School Meals Under the Microscope: Moms Demand Safer Nutrition Standards
When you poll mothers across the U.S. on the subject of healthy food for their children, you don’t exactly expect to get a lot of responses championing additives and toxins. But as always, we were curious about how mothers’ firsthand experiences would shape their views on how national policy can improve the health and safety of our kids. So Count on Mothers decided to conduct our October Pulse Poll on the proposed Safe School Meals Act, introduced in the Senate by Cory Booker in September.
The goal of the Safe School Meals Act is to protect school children by directing the FDA to set safe limits for heavy metals in school meals; banning glyphosate, paraquat, and organophosphate pesticide residues in school meals; banning PFAS, phthalates, lead, and bisphenols in food packaging in school meals; and directing the FDA to reevaluate food additives with known carcinogenic, reproductive, or developmental health harms, and ban their use in school meals until the FDA’s analysis is complete.
Regardless of political affiliation, nearly all moms said that they wanted school lunches to be healthy and nutritious.
“I want my child to be able to purchase school lunch without worrying about what is actually in it,” said a mother from Texas, summing up the general sentiment expressed in our results. “I would like to know that the foods are safe and the products used to put the food in are safe as well.”
An overwhelming number of moms also believe that school meals should be free of any potentially harmful ingredients like heavy metals, pesticide residue, hormones, or antibiotics. In fact, over 150 moms out of the 669 responses specifically mentioned concerns over “toxic” or potentially harmful ingredients. One mother from California suggested the government should “strictly monitor the source of ingredients, using organic ingredients that do not contain additives.”
An overwhelming percentage of mothers (93.4%) believe that the FDA should set safe limits for heavy metals in school meals. The sentiment among mothers is strong across political affiliation. Mothers were more than twice as likely to say they strongly agree rather than just agree. This is a notable distinction as Count on Mothers has not found this resounding agreement in any of our other polls.
86.3% of American mothers agree that pesticide residues should be banned in school meals, and 89.8% of mothers believe that the FDA should reevaluate food additives, such as food dyes, and ban any additives with known carcinogenic, reproductive, or developmental health harms.
Mothers are split over whether they trust the current FDA standards for metal and pesticide limits in food — 36% of mothers trust them, 33% are unsure, and 32% say they do not trust them. Interestingly, very liberal moms (52%) and very conservative moms (45%) more often agree/strongly agree, while only 30-32% of liberal, moderate, and conservative moms agree.
“The FDA food pyramid should be completely thrown out — it’s garbage,” said one mom from Texas, suggesting our country should put “higher emphasis on protein and fresh whole foods.”
Many moms are specifically concerned that school lunches do not contain enough fruits and vegetables, and some moms feel that the produce should be fresh, not canned or frozen. Likewise, most moms feel that school meals should have more whole foods and less processed or ultra-processed ingredients.
The results of the survey were not unanimous, however. One mother from Florida was skeptical that government intervention was necessary. “I doubt that most food eaten by kids at home would comply with these proposed regulations,” she said. “Best to sort out these issues at home and have kids bring their own lunches rather than add more regulations.”
And one mother from Arizona rejected the overwhelming pro-whole-foods sentiment entirely. “Please let's not fearmonger about our lunches,” she said. "Organic food is NOT automatically safer or healthier, glyphosate does NOT exist in unsafe levels in our food, and heavy metals are often naturally occurring and not dangerous. It's easy to panic because we want our kids to be healthy but let's not unnecessarily make everything more expensive because we're afraid of things that people who aren't experts have told us are dangerous!”
But the vast majority of mothers who made their voices heard in our poll think that making sure our children are fed in a safe and nutritious way in public schools is worth legislative intervention. One California mom suggested that a national choice to prioritize health in school lunches could “change how our entire society looks at what we eat."
A total of 709 Mothers residing in 48 states from a representative sample of U.S. mothers across political ideology and demographics (including ethnicity, education level, age, and number of kids) weighed in on the October survey, “Safe School Meals Act.” Regarding political ideology, 29.7% identified as conservative, 38.2% identified as moderate, 30.2% identified as liberal, and 1.8% identified as other.
