Study of the Nutritive Value and Acceptability of Hot and Cold Type A School Lunches

The purpose of the study was to determine the differences, if any, between the nutritive value and acceptability of the Cold and Hot Type A School Lunches. The study involved all sixth-grade children in both public and non-public schools in the city of Central Falls, Rhode Island-a high population density, low-..income area. A total of 1,965 meals consumed by 495 children (266 boys and 229 girls) were calculated for nutrient content. During Phase I, data were collected for a five-day period on the participation, waste, and nutritive value of a Cold Type A School Lunch available in public schools. This was compared with values for lunches eaten-at-home or brought-from-home by public and non-public school children. Since a hot lunch became available during the next school year, Phase II determined participati on, waste, and nutritive value of the Hot Type A School Lunch. Observations were made for two five-day periods, and compared with data obtained during Phase I. Nutrient contents of the lunches and intakes of the children were determined by a computer program based on USDA Handbook No. 8 (84). During the study, an average of 39 percent of the sixth-grade public school students obtained a Cold School Lunch which increased to 64 percent when the Hot School Lunch became available. None of the hot or cold school lunches contained the recommended goal of one-third of the RDA (88) ?; for all nutrients, for boys and girls 11 to 14 years old.


INTRODUCTION
As our Nation celebrated its 200th birthday, the National School Lunch Program marked 30 years of accomplishment in feeding the Nation's most important treasure, "Its Childreno" Aren't today's children, tomorrow's leaders? Thus the expressed intention of the National School Lunch Act of 1946 was as follows ' : "•ooto safeguard the health and well-being of the Nation's children and to encourage the domestic consumption of nutritious agricultural commodities and other food, by assisting the States, through grants-inaid and other means, in providing an adequate supply of foods and other facilities for the establishment, maint~nance, operation, and expansion of non-profit school-lunch programsa" The School LlLnch Program insures a minimum nutrient intake which, if other meals are calorically adequate, prevents at least the more severe deficiencieso The Type A School· Lunch teaches the structure of a balanced mealo With so much of our adult mortality due to artherosclerosis, obesity, and diabetes, conditions whose causes have nutritional components, the School Lunch p.rogram can and should be an important agent in preventive medicine (1)o In the late 1960 1 s, Americans were shocked to realize that hunger and malnutrition were not confined to distant lands (2,3)o In 1968, the goal that all American children, no matter what their family's income l evel , have access to good food at school had not been fully reached (4)o In the 1974-75 school year , 4.4 million children were still l eft out of the National School Lunch Program. Progress has been made but the re were still in 1974, 16,516 schools with no lunch program (5). Bard (6) has noted: "While the needy and hungry child poses a compelling and dramatic challenge to the nation, the undernourished middle income child who might equally benefit from the school lunch poses a nagging problem." "The School Food Service Programs have to reach the deprived child who has been left out and also the advantaged child who leaves himself out. The School Lunch Program is not only good for some children, it is good for all children, and essential to many," said Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, George L. Mehren in 1968 (6).
Many factors were impeding wider development of a school lunch program. Some of these were as follows: 1 0 Antipathy towards federal aid.
2 0 A belief that in a neighborhood school a child should go home to lunch. 3. The philosophy that the program must be financially self-sustaining. 4. Lack of fund support by local communities.
At the present time, when new schools are built, provisions are made, in most instances, for school food service. However, thousands of older urban and rural schools are still not participating in the National School Lunch Program because installation of kitchen and dining facilities is not feasible. This means that nutritionally needy children in these schools, many in low-income neighborhoods do not have access to the National School Lunch Program benefitso To reach these schools, the use of central and satellite kitchens, canned and frozen lunches, new and convenient foods, and bag lunches could be successfQJ_ly appliedo According to a Battelle study, a cold lunch program is the easiest .
to start (7). The advocates of the bag lunch program have to overcome a strong stigma attached to the term "cold lunch" (6). Even if the "psychological" benefits associated with serving hot food are more imaginary than real, the public continues to demand and expect that hot meals be served to the school children.
This study compares the Nutritive Value and Acceptability Between the Hot and Cold Type A School Lunch served in Central Falls, R. I., in 1974 to 1975. If cold lunches are nutritionally adequate and acceptable, they may offer a solution to the following problems that school feeding faces : 1. To feed children in areas where no food facilities exist. 2. To increase the participation of children who are not eating the school lunch offered to them. 3. To keep the cost of lunches at a minimum. 4. To use the moneys allotted to school feeding in a most efficient way, so that all schools could participate. 5. To use existing facilities in their most profitable capacity.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study was to determine: 1. The difference between the nutritive value of a Cold Type A School Lunch and that of a Hot Type A School Lunch which was served to the sixth-grade children of Central Falls, Rhode Island, in 1974 to 1975. 2. The difference in the kind and quantity of the nutrients consumed by the sixth-grade children from the Hot and Cold Type A School Lunches. 3. The acceptability of a Cold versus a Hot Type A School Lunch in terms of plate waste and participation by the sixth-grade children. 4. The difference between the nutritive value of lunches eaten at home, brought from home, and those served in the School Lunch Program. 5. The difference between the nutritive value of lunches consumed by sixth-grade children who paid for their lunches, who received their lunches free or at a reduced-price.

JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY
In 1946, the National School Lunch Act was passed by the Seventyninth Congress. When a state-wide school lunch program was mandated in Rhode Island by State Legislation on May 2, 1972, many schools were lacking physical fa cilities necessary for serving a hot lunch. Until this situation could be remedied, a Cold Type A School Lunch was initiated in Central Falls, Rhode Island. This created the setting for studying the overall value of different types of school lunches in one community in the United Stateso The importance of evaluating the various types of programs is evident from the fac t that the present school lunch program involves 25 ,857,000 children at a cost of 1.4 billion dollars in 1976.

SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
All students were told that the study was being conducted. They were asked to act as usual. Their behavior based on my previous observation of the lunch period and on the observation of the school personnel and of the State Lunch Aides, was judged representative of the everyday situation.
A five-day study was conducted because the school authorities, State Lunch Aides and students were happy with a week long project . They would have been reluctant to have participated in a longer investigation because of the extra work involved.
The investigation was conducted with the students of the sixth-grade only, because of time and space limitations . Sixth-grade students were chosen because the kinds and amounts of foods in the Type A School Lunch.
Pattern are based on the nutritional needs of 9 to 12-year-old children.
Another limitation was that the nutrient content of the food consumed was calculated rather than analyzed. This last method would have been too expensive and time consuming, even though several reports in the literature point out the discrepancy which may occur between calculated and analyzed nutritive values for meals (8, 9, 10, 11, 12 , 13 ).

