Dive Brief:

• Congress' new spending bill addresses healthier school meal standards backed by First Lady Michelle Obama, allowing some leeway in the amount of grains schools are required to serve.
• While the new bill doesn't allow schools to opt out of the healthier school meal standards, it does loosen the standards, additionally loosening a set of lower sodium standards meant to take effect in 2017.
• The whole grains standards have been highly contentious, with some arguing that the restrictions have been a costly burden for schools, while others, like Mrs. Obama, argue that the child obesity epidemic is too big to ignore.

Dive Insight:

For the longest time, pizza and chicken nuggets were common fare in school cafeterias, and the whole grain standards aimed to improve that. Those opposed argued that is was too costly, especially since much of the food was being wasted. In Los Angeles, for example, students reportedly trash $18 million worth of food every year, and Boston schools have done away with salad bars due to a reported $3.6 million deficit last year.

But are those facts enough to lower the standards? In a Huffington Post op-ed, education researchers Pam Koch and Renata Peralta wrote about how corporate-backed groups like the School Nutrition Association are quick to point out that some food is "wasted" because kids don't want it, but that rising child obesity and diabetes rates highlight the legislation's necessity. More to the point, the legislation cannot exist in isolation. Of course students will throw away green beans if they are not taught about the importance of eating healthy and how they can do so deliciously (like dipping the green beans in hummus).

While the congressional decision to make the restriction more lax may feel like a step backward, it's not all bad news in the world of healthy cafeteria choices. On Tuesday, six of the nation's largest districts — New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Miami-Dade County, and Orlando County — announced their cafeterias will only serve antibiotic-free chicken. The decision not only aims to protect students against drug-resistant "superbugs," but it places pressure on meat companies that continue to inject drugs into livestock. To avoid expected rises in costs, the districts hope to join forces and leverage their collective buying power.