Spanish schools ban processed food and soft drinks
All schools in Spain must now serve nutritious, healthy meals and snacks
The Spanish government has taken a bold step toward healthier school environments by banning soft drinks, processed pastries and overly processed foods in educational centres. Under new legislation passed this week, all schools, whether public, subsidised or private, will be required to serve five nutritious meals a week in their cafeterias. The move is part of a wider push to combat childhood obesity and reduce health inequalities.
The new Royal Decree on School Cafeterias wants to treat the school dining room as a key tool in teaching healthy habits and closing the nutrition gap for lower-income families. Gone are the days of end-of-term pizza parties or daily fried foods. Instead, cafeterias will need to serve more fresh produce, whole grains and fish, while eliminating high-sugar and high-fat snacks.
According to the Aladino study, which is carried out in 40 countries, 36.1% of Spanish schoolchildren are overweight, although the rate has dropped slightly between 2019 and 2023. However, the improvement has not reached lower-income families, where almost half of children (46.7%) are obese or overweight, a trend that continues to grow.
The study reveals that households with incomes below €18,000 per year cannot afford to buy more fresh produce such as fruits and vegetables, or to have full breakfasts. Therefore, the government has decided to improve these children's access to healthy food through school cafeterias, which the most vulnerable families can access through scholarships.
The decree affects all schools, including preschool, primary, secondary, high school and vocational training.
These are the main new features incorporated in the regulations:
Fruit and vegetables daily
The royal decree requires school cafeterias to offer fresh fruit and vegetables daily, specifying that 45% must be seasonal, to reinforce sustainable and local production.
Furthermore, at least two meals per month or 5% of the kitchen's spending must be allocated to organic produce.
According to the latest report from the National Plan for Official Control of the Food Chain, 40% of schools currently fail to meet the minimum recommended percentage of seasonal and locally sourced fruits and vegetables.
More fish and whole grains
The regulations also guarantee the consumption of fish, legumes and whole grains, establishing weekly servings based on the recommendations of the Spanish Food Safety Agency (AESAN) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). For example, cafeterias must serve between one and three servings of fish per week, which represents a significant increase over the current situation, given that, according to calculations made by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, 1,200 schools never serve fish.
Legumes must now be served once a week and at least one serving of whole-wheat rice or pasta and several servings of whole-wheat bread should be offered weekly.
Ban on soft drinks and pastries
The royal decree prohibits the serving or sale of sugary drinks such as soft drinks, juices, energy drinks or processed pastries in school cafeterias and vending machines. Specifically, schoolchildren may not be offered products that exceed a maximum sugar content of 5 grams per packaged portion and that do not meet the criteria recommended by organisations such as the WHO regarding fat, sugar and salt limits.
In a nutshell, the energy content per container cannot exceed 200 kilocalories. The maximum fat content will be 7.8 grams per serving; saturated fat 2.2 grams; and sodium 0.2 grams. Currently, almost 70% of school vending machines fail to meet these nutritional criteria, a percentage that rises to 74% in the case of cafeterias.
Limit on pre-cooked foods
The new rules also limit precooked dishes such as pizzas, empanadas, croquettes and fried foods to one serving per month. If fried foods are not ultra-processed and are prepared that day, they should preferably be made with olive oil or high-oleic sunflower oil and served at most once a week.
Also of interest: EU to ban single-use milk and sugar packets in restaurants
Image: Junta de Extremadura
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