II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Hunger and Malnutrition in U. S. A. Several years ago, the late Robert Kennedy knelt to touch a child sick froIILhunger in a dirt yard in Mississippi . This was the beginning of massive publicity, Congressional Committee hearings (14), a White Hous e Conference on Food, Nutrition , and Health (1 5 ) and a Poor People 's campaign t hat pointed out the "undiscovered or ignored" existence of hunger and mal nutrition in this country (1 6). Two  The Citizens ' Crusade Against Poverty established a twenty-four member independent board in July 1967, to inquire abou t the extent of hunger and malnutrition in our nationo According to their 1968 report , more than 14 million Americans from all over the country were going to bed every night without enough food to keep them healthy. Disease such as kwashiorkor , murasmus, pellagra, and beri-beri, as found in developing 6 countries were thought to be present in the U. S. American children were found to suffer from scurvy , rickets, hookworms, roundworms, parasitic infections , and anemia. They also stated that the Federal Government through the Commodities Distribution and Food Stamps Programs failed to reach the majority of the poor, since only 5.4 million persons or 18 percent of the 29 . 9 million poor were receiving food stamps or surplus commodities. It is likely that as many as 33 percent of the 5.4 million individuals participating in these food programs had what USDA defined as a "poor" diet. The School Lunch Program, reached only 2 of the 6 million children of poor families, and most of those reached were not among the poorest of our children (2). USDA Food Consumption Survey, 1965 In the spring of 1965, the Department of Agriculture conducted a nationwide study of the food consumption of 7,500 households (17).
Only about half of the households, compared to 60 percent reported in the 1955 Survey, had diets which met the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) for all of the seven nutrients studied (18). According to this USDA survey, 10 million Americans in poverty were eating a poor diet, and over 19 million were not maintaining a " satisfactory" diet because they could not afford the costs of food. In general, the higher the income of a family, the better the diet. However, high income does not assure a good diet, nor low income a poor diet . Nine percent of the families with incomes of 10 thousand dollars or more had diets rated as poor, while 37 percent of those with income lower, than 3 thousand dollars had diets rated as good. Diets of 39 percent of the low-income families, were below the RDA in 2 or more nutrients as compared to 21 percent of the higher income group . Calcium, vitamin A, and ascorbic acid were the nutrients most often found to be low. Average calcium consumption was above the RDA recommendations for children under 9 years but below the RDA for all groups of females over 9 years . Iron was often below recolThmended allowances, particularly for infants and children under 3 years, girls and women between 9 to 54 years, and boys 12 to 14 years (17). Ten-State Nutrition Survey, 1968-1970 In 1967, the Congress directed the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to determine the scope and location of malnutrition and related hea.lth problems in this countryo A survey was conducted in ten states and New York City, selected as geographically representative of the major areas of the country, and of t he broad diversity of economic , ethnic, and socio-cultural compositiono Demographic data were obtained on 24,000 fami lies containing 86,000 personso The evaluation of nutritional status involved approximately 40,000 individuals. Results of the Ten-State Nutrition Survey indicated that a significant proportion of the population surveyed was malnourished or was at high risk of developing nutritional problems (19). However, malnutrition in different segments of the population varied in severity and in regard to the specific nutrients involved. The findings show that the characteristics of malnutrition are often unique to the local situation and to the specific subsegment of the population being surveyed. Nutrition education programs should then be custom-made for each gr oµp (20).
Although income was a major determinant of nutritional status, nutritional problems were not confined to just the lowest-income populations surveyed. It was shown that the greatest emphasis should be directed at low-income populations, however, because of the relative severity and prevalence of problems in that group . Other factors such as social, cultural, and geographical also had an effect on the level of nutrition of a population group. Adolescents between the ages of 10 and 1 6 years had the highest prevalence of llllsatisfactory nutritional status.
Between-meal snacks of high carbohydrate foods such as candies, soft drinks, and pastries were associated with the development of dental caries in adolescence.
There was evidence that many persons made poor food choices that represented llllWise use of the money available for food. For example, Bo percent of households reported never using powdered skim milk as a beverage. In many diets, there was heavy emphasis on meats over more economical sources of protein such as fish, poultry, legumes, and nuts.
Many households seldom used foods rich in vitamin A, and many diets were deficient in iron content. Although vitamin C was not a major problem, the prevalence of poor vitamin C status could increase with age.
Obesity was folllld to be highly prevalent in adult women, particularly black women. Men were less frequently obese, although white males had a relatively high prevalence of obesity when compared with black males.
School lllllches were found to be a very important part of nourishrnent for many children! Particularly in the low-income-ratio states, school lllllches contributed a substantial proportion of the total nutrient intake of many school children. The contribution of the school lllllch to overall nutriti on was particularly important among black children. United States, 1971 The HANES Program was lllldertaken by the National Center for Health

First Health and Nutrition Examination Survey,
Statistics in response to a directive from the Secretary, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to establish a continuing national  (19, 21 , 22) (35).
The advent of World War I accelerated the growth of the school lunch movement. As enlistees and draftees ·pressed into the examination rooms, the effects of malnutrition, were visible in a large number.

Regulat ions for Participation
Individual schools must apply to the State Department of Educ ation to become eligible to participate in the program. They must agree to the iollowing regulations and restrictions governing reimbursement: 1. Operate the program on a n on-profit basis.

2.
Provide free or reduced-price lunches to needy children who must not be identified, nor otherwise discriminated against in any way. 3. Serve meals that meet the nutrit iona l standards established by the secretary of Agriculture for the Type A School Lunch. 4. Follow the state health and sanitation regul ations and maintai n ful l and accurate records on the food service operation. 5. Charge 20 cen ts a s t he maximum price f or a reduced-price lunch.

Type A School Lunch Pattern
Original l y this lunch had to contain as a minimum the fo llowing : 1. Two ounces of l ean meat , poul try , fish , or cheese ; or one egg ; or an e quival ent substitute .
2. Threequarters cup serving of two or more vege tabl es or fru its or both. 3. One serving or one s l i c e of who l e grain or enriched bread or equ ival ent . 4. Two teaspoon s of butter or f ortified margarine .

