School districts in the US could almost halve the carbon emissions of school lunches by adopting two changes: serving beef only once a month and replacing the highest carbon-emitting meal each week with a vegan option. The finding suggests that tweaking school lunches could be an effective way of reducing the impact diet has on climate 鈥� a critical task given food production constitutes about 37 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
at the University of California, Los Angeles, and her colleagues obtained monthly lunch menus from six school districts 鈥� those in New York City; Long Beach, California; Chicago; Austin, Texas; Portland, Oregon; and Miami, Florida 鈥� between March and April 2021. The number of students enrolled in these school districts ranges from about in Portland to over in New York. The researchers then calculated the carbon emissions and nutritional content of each menu.
They found that New York City鈥檚 school lunch programme had the smallest carbon footprint whereas the programme in Austin had the largest. On average, New York City school lunches generated about 46 per cent less CO2 than those of the other five districts.
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This is probably due to the school district serving all-vegetarian meals at least once a week, Boronowksy said at , a conference of the American Society for Nutrition held in Boston on 23 July, where she presented the findings. Previous research has shown of animal-based ones.
Boronowsky and her team then modelled the effect of two policies on the carbon emissions of school lunches. The first involved serving beef only once a month whereas the second replaced the highest carbon-emitting meal each week with a vegan one.
Across all six districts, the team鈥檚 calculations suggested that a 鈥渙ne beef day鈥� policy would reduce carbon emissions by 34 per cent, on average, while the 鈥渧egan day鈥� policy would decrease emissions by an average of 32 per cent. Implementing both policies together would have the biggest impact, lowering emissions by 43 per cent, on average. Additionally, the policies improved the nutritional value of school lunches, boosting the amount of fibre and vitamin A they contained.
In the US, eat school-provided lunches. As such, these meals 鈥減lay a crucial role in shaping the nutritional intake and overall health of students鈥�, says Boronowsky. While the research is still ongoing, these preliminary findings suggests that school meals also 鈥渙ffer a valuable policy opportunity to significantly reduce carbon emissions鈥�, she says.
