Breakfast at District 197 Schools: More Fruit, Less Chocolate Milk

The new breakfast provisions of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act don’t kick in until next fall and the exact requirements are still up in the air.

But in the next few months District 197 will be rolling out a healthier breakfast menu featuring increased whole grains and decreased sugar that builds on the new USDA guidelines.

“We took the guidelines as a first step, and then we went above and beyond with our own personal goals,” said Jenna Amundson, a dietitian consultant for District 197. “We’ve been ahead of the game here in making small changes to make the schools healthier.”

Breakfasts at District 197 schools will now have more fruit options and no chocolate milk available.

“Instead of an apple and a juice being offered and those are the only choices, there’ll be apples, bananas, oranges and juice,” Amundson said. “We also looked at omitting the chocolate milk offered at breakfast simply because if children are at school all day, they get breakfast, they get lunch and then a lot of them get the after school milk—and so that would be three servings a day of chocolate milk, which added up to a lot of extra sugar.”