5.
One h a l f pint fluid milk as a beverage .
Other foods , not part of the l unch requirement could be added , as needed to compl ete lunches, to help improve acceptabili ty and to provi de addi t i onal food energy and other nutrient s.
I t wasrecommended t hat lunches inc l ude : A vitami n A veg etable or fruit at least twice a week ; A vitamin C vegetable or fruit twice a week ; Several foods for iron each day . I t was also recommended that fat in the Type A lunch be k ept to a moderate l evel and iodized sal t be us e d in preparing l unches (37). The butter-margarin e component has now b een removed from the requirements .
As a result of l egislation enacted October 7, 1975 , senior high school stu dents now have a l atitude of choice within the Type A Schoml Lunch patter n. Senior high school students must be offer ed all five food items contained wi thin t he four f ood compon en ts of the Type A School Lunch. However , such stu dents can now choose any 3, 4, or 5 of the 5 required food items offered. The stu dent will still receive t he meal fre e , at a redu ced-pri c e , or a t the regular price . 2. Require service of lllllch to preschool ages 1-5 at two service periods, which in combination will meet requirements . 3 . Expand bre ad alternatives to inc l ude enriched or whole-grain rice, macaroni, noodles , and other pasta products. 4 . Specify number or servings of bread/bread alternatives to be served for the week to provide added flexibility in menu planning . 5. Dry beans or peanut butter can be used only as one half of the meat/meat al ternative. 6. Eggs can be used only to meet one hal f of the meat/meat alternative for child age three plus ; egg can b e u sed to meet meat requirements f ully for child age one to two . 7 . Eggs, cooked dry beans or peas, and peanut butter can be u sed as one half f ullfil lment with meat, or in combination with each other . 8. Children age twelve plus can request small er portions than offered, to meet their needs and to reduce waste . 9. Unfl avored f luid lowfat milk , skim milk, buttermilk must be avail abl e in addition to whole milk. states do not have to match the commodities received.

Commodities Assistance
The amount of donated commodities allocated to schools within a state is based on student participation in the program the previous year (38). There are three types of commodities available : 1. Surplus commodities. Surplus farm commodities purchased with funds from customs receipts imported foods.

2.
Price-supported commodities. Basic agriculture products purchased with funds appropriated for price support. 3. Special commodities purchased solely for the school lunch program to provide variety and increase the nutritional value of the lunch. Fo9d presently distributed include frozen and canned meat and poultry items , eggs , and a variety of canned fruits and vegetables that are especially suited for children's lunches.
In 1978, the cash values of commodities has been established to 12 3/4 cents per meal. In Baltimore , major emphasis was placed on increasing the number of children who were participating in the school feeding program by the Mayor and appointed Nutrition Task Force. The number of free lunches jumped fr om approximately 5 , 000 to over 50 , 000 within one year . In spite of this sincere and dedicated effort, significant numbers of children with medical indices of poor nutrition, as judged by anthropometrics and/or hematocrits , failed to participate in the sch ool feeding program.
s even hundred forty-two children from first, second , and s i xth grades i n four schools were screened. Over 25 percent of the youngsters in the first grade having hematocrits below 36. 0 mg . percent were not included in any school feeding program. Forty-two percent of the first grade chil dren with as critical hematocrit level of 33. 9 mg . percent were not participating in a food project . Forty-nine percent of the children i n the first and second grades who showed medical evidence of poor nutrition by height and weight , were not included in the school lunch program.
The problem appeared to be that all children meeting arbitrary financial eligibil ity criteria at a given point in time were the same chil dren wi th evidence of medical indices or poor nutrition. Two criteri a, socio-economic and medical indices, were found to be necessary in s el ecting those children most in n eed of participating in an organized school feeding program. Insufficient attention was given to large numbers of children whose names did not appear , or who were temporarily off wel fare rolls . The lack of cafeteria facilities , and inadequate funding of these programs forced school systems to include only a por tion of children in school feeding programs • .Another study, the "Lunch Bunch Study" was conducted by Emmons et al. (39 , 44 ) and included 844 elementary school children from Upstate .
New York sch ool districts . Parents were asked to f ill specially designed questionnaires , to ascertain whether the children were " eligible" or "ineligible " for free school lunches . A combination of anthropometric and biochemical data were col lected. Dietary intakes by 24-hour recall s were provided by the chil dren during individu al interviews .
The diets were anal yzed by computer, and nutrient contribution of home and school meals were recorded separately. Using the current familysize income eligibility cri teria , scarcely one-third of the children identified as nutriti onally needy were eligible for free school lunches .
I f the primary purpose of the free school lunch program was to identify and serve children most in need of the nutritional supplementation afforded by school lunches, then these children needed to be identified by nutritional rather than economic criteria .
School lunches alone may be insufficient to overcome nutritional deficiencies in the child's home diet . Another meal at school , such as Type A breakfast might be considered . Or, alternatively , the child ' s home diet might be improved through Family Food Assistance programs and/or nutrition education programs . Thus, Emmons et al . (39,44) conc l uded as Paig e (43) di d , that " to identify children whose diets need i mprovement , it would be preferable to use nutritional and economic criteria .
Legislation has been introduced in the Congress that woul d provide all school children with free lunches --the way they receive free books .
The future seems to lean this way. and junior high school students toward hot and cold lunches and related these attitudes to the acceptability of the lunches. She found hot lunches were better accepted than cold ones because more of the hot lunches were consumed on the basis of total plate waste relative to the amount served .

HOT VERSUS COLD SCHOOL LUNCHES
Hot lunches also provided higher intakes of energy, protein, and iron than the cold lunches. "However, even after a considerati on of the loss of nutrients in plate waste from cold lunches, the intakes of nutrients re still acceptable, i.e., above one -third the recommended allowances we .
in almost all cases. Thus, the cold lunch program can be recommended as an acceptable means ·of providing children with adequate nutritional intakes , and one that the expressed preferences of children indicate as being equally satisfactory as the hot lunch program ( 46)• '·' Law et al. (49) when they studied the sophomore high school students attitudes toward school lunch, found that, "Mo st parents agreed that they wanted their children to eat at school because it provided a hot meal and was good for health." The use of a "box lunch" has been successfully used to raise high school participation in the National School Lunch Program , by as much as 50 to 60 percent, without detracting from the regular plate lunch service, and where kitchen and cafeterias could not handle a greater number of hot plate lunches (50, 51).

