California is the first state in the country to , aiming to transform how children eat on campus by 2035. 

In the cafeteria of Belvedere Middle School in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a over the next 10 years. The requirements go above and beyond existing state and federal school nutrition standards for things like fat and calorie content in school meals.

California public schools serve nearly 1 billion meals to kids each year.

“Our first priority is to protect kids in California schools, but we also came to realize that there is huge market power here,” said Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, an Encino Democrat. “This bill could have impacts far beyond the classroom and far beyond the borders of our state.”

The legislation builds on recent laws passed in California to and certain additives from all food sold in the state when they are associated with cancer, reproductive harm and behavioral problems in children. Dozens of other states have since replicated those laws. 

The bipartisan measure also comes at a time when U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement has shone a spotlight on issues including chronic disease, childhood obesity and poor diet. 

The term “ultra-processed food” appears more than three dozen times in the released in May. A subsequent report tasks the federal government with defining ultraprocessed food.

California’s new law beats them to the punch, outlining the first statutory definition of what makes a food ultraprocessed.

It identifies ingredients that characterize ultraprocessed foods, including artificial flavors and colors, thickeners and emulsifiers, non-nutritive sweeteners, and high levels of saturated fat, sodium or sugar. Often fast food, candy and premade meals include these ingredients.

Researchers say ultraprocessed foods tend to be high in calories and low in nutritional value. Studies have linked . Today, . 

Ultraprocessed foods are also linked to , .

Studies have found to be particularly harmful, said Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist at the Environmental Work Group, which sponsored the legislation. Kids are particularly susceptible to the effects of ultraprocessed foods, she said.

“Ultraprocessed foods are also marketed heavily to kids with bright colors, artificial flavors, hyperpalatability,” Stoiber said. “The hallmarks of ultraprocessed foods are a way to sell and market more product.”

Gabriel said lawmakers and parents have become “much more aware of how what we feed our kids impacts their physical health, emotional health and overall well-being.” That has helped generate strong bipartisan support for the law, which all but one Republican in the state Legislature supported. 

A coalition of business interests representing farmers, grocers, and food and beverage manufacturers opposed it. They argued the definition of ultraprocessed food was still too broad and ran the risk of stigmatizing harmless processed foods like canned fruits and vegetables that include preservatives. Vegetarian meat substitutes also generally contain things like processed soy protein and binders that may run afoul of the definition.

Gabriel contends that the law bans not foods but rather harmful ingredients. The California Department of Public Health now must identify ultraprocessed ingredients that may be associated with poor health outcomes. Schools will no longer allow those ingredients in meals, and vendors could replace them with healthier options, Gabriel said.

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In 2010, United States lawmakers passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which aimed to tackle both childhood obesity and hunger by making school meals more nutritious. Two years later, the Department of Agriculture updated its guidance for schools participating in the National School Lunch Program, or NSLP, in accordance with the law. Whereas schools could previously serve fat-free, 1 percent, 2 percent, or whole milk and be eligible for federal reimbursement, now they could only recoup meal costs if they ditched 2 percent and whole milk, which were thought to be too high in saturated fat for kids.

Representative Glenn “G.T.” Thompson has been on a mission to change that. The Republican legislator representing Pennsylvania’s 15th congressional district believes the 2010 law sparked across the board. “We have lost a generation of milk drinkers since whole milk was demonized and removed from schools,” he told a local agribusiness group in 2021.

Between 2019 and 2023, Thompson introduced the — a bill that would allow schools to serve whole milk again under the NSLP — three times without success.

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In January of this year, he reintroduced the bill — and inspired a group of animal welfare, environmental, and public health organizations to push for a vegan countermeasure. This month, a bipartisan group of legislators put forward the , or FISCAL, Act, which would expand the definition of milk under the NSLP to include plant-based options. Currently, schools participating in the NSLP can offer milk substitutions to students with a note from a parent or doctor — but the FISCAL Act is promoting a world where vegan milks are offered freely, alongside cow’s milk.

If students end up replacing their daily cow’s milk with a plant-based alternative, this has the potential . But you won’t hear supporters of the FISCAL Act talking up the climate benefits of plant-based milk in the halls of Congress. Instead, they’re focusing on the health benefits of soy, oat, and other vegan drinks for students who can’t digest or simply don’t want cow’s milk.

