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Nutritional quality and greenhouse gas emissions of vegetarian and non-vegetarian primary school meals: A case study in Dijon, France

Since 2018 in France, national regulation mandates that school canteens serve a weekly vegetarian meal to reduce school canteens' environmental impact in addition to previous regulations imposing nutritional composition guidelines. However, a lunch without meat is often perceived as inadequate...

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Autores principales: Dahmani, Justine, Nicklaus, Sophie, Grenier, Jean-Michel, Marty, Lucile
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9590375/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36299986
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.997144
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author Dahmani, Justine
Nicklaus, Sophie
Grenier, Jean-Michel
Marty, Lucile
author_facet Dahmani, Justine
Nicklaus, Sophie
Grenier, Jean-Michel
Marty, Lucile
author_sort Dahmani, Justine
collection PubMed
description Since 2018 in France, national regulation mandates that school canteens serve a weekly vegetarian meal to reduce school canteens' environmental impact in addition to previous regulations imposing nutritional composition guidelines. However, a lunch without meat is often perceived as inadequate to cover the nutritional needs of children. The present study aims to assess the nutritional quality and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) of vegetarian and non-vegetarian school meals served in primary schools in Dijon, France. The catering department provided the composition of 249 meals served in 2019. Nutritional content and GHGE were retrieved from national food databases. The portion size of each meal component was the standard portion size recommended by the relevant French authority (GEMRCN). Meals were classified into vegetarian meals, i.e., without meat or fish (n = 66), or non-vegetarian meals (n = 183). The nutritional adequacy of the meals for children aged from 6 to 11 years was estimated using the mean adequacy ratio (MAR/2,000 kcal) as the mean percentage of daily recommended intake for 23 nutrients and the mean excess ratio (MER/2,000 kcal) as the mean percentage of excess compared to the maximum daily recommended value for three nutrients. This analysis of actual school meals shows that both vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals had a similar good nutritional quality with MAR/2,000 kcal of 87.5% (SD 5.8) for vegetarian and of 88.5% (SD 4.5) for non-vegetarian meals, and a MER/2,000 kcal of 19.3% (SD 15.0) for vegetarian and of 19.1% (SD 18.6) for non-vegetarian meals. GHGE were more than twofold reduced in vegetarian compared to non-vegetarian meals (0.9 (SD 0.3) vs. 2.1 (SD 1.0) kgC0(2) eq/meal). Thus, increasing the frequency of vegetarian meals, by serving egg-based, dairy-based or vegan recipes more frequently, would reduce GHGE while maintaining adequate nutritional quality of primary school meals.
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spelling pubmed-95903752022-10-25 Nutritional quality and greenhouse gas emissions of vegetarian and non-vegetarian primary school meals: A case study in Dijon, France Dahmani, Justine Nicklaus, Sophie Grenier, Jean-Michel Marty, Lucile Front Nutr Nutrition Since 2018 in France, national regulation mandates that school canteens serve a weekly vegetarian meal to reduce school canteens' environmental impact in addition to previous regulations imposing nutritional composition guidelines. However, a lunch without meat is often perceived as inadequate to cover the nutritional needs of children. The present study aims to assess the nutritional quality and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) of vegetarian and non-vegetarian school meals served in primary schools in Dijon, France. The catering department provided the composition of 249 meals served in 2019. Nutritional content and GHGE were retrieved from national food databases. The portion size of each meal component was the standard portion size recommended by the relevant French authority (GEMRCN). Meals were classified into vegetarian meals, i.e., without meat or fish (n = 66), or non-vegetarian meals (n = 183). The nutritional adequacy of the meals for children aged from 6 to 11 years was estimated using the mean adequacy ratio (MAR/2,000 kcal) as the mean percentage of daily recommended intake for 23 nutrients and the mean excess ratio (MER/2,000 kcal) as the mean percentage of excess compared to the maximum daily recommended value for three nutrients. This analysis of actual school meals shows that both vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals had a similar good nutritional quality with MAR/2,000 kcal of 87.5% (SD 5.8) for vegetarian and of 88.5% (SD 4.5) for non-vegetarian meals, and a MER/2,000 kcal of 19.3% (SD 15.0) for vegetarian and of 19.1% (SD 18.6) for non-vegetarian meals. GHGE were more than twofold reduced in vegetarian compared to non-vegetarian meals (0.9 (SD 0.3) vs. 2.1 (SD 1.0) kgC0(2) eq/meal). Thus, increasing the frequency of vegetarian meals, by serving egg-based, dairy-based or vegan recipes more frequently, would reduce GHGE while maintaining adequate nutritional quality of primary school meals. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-10-10 /pmc/articles/PMC9590375/ /pubmed/36299986 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.997144 Text en Copyright © 2022 Dahmani, Nicklaus, Grenier and Marty. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Nutrition
Dahmani, Justine
Nicklaus, Sophie
Grenier, Jean-Michel
Marty, Lucile
Nutritional quality and greenhouse gas emissions of vegetarian and non-vegetarian primary school meals: A case study in Dijon, France
title Nutritional quality and greenhouse gas emissions of vegetarian and non-vegetarian primary school meals: A case study in Dijon, France
title_full Nutritional quality and greenhouse gas emissions of vegetarian and non-vegetarian primary school meals: A case study in Dijon, France
title_fullStr Nutritional quality and greenhouse gas emissions of vegetarian and non-vegetarian primary school meals: A case study in Dijon, France
title_full_unstemmed Nutritional quality and greenhouse gas emissions of vegetarian and non-vegetarian primary school meals: A case study in Dijon, France
title_short Nutritional quality and greenhouse gas emissions of vegetarian and non-vegetarian primary school meals: A case study in Dijon, France
title_sort nutritional quality and greenhouse gas emissions of vegetarian and non-vegetarian primary school meals: a case study in dijon, france
topic Nutrition
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9590375/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36299986
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.997144
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