By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD

When you think of school lunch, do entrées like Thai Chili Tofu, Chana Masala, Vegan Tostadas and Tamales, and a Tofu Katsu Bowl come to mind? These are just some of the vegan entrées that were served in California’s 25 largest school districts in October 2022.

The non-profit Friends of the Earth developed a progress report on school lunch entrée offerings that were served in the largest districts in California and compared these to what was served in 2019 (1). The report uses the term “plant-based entrée” which they define as “the main course of the meal utilizing beans, peas, lentils and/or soy products as the main protein component. A plant-based meal contains no animal products or byproducts (e.g., no milk, yogurt, cheese, or meat products).” In other words, in this report, “plant-based” means “vegan.”

Here are some of the report’s findings:

• In October 2022, 68% of California’s largest school districts served plant-based entrée offerings daily or weekly, compared to 44% in 2019. Fourteen out of 25 middle and high schools offered a plant-based entrée every day compared to 9 out of 25 in 2019. The number of elementary schools offering plant-based entrées weekly has more than tripled. Despite these positive trends, plant-based entrées are only 8% of all entrées offered.
• Eighty different vegan entrées were offered in October 2022 compared to 61 in October 2019. This suggests that progress is being made in terms of the variety of offerings.
• School menus frequently offer more than one entrée per day. Nearly one in five entrées offered in 2020 included processed meat, an increase since 2019; 57% of all entrées contained cheese.

The report was not able to include information on how often vegan entrées are selected by students; it looked at how often these entrées were offered.

The report spotlights the second-largest high school district in California, Sweetwater Union, which offers vegan options daily in all school cafeterias. Offerings include falafel wraps, hummus-based entrées, and vegan burritos. Hot vegan entrées are offered three out of five school days each week.

Friends of the Earth offers a hypothetical scenario – if all school districts in California replaced a beef burger with a black bean burger one day a month, it would save 220 million pounds of CO2, which would be equivalent to eliminating 22,000 cars from the road for one year (2).

The report includes many recommendations for policy changes to promote healthy, climate-friendly school meals. This makes it a valuable tool for those working to improve school meals.

References

1. Stewart N, Hamerschlag K, et al. Plant-based trends in California’s school lunches. https://foe.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Plant-Based-Trends-in-California-School-Lunches_Final.pdf. 2023.
2. Kraus-Polk J, Hamerschlag K, et al. The state of school lunch in California: Opportunities for improving the health and environmental profile of school food. https://foe.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/SchoolFoodReport_No-Execsummary.pdf. 2021.

To read more about school meals see the section on VRG’s website about School Food Service.