Last month, a landmark resolution in the City Council from Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and Councilman Fernando Cabrera called on the city’s Department of Education to remove processed meats from the nation’s largest public school district. This resolution is a much-needed step to protect children’s health and help address our skyrocketing national health care costs driven by diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer — all of which are associated with eating processed meat.
For some, a citywide ban on processed meat in schools may conjure up visions of food police and hot dog speakeasies run out of locker rooms. But the goal here is not to eliminate processed meat, nor put an end to Brooklyn’s famous hot dog eating contest. Rather, this resolution recognizes the real harm processed meats are causing and seeks to let parents, not schools, decide where processed meats fit into children’s diet.
“Processed meat” is defined as any meat preserved by smoking, curing or salting or with the addition of chemical preservatives. A growing body of scientific evidence on processed meat connects them to grave health effects, including links to numerous diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, colorectal cancer and stomach cancer.
Approximately 58,000 Americans each year are estimated to die from eating processed meat, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In 2015, the cancer agency of the World Health Organization ranked processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen, on par with cigarettes and asbestos.
Despite what you might read in outdated dietary recommendations, low-fat processed meat is no less dangerous than standard processed meat. Modern research reveals that it is the processing, not the fat content, that is linked to increased risk of health harm and especially cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Nevertheless, processed meats like lunch meats, bacon and sausage remain a staple of New York public school meals . For many New York City children, school meals are the only reliable source of their daily calories and nutrients.
Moreover, in 2017, then-Chancellor Carmen Fariña announced that lunch is now free for every student at every public school across New York City. With more than 1.1 million students in the New York City school system now eligible for free meals, it is more important than ever to focus on citywide school-lunch quality.
The processed meat problem extends far beyond New York City. Schools across the country feed children processed meat on a regular basis, some for both breakfast and lunch. Every time a school serves processed meat, it also sends a message that this food is acceptable and approved by the school.
Meanwhile, the federal government is pushing school lunch in the wrong direction, rolling back its targets for categories like sodium and whole grains. Cities and states must now take responsibility for shifting this problematic narrative.
We must remember: Besides the immediate negative health effects on children, processed meat consumption also has broad societal consequences. The United States spends nearly twice as much per person on health care as other developed nations, yet our national health outcomes lag behind most developed nations, due in large part to poor diet.
Half of all U.S. health care spending can be attributed to chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. These diseases and their associated costs are directly linked to diet, including eating processed meat and drinking sugary beverages. Rising health care costs impose a tremendous burden on families, employers and governments, squeezing budgets and crowding out other needed investments.
Public funds should be spent on school lunches that improve health, not on foods that lead to chronic disease and increase health care costs.
For the sake of the health of our children and containing health care costs, New York City should kick processed meat out of its school cafeterias. Then other cities and states should follow suit.
Pomeranz is an assistant professor at the College of Global Public Health at New York University. Flaherty is a research scholar and Mande is a professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.
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