Home Versus Type A Lunches
Bard (6) has reported in "Their Daily Bread" that : In West Virginia, only one in twenty home-packed lunches in the mid-1940 1 s was found to be "health building ." In Kansas, a study showed that more than half the girls of high school age drank less than a glass of milk daily. Some 90 percent enj oy ed -"less than a helping of green or yellow vegetables" in their daily diet . Intake of protein, calcium, and iron was universally "inadequate ." He also reported that: "Boston served lunch only i n junior and senior high schools but had no lunchrooms in i ts 160 elementary schools. Children were permitted to bring a bag-lunch, but many of their home-packed meals are poorly chosen, according to Assistant Schools Superintendent, Marguerite Sullivan. "Spme children come to school without lunch," she said, "the ,others are most generous about sharing." Callahan (42), in a state wide survey of Massachussetts students, grades one to twelve , concluded that children participating in Type A School Lunch fared the best. Seventy-two percent of these ate an adequate iunch on the day of survey. Mothers did not do as well at home; 72 percent of the children eating at home had an inadequate lunch.
Nor did the mothers pack an equivalent lunch i n the brown paper bag; 5 g percent of these lunches were inadequate. Over three-fourths of the students buying a la carte items in school, and almost 80 percent of those patronizing neighborhood stores, ate an inadequate meal.
Although the lunches were poor as a source of either vitamin A or C Neverthele ss , when the nutritive content of school and bag lunches was compared, school lunches provided significantly higher levels of all nutrients except kcalories , and niacin equivalents; these differences were most pronounced in protein, calcium, vitamin A, riboflavin and ascorbic acid . School breakfast s provided significantly higher level s of all nutrients studied than s chool milk supplemented by snacks brought from home . Over one-fourth of the children's allowance s for protein, calcium, thiarnin, riboflavin, and ascorbic acid were supplied by the school breakfasts .
In District A, the 24-hour intakes of needy children in the spring were significantly high er in all nutrients, except vitamin A, than i n the fall . Approximately one -quarter of the increases came from school lunches and morning milk . In District B, nutritionall y needy children had signifi cantly higher level s of all nut rients in their 24-hour diets, in the spring . School breakfasts and lunche s together provided threequarters or more of the increased nutrients .

Boysen and Ahrens (52) studied two second-grade classes in suburban
Maryland . They reported that, the quality of lunches brought fr om home was poor, and the waste of certain items , in both home and school lunches , was high . One -fourth or mor e of the students had no mi l k with t h eir lunch even though it was available for purchase at four cents for one half-pint . One-half or more brought no fruit, yet t wo-thi rds usually had cake or c ookies . Very f ew students, 10 percent or less had vegetables in their home lunches . In spite of the fact that school lunch offering s were often disliked, children buyi ng school .l unches tended to consume more adequate lunches than did children bringing h ome lunches . Between A survey by the National Youth Advi sory _Council of t he Americ an School Food Ser vice As sociation compar ed c ost of a typical cold Type A school lunch with preparing an ident ical brown-bag meal with purchases at a local grocery store . In t he seven states surveyed, the homeprepared meals averaged 10 to 15 cents more than lunches bought at school. The purpose of the survey was " to show the .American teenager and parent that it does pay to buy nutritious school lunches. More importantly , parents must remember they are taxpayers, and part of federal, state, and local taxes support school lunch programs in their own communities. Therefore, depending on the state and local tax structure, there were additional costs not included in this minisurvey. .Also, no costs have been added for time and labor." One must also remember that, with brown-bag lunches, "ma.Dy mothers would substitute non-nutritious f oods, such as diet b everages and other snack items, for the milk and vegetable components of the lunch" ( 53) .

Nutritional Value of Type A Lunch
The Type A lunch pattern was designed for planning lun.ches that provide one-third of the RDA for 9 to 12 year-old children. Meyer et al . (9) wer e the f irst to give a complete repo r t on the nut ritive value of school lunches as de termined by actual chemical analyses.
Lunches as served to fourth and sixth-grade children, provided sufficient calories, . 721 or one-third of the RDA (25) Of 15 schools from North Carolina included in the USDA survey, 13 served food which provided less than one-third of the caloric and magnesium allowances ; 11 were low in vitamin B 6 ; 9 in iron; and 7 in vitamin A. These shortages were relatively typical of these found throughout the total sample , except that in the total sample, onequarter to one -half of the schools served less than the recommended amounts of thiamin (8).
After studying lunches in 21 schools throughout North Carolina, Head et al. (13) concluded that relative to the type A goal of serving one-third of the RDA, the meals as served were inadequate in calories and a high proporti on were low in ascorbic acid and iron. There was also a problem, but to a less extent, with vitamin A. In no case was the goal for calories reached in the analyzed values of meals as served.
The calculated level reached the goal in only about two-thirds of the schools. Also of c oncern was the fact that 43 percent of calories came from fat on the average; in 13 percent of the composites, over 50 perc ent of the calories were f rom fat. This was a higher percentage than the mean percentage of 38 . 8 kcal . from fat founa in the 300-school nationwide survey (55). In general, nutritive values in secondary school meals were considerably lower in calories, protein, thiamin, ascorbic acid, calcium, · and iron than those reported by Lewis and Bachemin (8) and similiar to those of Doucette (62) except in iron and ascorbic acid .
Energy values of elementary school meals in this study averaged So kcal. lower than those in the USDA study . Thiamin levels were 9 percent lower, and iron about 10 per cent highe r than those reported by the USDA study (57).

