Healthy Kids Happy Planet’s special focus on beautiful BEANS grew out of the USDA National School Lunch Program (NSLP) regulations, which require every school meal to offer 5 “components:”
- a meat and/or meat-alternate (cheese, yogurt, egg, beans)
- one serving of fruit
- one serving of vegetable
- one serving of (51% whole) grain
- fluid cow’s milk (plant-based option available with parent note)
Beans (including bean burgers) are the only allowable whole food, plant-based meat-alternate. Select vegetarian meat analogues are also approved.
HKHP believes that most school food professionals would love to serve more bean based meals, but their challenges are real. Healthy Kids Happy Planet is working to be a part of the much needed cultural shift to bring plant-based meals into the mainstream.
It begins with education, delivered to open hearts & fertile minds!
That’s why HKHP has created several nutrition education programs & resources to support this holistic approach to nutrition education, and is working with school food professionals in a coordinated effort to link classroom nutrition education to school cafeteria