“Most of this nation’s children of color are lactose intolerant, and yet our school lunch program policy makes it difficult for these kids to access a nutritious fluid beverage that doesn’t make them sick,” said Senator Cory Booker, a Democratic co-sponsor of the bill. This focus on student health — and the absence of any environmental talking points — reflect the eternally tricky politics around milk in U.S. schools, which have become even more complicated in President Donald Trump’s second term.

Milk has compared to other animal proteins, like beef, pork, poultry, and cheese. But dairy production still comes with — mainly from the food grown to feed cows, as well as methane emitted via cow burps and manure. In 2020, researchers at Pennsylvania State University found that through their burps — meaning, all told, dairy cows are responsible for 2.7 percent of the U.S.’s total greenhouse gases.

Nondairy milks — fortified drinks like soy, almond, oat, and rice milk — , but all of these plant-based alternatives use less land and water than cow’s milk to produce, and result in fewer emissions.

Under the NSLP, schools cannot be reimbursed for the cost of meals unless they offer students milk. The Center for a Humane Economy, an animal welfare and environmental group backing the FISCAL Act, calls this America’s “.” In 2023, student Marielle Williamson for not allowing her to set up an informational table about plant-based milk unless she also promoted dairy. Subsidized school lunches have been described as “” for farmers’ products; this is all but acknowledged when legislators like Thompson blame school lunch for the decline of the dairy industry. Indeed, in a recent Senate agricultural committee hearing over the whole milk bill, Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, said, “Not only do school meal programs reduce hunger and promote learning, they also support our local farmers and ranchers at a time when it’s probably the very worst time I’ve seen in decades” for farmers.

The animal welfare groups backing the FISCAL Act argue schools need more flexibility to meet the needs of students with lactose intolerance. Consumption of milk has fallen consistently since the 1970s, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. That change is thought to be the result of shifting diets, as well as perhaps a reflection of America’s growing racial and ethnic diversity. It is estimated that , the protein found in milk and many other dairy products. These rates are higher in Black, Asian American, Hispanic, Native American, and Jewish communities.

“We’ve had so much marketing to tell us that the milk of a cow is, you know, nature’s perfect food, and it clearly is not,” said Wayne Pacelle, the head of Animal Wellness Action, an advocacy group that opposes animal cruelty and supports the FISCAL Act.

Pacelle acknowledged the climate impact of the dairy industry: “It’s just a truth that cows are big contributors to greenhouse gas emissions.” But he noted that arguments related to the climate are unlikely to sway the debate over school lunch beverages. “The Republican Congress is not really so attuned to that,” he said.

As a result, his group and the others pushing for the FISCAL Act aren’t talking much about the environmental considerations of drinking cow’s milk. This aligns with under the second Trump administration, as producers and manufacturers figure out which talking points are most appealing to leaders like Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has .

The Republicans pushing for whole milk in schools are talking up the health and economic benefits of whole milk, an argument that came into sharp relief during a Senate agricultural committee hearing in early April. Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, who drank from a tall glass of milk before addressing the committee, referenced the term “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, when making his case. The movement, popularized by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., taps into wellness, environmental, and food safety concerns in the general public and offers solutions based . Marshall, a co-sponsor of the whole milk bill in the Senate, said MAHA is “about whole foods, and I think we could categorize whole milk as part of” that framework.

While Republicans and Democrats alike may be sidestepping the dairy industry’s environmental impact and spending more time talking about student health, there is one environmental consideration that’s caught the attention of advocates of both whole milk and plant-based milk. That’s food waste, a . Forty-five percent of the because students don’t take them. When students do grab milk at breakfast, a fourth of those cartons still wind up unopened in the trash.

Krista Byler, a food service director for the Union City Area School District in northwestern Pennsylvania, spoke at the Senate agricultural committee hearing and said serving whole milk in her schools helped milk consumption go up, ultimately reducing the amount of milk wasted.

“I hated seeing such an exorbitant amount of milk wasted daily in our small district and was hearing stories of even bigger waste ratios in larger districts,” Byler said in her written testimony.

A similar case has been made by Pacelle and other supporters of the FISCAL Act, who argue students will be more likely to drink — and finish — their beverage at school if they have the option to go plant-based.

