The program has an annual budget of 14 billion USD and in 2019, it provided lunch to nearly 40% of U.S. In the United States (U.S.), the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is a federally assisted meal program with multiple components including monetary support, surplus foods, and nutrition standards for school meals 7. However, there are numerous mechanisms for governments to influence national dietary patterns, including, but not limited to: consumer education, regulation of food products, taxation, and changes to standards and purchasing practices for government food programs. Some countries are pursuing this shift by incorporating environmental sustainability into dietary guidelines 6.
Government programs and policies are important levers for shifting dietary patterns 4, 5. High-income countries must shift their dietary patterns to address the increasing environmental burdens of food systems 1, 2, 3. To reduce the environmental impacts of the National School Lunch Program, our results support increasing whole grain requirements and providing serving size or frequency limits for beef. Lunches in the top quintile of impacts contributed an outsized proportion to total impacts (~40%) suggesting that policy changes related to these lunches should be prioritized. Meat products contributed the most (28–67%) to total impacts for all impact categories. The mean ± SE impact per lunch was 1.5 ± 0.03 kg CO 2 eq. during the 2014–2015 school year to inform school meal policy.
Here, we collate life cycle inventories relevant to the National School Lunch Program and assess the environmental impacts of a representative sample of lunches served in the U.S. National School Lunch Program shapes the consumption of America’s children and adolescents, providing a meaningful opportunity to reduce dietary environmental impacts. Altering dietary patterns is essential to ameliorating the environmental impacts of the world food system.
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