Participation In The School Lunch Program
The National School Lunch Program, one of the largest Feder al efforts in the field of public health, was important in the nutrition of 80 percent of the nation's children in 1974. Since the first year of the program, the number of children taking part has grown from 6.6 million to 25.9  Among these children, there certainly were many who would be eligible for free or reduced-price meals. The sec_ond group of "unreached" children, is those who do not take advantage of the lunch bargain available to them in participating schools.
A high priority has been placed on making school lunches accessible to all children. In recent years, such organizations as the United States Jaycees, the .American Medical Association and Auxillary Nutrition Committee, the American Legion and the United States Catholic Conference have joined in the national effort to "get lunches to children." In many instances, it was a matter of selling the school administrator and the local school board on the advantages of child nutrition programs , (63 ).
While it had been thought that closed campus was the most important factor in high participation, study results show that it is noto Sixtyfour percent of the students from all ten low-participation schools reported never eating the Type A lunch at all. Eighty percent of the high participation schools had limited a la carte arrangements, and the Type A School Lunch was obviously chosen as a better buy than the sum of its parts a _ la carte (63).
Parker (64 ) has reported that between 1964 and 1967, the percentages of School Lunch Programs operating at losses increased from 28 to 47 in five states. Aver~ge cash reimbursement to schools decreased from 9 cents a lunch to either 8.4 or less than 5 cents. Also the average lunch charge to students increased only 7 cents between 1950 and 1967.
Thus, feeding programs had to face a much higher increase in costs of food and labor than they have been able to transfer to the price of the lunch. Financial problems have forced schools to close their cafeterias, and children were left out (6)0 There is evidence that the middle-income child is gradually with-draWing from participation in the National School Lunch Programo The number of free and reduced-price meals is, however, on the increase. As the price of the lunch has risen because of the present economic criteria, more children find that their families cannot afford to have them enjoy the meal at school (38). Bard (6)  In order for the school child+en to benefit from t h e school lunch Program, they must like and eat the f ood served in the Type A lunches.
Serving well liked foods that students will eat is obviously the desire of most food service personnel. Opponents of school lunch, participants, and Parents often point to the waste which accrues as a result of students' refusal to eat certain items. Such groups are often vocal about the amount of food discarded in the garbage can (65).
The procedure of weighing or measuring plate waste to determine acceptability of school lunches has been used in several studies (46,48,66,67,68). More recently, amounts of nutrients consumed based on analyzed values have been reported by Head and Weeks ( 65) .
In 1950 , Augustine et al. (48) were the f irst to report on the acceptability of school lunches. They found that Bo percent or more of the students accepted meat, fish, poultry, sandwiches (except peanut butter), meat substitutes, desserts, and milk. Vegetables and salads were usually accepted by 75 percent of the students. To serve adequate lunches at a minimum cost, careful planning was needed to include low cost foods of high nutritive values. Dreisbach and Handy (69) found that food preferences differed from school to school. (70) reported that plate waste was reduced among first and second grade children when the quantity of food was adjusted to the age of the child, but the waste was excessive for grades 3 to 7o

Mirone and Harvey
In a later study, Augustine and Hunter (71), also found that by adjusting portion sizes to meet the needs of different age groups , the cost of lunches for younger children was decreased while the cost of lunches for older children was higher.  (66) concluded that children in the first grade had more plate waste at the beginning of the school year than they did later in the ye ar, and that theY contributed the highest percentage of food returned. Grades 1 to 3 ate proportionately less than did the older children. Milk was well liked by all children.
In the second part of the research, the waste of individual foods was considered. Vegetables contributed the greatest amount of waste , and first , second, and sixth graders were responsible for more than half of the food returned. Meats served plain rather than in a mixture were pref erred by the children. Canned vegetables were preferred to frozen products and green beans were the most popular vegetable . More plate waste occured when "swapping" of food among the children was not permitted (67).
An educational program was designed to reduce plate waste and to increase the acceptance of vegetables by the children. It was found that children ate more of the vegetabl es with which they were most familiar and had been served r egularly at home. When new vegetables were introduced at tasting parties and subsequ ently in the school lunch, the acceptance was variable but tended to improve with familiarity .
During a resurvey the fo llowing year , the improved acceptance of familiar and unfamiliar vegetabl es had been maintained , (68) . Augustine et alo (48) found that milk was well accepted by elementary school children. This was confirmed by Myers et alo (72). Due to large intakes, they found that milk and milk produc ts contributed more nutrients than any other food . Leverton and Coggs (73) reported that Children with an average age of 13. 5 years , listed milk as one of the foods they were "most willing to eat." Litman et al. (74) studied the opinions on food, of 1,039 Minnesota children, ten to twenty years old, who liked milk, potatoes, bread, at butter, and eggs as everyday foods. Green and yellow vegetables me ' and liver seemed to pose a real problem because of the low esteem children had for these nutritious foods. Doucette (62) quoted Maretzki and Chung as having categorized the amount of school lunch eaten as "all eaten," "part eaten," and "none eaten." They reported that fruits and vegetables were consumed in the lowest proportions by all age-groups. Girls ate less of the starchy foods than of any other food groups. These data, coupled with the inadequate levels of iron and thiamin calculated as served, gave the authors reasons for concern. On the other hand, with a statewide average of over 80 percent of students in attendance participating in the program, Type A lunch was available to all students in public s.chools of Hawaii. (8)  The reports of the death of the Basic Four Food Groups, as the foundation for a daily food guide, are greatly exaggerated according to Leverton (76). After careful reviews, USDA has decided to retain, for the time being, the Basic Four as one of its tools for teaching the principles of food selection for g ood nutrition.