Recently, the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids bill passed a House agriculture committee vote. If it passes a full House vote, it could then move on to the Senate. Meanwhile, the FISCAL Act is still in committee in both houses of Congress.

Pacelle said the best chance the FISCAL Act has of passing is if its provisions are included as an amendment to the whole milk bill — framing it not as a rival measure, but as a complementary effort to create more choice for students. “Moving it independently is unlikely because of the power of the dairy lobby,” said Pacelle, “and the G.T. Thompsons of the world.”

This article originally appeared in at . Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at .

School gardens, culturally diverse foods, and options that reflect not only dietary restrictions but also students’ preferences: These are just a few of the things the Coalition for Healthy Food in Newark Schools hopes to see in the near future.

Now, thanks to a $3.8 million grant from Novo Nordisk, a health care and pharmaceutical company, these changes might be possible.

According to a press release announcing the coalition’s launch, the program’s first year will likely include the planting of more school gardens, further funding for partnerships with local farmers, and in-school nutrition education, among many other initiatives.

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The coalition will use the funding across three years with the first year serving as a baseline assessment to test the greatest needs.

Newark families have long complained about school meals, citing processed and unhealthy lunches. This is a step towards changing that.

The coalition, which officially launched on Oct. 26, is headed by the Greater Newark Conservancy, alongside partners Common Market, FoodCorps N,J., Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, R.W.J. Barnabas Health, United Way of Greater Newark, and the Urban Agriculture Cooperative.

The conservancy has worked to promote environmental, social, and racial justice in the Newark community since 1987, putting on family events centered around nutrition education, leading community garden initiatives, and between July and October, welcoming the Newark community to their expansive farm stand.

Over the course of its community work, the conservancy found that families were generally unhappy with the meals being served to children in Newark’s public schools.

In recent years, Newark’s school breakfast and lunch programs have been met with mixed reactions. While families have complained of processed, unhealthy meals, the N.J. Department of Agriculture has praised Newark’s meal services on several occasions.

In a , the N.J. Department of Agriculture food and nutrition division director Rose Chamberlain said, “The Newark Public School District sets an excellent example of how a high-quality school lunch program can work.”

But in October 2021, just days before the N.J. Department of Agriculture gave similar praise to Newark’s food programs, for their children, most notably through an .

The coalition is hopeful that some of the parents’ demands can now be met.

Between August and October of this year, the coalition surveyed a 100-person sample of community members, students, school staff, and food providers in order to assess the issues most pressing in Newark’s school cafeterias.

The survey showed that access to “from-scratch” food in students’ lunches was the most requested change. Survey respondents took issue with the frequency at which students are served heavily processed meals.

Other common complaints included a lack of meals reflecting students’ cultures, insufficient nutritional education, and inaccessibility of green space or gardens.

Natasha Dyer, executive director of the Greater Newark Conservancy, said that over the next three years, the coalition will spend about half of the Novo Nordisk funding fortifying existing programs and the other half on piloting new initiatives.

For now, Dyer said, the coalition’s work will take place in a select number of schools: Hawthorne Avenue, Avon Avenue, Mt. Vernon, Lincoln, McKinley Elementary, Thirteenth Avenue, Harriet Tubman, and Peshine Avenue.

“Luckily, our funding partner is allowing us the flexibility to adjust our plans as we go. Our goal in the first year is to assess our programming and figure out what works with the hope of leveraging policy in the district as a whole,” said Dyer.

Sarah O’Leary, the Greater Newark Conservancy’s director of youth and family education, said her personal hope is that the coalition’s work will get more students excited about health and nutrition.

O’Leary said that when children are given the opportunity to try healthy food they do not normally eat, they often discover they like it. She said that cafeteria “taste tests” of seasonal vegetables are particularly fun for students who may not have access to certain foods at home.

“For example, kids love spaghetti squash! Then they go home and tell their parents about it and that can lead to healthier meals even outside of school,” O’Leary said.

Community gardens have a similar effect, said O’Leary. Being surrounded by plants and green space, along with understanding the value of nutritious local produce, can be important for a student’s development.

“It’s exciting for kids to eat something they grew,” O’Leary said. “Getting to use tools and get their hands dirty to actually grow their own food is the best marketing for nutritious eating.”

This was originally published in Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.