugars and sodium consumption.

Her one worry, she said, is that many food producers — the companies that make prepackaged products for school lunches — haven't yet adjusted their foods to meet the new requirements.

Carpenter thought she'd recently found the perfect whole grain tortilla to serve to her students.

They were the right size and the right price. But they fell short in one crucial way: Each tortilla was 1 gram away from meeting the U.S. Department of Agriculture's criteria for whole grain-rich foods.

"Once I apply all the rules, the possibilities of what I can serve on my menu get really, really small," Carpenter said.

"If vendors want business — which schools being able to purchase from them would be big business — then I feel like they also need to be educated on what kind of products they can produce."