California parents shocked as state moves to ban school lunch staples

California – California is taking a groundbreaking step in school nutrition with a new bill that could phase out ultra-processed foods from public school meals. Assembly Bill 1264, set to be unveiled Wednesday, aims to remove what lawmakers call “particularly harmful” ultra-processed products, with a gradual phase-out beginning in 2028 and full elimination by 2032.

Democratic Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, who is introducing the bipartisan bill, says the move is necessary to protect children’s health. “The more evidence we see, the stronger our conviction becomes that it is important to protect our kids from dangerous chemicals,” Gabriel said. “Our schools should not be serving students ultra-processed food products that are filled with chemical additives that can harm their physical and mental health.”

Ultra-processed foods are made with long-lasting, low-quality ingredients and include common items like chips, candies, instant noodles, mass-produced ice cream, and soft drinks. Gabriel points to ingredient lists as a key indicator. “If you pick up a product and turn it over, and it’s got 50 ingredients and you can’t pronounce 45 of them, that’s a good indicator that scientists are going to look closely at it,” he said.

The bill doesn’t specify which foods will be eliminated, but it could mean school districts will need to swap out certain brands or manufacturers may have to reformulate their products. The focus will be on ingredients linked to food addiction and negative health effects, such as high-fat, high-sugar, and high-salt processed foods.

Research has linked ultra-processed food consumption to serious health risks, including diabetes, cognitive decline, heart disease, and cancer. Despite these dangers, such foods make up more than half of the calories consumed by adults in the U.S., highlighting a widespread reliance on them in daily diets.

Ashley Gearhardt, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, explains why these foods are so problematic. “The foods that people show common signs of addiction with are those ultra-processed foods that are high in both carbohydrates and fats in a way that we don’t see in nature,” she said. “There’s evidence that this combination amplifies the brain’s reward system.”

One challenge is that ultra-processed foods don’t have a universal definition, making regulation tricky. The bill seeks to change that by directing California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to create the first statutory definition of ultra-processed foods and determine which should be banned from school meals.

Momentum for better food regulations is growing across the country. In West Virginia, lawmakers recently passed a ban on artificial food dyes, and on the federal level, new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is urging major companies to remove synthetic dyes from their products.

Republican Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher, a co-author of AB 1264, says the issue transcends party lines. “When it comes to our kids, we’ve got an obesity epidemic,” he said. “Our kids should be having healthy food to eat, and increasingly, that is not the case.”

Gabriel has a track record of pushing for food safety reforms. In 2023, he led the passage of the California Food Safety Act, banning four harmful food additives statewide. A year later, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed another of Gabriel’s bills, the California School Food Safety Act, which removed six artificial dyes from public school meals.

The latest bill continues this effort by focusing on other harmful additives in school food. “It’s not as if we’re not going to feed children at school,” said Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group, a co-sponsor of the bill. “We may just feed them healthier food.”

AB 1264 will be introduced at a news conference Wednesday morning, where lawmakers and health advocates will outline their vision for a healthier future for California’s students.