Lewis and Bachemin
on the other hand, the Rutger's study (77), a joint effort of USDA, the Office of Economic Opportunity and the State of New Jersey, found that menus planned around a nutrient standard, including engineered foods, could be h i ghly acceptable to students if planned around foods they enjoy. For children bringing their lunch from home, there was a vitamin supplement in the form of a packaged dessert sold in the lunchroom to improve micronutrient intake levels. To optimize milk acceptance, chocolat e and other flavored milks were allowed. Lachance et al. (77) who conducted the Rutger's Study, maintained that "engineered", particularly "nutrified" foods could mean a better and balanced diet in spite of changing food habits. The "two item breakfast/supplemental feeding" approach defined as a beverag e and a solid food combination was successful in assuring one-fourth of the RDA for all nutrients except energy.
Schools which do not provide lunch or breakfast but participate in the special milk program could easily assure the nutritional equivalence of breakfast or a supplemental feeding in the mid-after noon. Its acc e ptance was high, as it contained finger food easy to serve and eat.
Although, i t has now been rec onsidered, in 1973 the Food and Drug The concept of menu planning based on meeting specific nutrient requirement s has been studied by Harper and Jansen (79,80). Frey et al· (81), Harper et al. (82), and Jansen et al. (83) have presented a three-part comparison of types and nutrient standards for school lunches.
In the firs t part, methodology was developed for planning school lunch menus which meet a specific nutrient standard. The method considered nine-indicator nutrients plus calories and percent age of calora es coming from fat. The nutrient composition of approximately 625 school lunch menu items were calculated using USDA Handbook No. 8 (84). All nutrient data were converted to bead units which were summed on an abacus until the meal requirements were met. Testing of the method showed it was usable by school lunch menu planners and provided menus meeting cer tain minimal nutrient constraints (81). In the second part of the study, Harper et al. (82) found no significant differences between Type A and Nutrient Standard Menu (NSJ:v' .1:) planning methods in average daily participation, food costs priced with and without USDA-donated foods, and labor costs. Menu planners of varying education and experience levels successfully planned accurate NSM menus and endor s ed the metliod as an exciting and viable alternative to the Type A pat tern. Sixty preferred NSM due to its nutrient assurance, flexibility, and potential for nutri tion education.
In the last part of their report, the calculated nutritional value of school lunches for fifth and tenth-grade students planned according to the Type A lunch pattern and a nutrient standard menu were compared on the basis of meals as planned, served, and eaten. On an "as eaten" basis, menus planned by both methods were low in calories, iron, and thiamin. Although the differences were small, the NSM menus were consistently higher in nutrients, including calories, iron, and thiamin, and lower in percentage of calories coming from fat. The number of schools where the lunches, on the average, furnished less than 60 percent of the standard for calories, iron, and thiamin was significantly less for NSM menus than for Type A. An important reason for the higher level of nutrients in NSM menus was that a higher ratio of food planned was actually served. In addition, in the case of iron, a higher nutrientcalorie ratio was observed. Food ratings, as determined in the classroom before the meal, correlated with food consumption as determined by plate waste analyses. Milk beverages had the highest ratings and consumption, followed by starches, baked goods, sandwiches, and entrees. Salads and vegetables were rated low and consumed least (83).
As a conclusion, Nutrient Standard Menus offered the following advantages: 1. Assurance that menus provide needed nutrientso 2. Increase in menu planning flexibility. 3. Improvement in the acceptability of menu item selection.
4o Decrease in food wastage. 5. Increased accountability of the nutrients in fortified foods. 6. Improvement in menus required for special dietary problems. It is the most dramatic and far-reaching amendment on nutrition, education , and training, whi ch states that : "Congress find that the proper nutriti on of the nation's children is a matter of highest priority." Its purpose is to "enc ourage effective dissemination of scientifically valid nutrition information." Accordingly, nutrition edu cation programs should inclu de : 1. Instructing students about the nutritional valu e of food and the relationship between food and human health .

2.
Training school food service personnel in the pri ncipl es and practices of food servi ce management. 3. Instructing teachers in sound nutrition educ ation principles . 1. 2.

III. REASEARCH PROCEDURE
This investigation dealt with the following five aspects: .An assessment of the nutritive value of Cold and Hot Type A School Lunches as served • .An assessment of the nutritive intake of the children who consumed either the Cold or Hot Type A School Lunches.
A comparison of t h e nutrient intake from lunches brought from home or eaten at home and the Type A School Lunche s served.

A comparison of the acceptability of Cold and Hot Type A School
Lunches in terms of participation and plate waste.
A comparison of the nutrient intake obtained from free, reduced-price, and paid-in-full lunches. Central Falls, Rhode Island, is a community of dense, rather stable population , where many immigrants from Canada and mo r e recently from Portugal and Latin America have settled. As low socio-economic conditions are prevalent, a large number of r educed-price and free lunches were served.
All six schools in Central Falls having a sixth-grade were studied .
Sixth-grade school children were chosen, because the kinds and amounts f foods in the Type A School Lunch pattern are based on the nutrio .
tional needs of 9 to 12-year-old children.
Before the experimental study was begun, arrangements were made with school principals for permission to conduct this investigation.
The investigator also observed the lunch period at every schoolo Faculty, State School Lunch Aides, and students were aware of the purpose of this study. One -week data collection periods were conducted in two The study did not disturb the noon meal routineo As usual, students could get milk only or a complete cold bag lunch . The children who chose the lunch obtained a half ·-pint carton of pasteurized whole milk and a brown bag containing either a sandwich or pizza, a fruit, one cookie, a napkin and a straw. No seconds were available, and portions were standardized except for the fruits . Two State School Lunch Aides distributed the lunches that were free , reduced-price (twenty cents) , or paidin-full (forty cents). Milk was eit her free or sold for five cents .
No discrimination regarding payment or identification of the students was noted during the study. See Appendix B for Family Size Income scale for free and reduced-price lunches .
As After the children had finished eating, they were asked to write their name on their brown bags , whether or not there were any leftovers.
They disposed of them in large plastic bags as usual . Milk containers with any l eftove r milk were seal ed with masking tape and l abeled with the child ' s name . All bags from school l unches were coll ected and mo st from home lunches . A few students kept the leftovers because their mothers wanted them back. All food waste was weighed . outside the school s , as the classrooms could not be used. One sample col d lunch was weighed as representing the lunch as served. Each food item was weighed separately .
Sanctw· h le es were separated into their components . Hanson diet scales , 1 ,ooo grams capacity, with the dial scaled at 2 grams , were used to weigh the waste. Measuring cups were u sed to measure amounts of the leftover milk. Amounts of food consumed were calculated by subtracting the leftover weight from that of the average serving.
Before the lunch period on the first day of the investigation, students from all six schools were instructed on how to complete a Dietary Record, giving a description of and the amount of food eaten at their noon meal. They were given oral instr~ctions plus a copy of the Porti on sizes were frequently checked during all periods of the service in both schools. Time permitted that only one sample a day was Weighed, but this was considered representative of the average meal served to the sixth-graders. The State School Lunch Aides serving the meals had r ience and had been instructed to use measuring devices such as caliezpe brated scoops, ladles, spoons, or a certain number of pieces of food or cuts per pan. They followed the charts for portion sizes given in Appendix D.
ene student was trained to keep a li st of the children receiving seconds or thirds of each food item when offered . Records were kept closely, because there was frequent trading of food in the cafeteria.
All dietary records were double checked against the trays for each student as they left the room . Students were asked if they gave any food from their tray or received anything from their friends.
Trays with leftovers were labeled and set aside . A few students were trained to weigh the plate wastes. The investigator verified and recorded the results herself. Each food item left was scraped with a rubber spatula from the tray and weighed separately on Hanson diet scal es .
Leftover milk was measured in a measuring cup rather than weighed for practical reasons . Food consumed was calculated by subtracting the l eftover from the representative serving .
The dietary records of the Hot and Cold School Lunches, lunches brought-from-home , and those eaten-at-home were evaluated for energy , protein, fat , carbohydrates , fiber , calcium, phosphorous, iron, sodium, potassium, vitamin A, thiamin , riboflavin , niacin, ascorbic acid , saturated fatty acid, unsaturated oleic acid , unsaturated linoleic acid , and cholesterol; and percent RDA (88) by a computer program based on USDA Handbook No. 8 (84).
The t test was used to determine the significant difference of nutrient intake as fol l ows : 1. Hot vs . Cold School Lunches. 2. Eaten-at-home vs . Hot or Gold School Lunches . 3. Brought-from-home vs . Hot or Cold School Lunches. 4. Males vs . femal es . 5. Public vs . non-public school children.

