The Promotions of Sustainable Lunch Meals in School Feeding Programs: The Case of Italy

Abstract

School is considered a privileged environment for health education and school feeding represents an opportunity for promoting sustainable foods to young generations. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that is possible to select, from existing school menus, recipes that combine healthy foods with low environmental impact. A national sample of Italian school menus was collected and a total number of 194 recipes were included on a database containing 70 first courses, 83 s courses, 39 side dishes, 1 portion of fruit, and 1 portion of bread. A mathematical model was conceived to combine nutritional adequacy and acceptability criteria while minimizing GHGs emissions. The result is a four-week menu characterized by large vegetable components that were used not only as side dishes but also as ingredients in the first and second courses. Legumes and pasta are often included, and white meat is selected instead of red meat. The findings presented in this paper demonstrated that it is possible to design environmental-friendly meals from existing school menus. The mathematical model developed in this work has the potentiality of being completely scalable, easily updatable, and widely utilizable in different settings either for design or monitoring purposes as well as for research data collection.

An Environmental and Nutritional Evaluation of School Food Menus in Bahia, Brazil That Contribute to Local Public Policy to Promote Sustainability

“…The menu designed to represent the conventional preparations most offered to students in Group 1 emitted an average of 1950 g CO 2 e/day, while the one, which represented the sustainable preparations, emitted 740 g CO 2 e/day. In the menus for Group 2, this reduction was from 940 to 420 g CO 2 e/day, similar to the results achieved by the model proposed for school feeding in Italy [ 33 ]. School menus from across the country were evaluated, and 194 preparations (70 starters, 83 main courses, 39 side dishes, 1 part fruit, and 1 part bread) were used to create sustainable menus, based on a mathematical model that associates nutritional adequacy, probable acceptability, and lower GHGE.…”

Study of the Nutritional Behavior as a Risky Health Factor of Adolescents From Different Ethnic Groups in the Municipality of Plovdiv, Bulgaria

“…Legumes and pasta are often included, and white meat is selected instead of red meat. [18] Our research allows us to draw the following more significant conclusions:…”

Sustainability Recommendations and Practices in School Feeding: A Systematic Review

“…Therefore, some practices related to the offer of vegetarian/vegan menus, with a reduction in the meat offering, the adequacy of the portion sizes, or the adoption of the single-course scholar menu have been reported in the literature [ 8 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 35 , 112 ]. Some instruments have been proposed to allow the planning of more environmentally sustainable menus based on reducing carbon and/or water footprints while addressing nutritional, economic, and cultural dimensions [ 7 , 113 , 114 , 115 , 116 ]. In addition, the definition of criteria for planning sustainable menus in the context of school meals has also been described [ 117 ].…”