Sodium levels by food categories in meals served at a local school district in Los Angeles County

Working in partnership with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) recently made a number of changes to their meal program menu for the school-year (SY) 2011-12; many of these changes were based on IOM recommendations. We recently examined some of these changes, specifically sodium levels by selected food categories. A systematic analysis of the sodium levels in SY 2011-12 was conducted using a sample of food items served in October 2011 for the three menu categories at the district meal program: breakfast (n=29), elementary-lunch (n=59), and secondary-Lunch (n=74). Food items were separated into 10 categories: bread, poultry, other meat, fruit, dairy/cheese, eggs, vegetable, noodles/pasta, sandwich, and potato. The three food categories that made up the majority of sodium content in the menu options offered were poultry, sandwiches, and noodles/pasta. Poultry, on average, contributed the following amount to the meals served throughout the day – breakfast=518.2mg, elementary-lunch=859.7mg, and secondary-lunch=895.6mg. Sandwiches was the next most likely source of sodium, averaging 714.4mg for both lunch menus. Noodles/pasta was the third most likely contributor at 554.1mg and 563.2mg for elementary-lunch and secondary-lunch, respectively. As the meal program menu continues to evolve throughout SY 2011-12, tracking contributing sources of sodium to the different meals throughout the day offers valuable surveillance information for guiding the ongoing day-to-day meal planning at the school district (e.g., adding fruits and vegetable options to the menu, consideration of portion size restrictions, making improvements to food categories, etc.).