“I’m thrilled to see that all students will now have access to healthy foods that will prevent debilitating health conditions,” Mayor Adams said.

Starting today, public schools in New York City will have Vegan Fridays in addition to Meatless Mondays in a bid to offer more variation on the menu and expose kids to healthier options.

Around 930,000 children attend NYC public schools.

 The new initiative is backed by Mayor Eric Adams as part of a public health push to promote ‘healthy eating and healthy living, and improving the quality of life for thousands of NYC students’.

The politician has been a long-standing health advocate and vocally credits his plant-only diet with helping his diabetes.

Under the new agenda, public school lunches will scrap staples like mac and cheese on Fridays and replace them with veggie tacos and other plant-based dishes such as Mediterranean chickpeas served with rice or pasta, and black beans and plantain rice bowls, the Department of Education revealed.

‘Children to have the option of some good tasting, healthy food’

“I love healthy food and I love life, and our children should not continually be fed food that’s causing their health care crisis,” Adams told Fox5.

“Childhood obesity, childhood diabetes, asthma — there’s a real correlation to what we serve in the Department of Education every day and what is being served in our hospitals, our jails.

“We should not be feeding the crisis. And we’re going to allow the children to have the option of tasting some good tasting, healthy food.”

Other vegan options will include seasoned broccoli salad, spinach and cranberry salad, and roasted cauliflower.

“Plant-based meals are delicious and nutritious, which is why I previously called for vegetarian and vegan options in schools,” Adams added.

 “I’m thrilled to see that all students will now have access to healthy foods that will prevent debilitating health conditions.”

Despite the new menu protocol, students will still have access to some dairy-based meal options upon request, and due to federal USDA guidelines, dairy milk will also remain available.

Mixed response

Although NYC will be the first major school district to offer a fully vegan lunch menu, the decision was met with mixed responses after the city’s schools official Twitter account announced the move.

“Please rethink this, this is a disgusting decision nobody eats your school lunch anyway this is just gonna fuel it,” commented one user.

“No pizza & mozzarella sticks,” tweeted another. “Now fake chicken and burgers. Way to take another ounce of fun out of kids’ lives.”

However, others were optimistic and appreciated the shift towards healthy eating.

“Mediterranean black beans rice bowl sounds delicious. Much better than the salad with a slice of bologna that my kid got for school lunch today,” commented a parent.

“Every other day there is meat on the menu. The meat industry is unnecessarily killing so many animals and hurting the environment. I’m pretty sure the kids can do without meat for one day,” another added.

“Great news! The children will certainly benefit from healthy plant-based eating. Plants for the win! Seedling (Side note: animal products are not health promoting and are not necessary to consume),” a third explained.

• Read: Over half of UK’s universities ‘not on track to meet emissions targets’

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Mohsina Dodhiya

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