Frequency of Meals
This study included the nutritional evaluation of a total of 1,965 meals consumed by 495 sixth-grade students (266 boys and 229 girls) attending Central Falls Schools. Table I shows the distribution of meals between the two sexes. This represents 79 percent of the possible 2,475 meals consumed by all participants. Everyday, some children were absent from school, and no records of their lunches could be included. A few students from two public schools were resistant, for the first couple of days, to fill out their dietary records properly. A few students went without lunch.  Six types of lunches were investigated during t he study. Table 3 shows the frequency of the six types of lunches that were consumedo As noted, only one meal was reported from a restaurant. This does not seem realistic because students were regularly seen at neighborhood short order restaurants during the lunch houro Some of the students that did not fill in their records might have gone to the restaurant . Maybe the awareness of the survey being done, kept them from eating at the restaurant, or perhaps they liked the menus served during the weeks of the study. only two students were identified by the school authorities , as never eating any lunch. O~hers skipped lunch on certain days, because they were not feeling well, and others did not eat without stating any reason. School lunches were either paid-in-full by the students, free, or reduced-price. No school lunches were available in the non-public schools. Some children would have been eligible for free and reducedprice lunches had there been a Food Program in these schoolso Table 4 shows the frequency of meals according to source of payment. It was the opi nion of the school administration that more children could have qualif i ed for free or reduced-price lunches , but the parents never completed the application. No discrimination was found regardless of the source of payment.   (55)

Nutrient Losses From Plate Waste
Tabl e 7 shows that there was a higher percentage of energy, protein , calcium, thiamin, riboflavin , and ascorbic acid lost from the Cold School Lwich than from the Hot School Lunch . Most of these losses except the ascorbic acid resul ted from t h e sandwich being discarded more often than t he hot main dish . Even though there was more ascorbic acid lost with the cold meal s, the average c ontribu tion of col d meals was almost double that from the hot meals . Fresh cit rus fru its were served with col d meals instead of canned fruits used with hot meals . Calcium and rib oflavin were also served , as cheese , in greater amount in Col d School Lunches than in Hot School Lunches . So even after waste was considered , the amount of calcium consumed was higher from the Cold School Lunches than from the Hot School Lunch es .
Better acceptance of the hot main dish was respon sible for a 4 Perc ent waste of protein as compared to 6 percent waste for the Cold Lunch. All lunches , however , met the goal of one -t h ird of the RDA (88) for Protei·n t and riboflavin regardl ess of the plate was e . Vitamin A was the nutrient most wasted. This loss amounted to 36 percent in Hot Lunches because green and y ellow vegetables were served and, as suspected, were the most rejected item on the menu. It is possible that nutrition education would have helped to develop an acceptance of these important sources of nutrients (52, 68) .
Based on the fact that Hot Lunches are more accepted than Cold Lunches , the waste of 4 percent of the energy value of the Hot Lunches was not greatly improved from the six percent lo s t from the Cold Lunches.
Plate waste from both kinds of School Lunches was still considerably lower than reported by other investigators (8,65) .

Nutritional Intake From Lunches
As a group , boys had significantly higher (p(0.01) nutrient intakes than the girls for every nutrient except ascorbic acid which was similar for both sexes . The percentages of the RDA (88) were similar for both sexes because of the higher allowances for boys for certain nutrients, as shown in Table 8 . The average intakes of energy , iron, calcium, vitamin A, thiamin, and niacin were below the goal of one-third of the RDA (88) and over 70 percent of the boys and· girls failed to meet this goal for these nutrients.
When public and non-public schools were compared , the boys consumed more nutrients than the girls , except for ascorbic acid. This i s shown in Tables 9 and 10   Energy And Nutrients    . ni·ficantly less iron (p<0.01), niacin (p(0.01), and ascorbic acid sig (p< 0.01) than the non-public school g irls.
If the School Lm1ch Prog ram was discontinued, there would probably be a lowering of the nutritional intake of the public school children.
Most likely, the School Lunch Program raised the level of nutrient intake of the public school children to the level of the parochial school children. The school lunches, if they had contained 1 at least one-third of the RDA ( 88) as served, might have raised the level of nutritional intake of public school children even more. As there also was room for improvement of t h e nutrient intake of non-public school children, the availability of a Type A School Lunch providing one-third of the RDA ( 88) would contribute to the well-being of both non-public and public school students.

Hot and Cold School Lunches
It was impossible for the children participating in the School Lunch Program to have an intake of one-third of the RDA ( 88 ) because they simply were not served meals which met that goal for all the nutri entso As shown in Tables 11 and 12, the average nutrient intake from five hot school lunches in two schools, did not meet the goal of one-third of the RDA (88) but met one-fourth of the RDA (88) for boys and girls, for all nutrients except iron. Everyday, the s tudents g ave food, with the result that boys c onsumed more of all nutrients than the girls. Appendix H shows the average nutrient intake from Hot School Lunches in the indi-Vidual schools. 'rhe percentage of the RDA ( 88 ) 4. 6 + 1. 4 16. 3 :±: 8 . 4 13. 5 .±. 3 . 5 12. 9 .±. 3 . 7 5. 5  --J Everyday, the boys also consumed, more of all nutrients, from the cold lunches than the girls did, except for ascorbic acid . The average nutrient intake fr om five cold school lunches in the three schools fe ll below the goal of one -third of the RDA (88) and also fell below onefourth of the RDA (88) for food energy, iron, vitamin A, and niacin for both sexes, and for thiamin for girls (Tables 11, 12 and Appendix I).
Boys consumed an average of 97 kcal. less from the cold menus than from the hot meals . Girls obtained 116 kcal . less from the cold lunches than from the hot lunches. Seventy-eight percent of the children consumed between 21 and 40 percent of the RDA (88) for energy from hot lunches, as compared to 45 percent consuming between 21 and 40 percent of the RDA (88) from cold lunches.
The intake of protein averaged about 16 percent lower for cold lunche s than for hot lunches, but met at least one-third of the RDA (88).
The iron intake averaged 17 percent of the RDA (88) for hot lunches as compared to 13 percent for cold lunches. This was in line with the low iron content of the lunches as served.
With the exception of calcium and ascorbic acid, the higher nutrient intake from hot school lunches, was due to the greater amount served.
The highe r intake of ascorbic acid from cold lunches was due to the serving of fresh fruit in cold lunches. Calcium intake was similar for hot and cold lunches although more calcium was availabl e in the cold lunches. The average intake from the hot lunches was significantly higher (p(o.01) than the cold lunches for calories , protein, fat, iron, vitamin A, thiamin, and niacin for both sexes, and also for riboflavin for the girls. -Price, and Paid-In-Full School Lunches No previous studies have been found which reported on the consumption of meals under different payment options . There was a similarity of nutrient intake fr om the free and paid-in-full school lunches (Tables 13,14,15,16). When cold lunches were served , the nutritional intake of the students who paid in full, or received free lunches reflec ted the lower nutrient values served in the cold lunches as compared to the hot lunches. Students receiving reduced-price hot and cold school lunches had a higher nutritional intake than the other two groups.

