New 1st-in-the-nation CA legislation aims at phasing out ultra-processed foods in school meals

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- California state lawmaker Jesse Gabriel is announcing first-in-the-nation legislation that would phase out ultra-processed foods from school meals in California.

Those ultra-processed foods include things like packaged foods, soda, chips, hot dogs, chicken nuggets and even ice cream.

Some schools have already made significant changes, like the Morgan Hill Unified School District, which removed an average amount of 34 pounds of sugar from each student's yearly school diet last year.

MORE: Flamin' Hot Cheetos, Doritos, and Takis could be banned in California public schools under new bill

The nutrition department, headed by Michael Jochner, worked with a nonprofit called Eat Real to offer healthier options to students. Eat Real CEO Nora LaTorre argues that those options are also tastier.

"When they make investments they're actually able to make more money and reinvest in school foods as they increase the participation," LaTorre said. "So cost might go up a little bit but they're able to increase the number of students saying yes to those meals, and as a result then they're able to make more revenue."

Wednesday we'll learn more about the new legislation from Assemblymember Gabriel.

"This decline in life expectancy, health span, and happiness span; the biggest single driver is actually preventable ultra-processed food-related disease," LaTorre said.

At the same time, LaTorre and others say California has made huge progress in its push for healthier school lunches.

"We know school lunches overall are still much healthier than the majority of foods that kids bring from home," epidemiologist Hannah Thompson said.

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Thompson has focused on school lunch programs as an Assistant Research Professor at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health. As much improvement as we've seen though, she still has concerns about school lunches.

"My kids go to a public school in Alameda and every Monday they get Domino's for lunch," Thompson said. "My kids think it's the greatest thing ever and to me as a parent, especially doing the work that I do, I'm sort of horrified."

LaTorre says without changing our current trends, nearly three out of five kids in the country will be obese by the time they are 35. Her Eat Real nonprofit is working in 20 states and nearly 500 schools in California to change that.

"Our food system as it is today in America is taking years away and sunsets away from our kids," LaTorre said. "I can't even talk about it without crying a little as a mom."

Just in the last two years, Assemblymember Gabriel already has two landmark laws reshaping the national conversation around food safety and school nutrition.

The first banned four dangerous additives from all foods sold in California, something more than 20 states have followed suit on. The second bans the use of certain synthetic food dyes in school meals.

Specifics of this new ultra-processed food legislation will be announced Wednesday.