Reduced
Entitled to Free or Reduced-Price School Lunches But Did Not Take When nutrient intake of children who did not take the free lunch that they were entitled to , Table 17, was compared with that of children who received their free school lunches, it was found that the former did not fare as well nutritionally. All nutrient intakes tended to be lower, with vitamin A being drastically as low as 10 percent of the RDA (88) compared to 29 for boys and 3 1 percent for girls eating school lunches.
The nutritional intake from the lunches eaten at home did not meet the goal of supplying one-third of the RDA (88) for all nutrients , but met one-fourth of the RDA (88) except for i ron and vitamin A for both sexes and calcium for the girls and thiamin for the boys . Boys consumed significantly (p <.. O. 01) more fat, vitamin A, and thiamin from hot school lunches than from meals eaten at home . Girls consumed signi ficantly (p{ 0. 01) less ascorbi c acid but more protein, fat, cal cium, vitamin A, and riboflavin, from hot school l unches than from lunches eaten at home .
Caloric intake was similar whether meals were eaten at home or were consumed as hot school l unches .
The girls had also significantly h i gher intakes from home lunches for calories (p-<0 . 01), protein (p . (   The nutrient intake from lunches brought from home by public school was compared to the nutrient i ntake from lunches brought from home boys, by non-public school boys, and it was found t o be lower in a ll nutrients except vitamin A and ascorbic acid. Comparing public school girls to non-public school girls , the former had a higher intake of calcium but a lower intake of iron, vitamin A, and ascorbic acid (Table 22).

Other Evaluation of Nutrient Intake
Of the 310 students who were asked if they were taking vitamins, they responded with the following answers: 52 students took vitamins every day 31 students took vitamins sometimes 133 students never took vitamins .An extra nutritional contribution to the meals was made by vitamins taken by 26.8 percent of the children. Table 23, the intake of fiber from the Hot and Cold School Lunches and those brought from home was similaro Sodium intakes were slightly higher from Hot School Lunches and lunches eaten at home.

As shown in
--Oo7 ±. 0 -- 9. 4 + 4.o -- 10. 8 + 4.8 -- 9. 8 ~ 3.9 -- 3.9 +2. 87 -- 3. 8 :± 2.4 -- 84. 2 :±:41.9 --60 . 9 3. Plate waste was lower than expect ed due to food exchange and the size of the porti ons served. Nutrient losses from plate waste, due largely to the sandwich being discarded, we re generall y greater fr om the Cold School Lunch. In the Hot School Lunch, vitamin A from vegetables was the nutrient most wasted . 4. The average nutrient intake from the Hot Type A School Lunches did not meet the goal of one-third of the RDA (88), but met one-fourth of the RDA (88) for boys and girls for all nutrients except iron. The average nutrient intake from the Cold Type A School Lunch was below the goal of supplying one-third of the RDA (88) for all nutrients.
The average nutrient intake from the Cold School Lunch fell below onef ourth of the RDA (88) for food energy, iron, vitamin A, and niacin for both sexes and for thiamin for girls . 5. The public school boys had significantly higher intakes of vitamin A, thiamin, and ascorbic acid and lower intakes of calories and niacin than the non-publi c school boys. The public school girls consumed significantly more calcium and riboflavin, but significantly less iron, niacin, and ascorbic acid than the non-public school girls . 6. Lunches eaten at home provided more calories , protein, fat , i ron , vitamin A, and niac i n than the Cold Type A School Lunches. The intake of calcium for the girls and of ascorbic acid for the boys were higher from the Cold School Lunch. 7. The children conswned from t he Hot Type A School Lunch similar or higher amounts of every nutrient, except ascorbic acid, than they did fr om t he lunches they brough t from home . The boys who obtained the Cold Type A School Lunch had higher intakes of c alciwn, vitamin A, riboflavin, and ascorbic acid than the boys who brought lunches from home . The girls choosing the Cold Type A School Lunch also had higher intak es of c alc i wn and ascorbic acid but lower intakes of calor ie s , protein, fat , iron, thiamin, and niacin, than the g irls who brought their lunches from home .
In gen8ral, the results of this study showed that the Type A School Lunch failed to meet the goal of one-third of the RDA (88) for all nutrients . The nutrient intake was below one-fourth of the RDA (88 )  3/4 to 1-1/4 cups 4 to 5 tablespoons 1 to 1-1 /2 cups 1 to 3 slices 1 to 2 teaspoons 1/2 pirit 1 When a range in amounts is given , the smaller amounts are suggested for girls and the larger amounts 2 for older boys . An amount midway between the amounts shown is suggested for younger boys. When egg is served as the main dish in the lunch, use in addition a half portion of meat or other ~eat alternate for all chil dren except those three up to six years .
4 Must include at least two kinds .
Or a serving of cornbread, biscuits , rolls , muffins , etc ., made of whole-grain or enriched meal or flour . 5If this is impractical , serve 1/2 pint . *Note : These portion sizes also serve as a guide for the amounts of foods to serve older boys and girls ( 12 and over)  1 Availabl e to a total of 188 sixth-grade s t udents enrolled in the three school s . 2 Available to a total of 183 sixth-grade student s enr oll ed in the t wo schools .