Ultraprocessed food ban hurts those it seeks to help

By Staff Writers Amy Han, Erika Liu, Varun Madhavan & Michael Qin

Introduction: For years, schools in CA have served students lunches packed with ultra-processed foods (UPFs). These meal choices have historically proven themselves to be simultaneously cheap, convenient, and palatable, thus finding enormous success in their integration within institutional meal plans statewide. However,  CA lawmakers are working to change this. On February 21, CA Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel introduced Assembly Bill 1264 (AB 1264), prohibiting these UPFs from further incorporation into school meals in response to growing concerns from government officials regarding their associated health consequences. While this bill aims to improve student nutrition, it may actually achieve the opposite, unintentionally harming the very communities it strives to serve. 

Background: Recent years have seen the growth of UPFs into a ubiquitous staple of student diets. A 2025 research brief conducted by the University of Connecticut’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health reveals that these highly-processed foods are offered in 52% of schools, who rely on the affordability and convenience offered by UPFs to keep their meal programs afloat. This expediency, however, comes at a clear cost. UPFs get their name from their extensive use of factory materials such as sweeteners, preservatives, and emulsifiers. This drastically artificial nature comes with undeniable negative health ramifications. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has linked UPFs to life-threatening health problems including diabetes, obesity, reproductive issues, and cancer. These dangers are only exacerbated through a positive feedback loop, where chemical additives in UPFs “trick people into eating more [UPFs] than they want,” author Iris Meyers said for a major activist organization, the Environmental Working Group. This is a dire assessment for the estimated 5.9 million K-12 CA students who report regular consumption of these UPF-laden school lunches. 

 UPFs are becoming key in fueling a national nutritional crisis. “Our public schools should not be serving students [UPFs] that can harm their physical and mental health and interfere with their ability to learn,” Gabriel said. The need for reform in the types of food that schools distribute their students has become inevitable. After months of deliberation across multiple stages with the CA State Assembly and Senate, AB 1264, the solution to the national crisis regarding UPFs, now awaits Governor Gavin Newsom’s final decision. It faces an October 12 deadline to be either signed or vetoed. However, this decision may not be as positive a step forward as it seems.

Sourcing Healthier Alternatives: The reality is that, while AB 1264 may appear progressive on paper, the legislation itself is plagued by a host of intrinsic flaws. Most notably, the bill fails to address a real and prevalent issue that UPFs, despite their widespread health concerns, succeed in addressing – affordability. Rising food prices have heavily impacted Bay Area residents, with a recent ABC7 analysis revealing that nearly 900 neighborhoods within the region are classified as food deserts, a geographical term referring to areas where residents have limited access to affordable, fresh food. Statewide, the CA Association of Food Banks reports that over one million current Californians live in food deserts, with about one in five facing food insecurity. If AB 1264 is to be implemented in its current version, the millions of families who rely on UPFs as their main food source would be suddenly bereft of any nutritional options, regardless of health or quality. For those unable to afford fresh produce, this bill would represent nothing short of a nutritional disaster. 

 AB 1264 also assumes that a blanket ban on UPFs will automatically integrate healthy options into school meal plans, without considering the actual feasibility of UPF bans on a district level. In the 2022-23 school year, state administrators cut more than $1 billion in school lunch funding. Fresh, nutritious food financially burdens school districts, especially as school lunch budgets steadily decrease. AB 1264 fails to provide any state funding to alleviate this concern, highlighting its palliative nature.

Defining UPFs: Furthermore, the restrictions imposed by this bill may not even be helpful or necessary to resolving the main issue regarding UPFs. “Under [AB 1264’s] vague definition, staples like tortillas, canned beans, cheese, and even tangerines with a natural wax coating could fall under [the UPF category] — not because they’re unhealthy, but because they don’t fit an arbitrary, oversimplified standard,” one report by Capitol Weekly said. This bill, if put into effect, would group thousands of safe and widely-enjoyed food products — more than 70% of the grocery store — with UPFs without scientific basis. Counterintuitively, AB 1264 worsens food access, choice, and the quality of nutrition for our most vulnerable communities. It focuses on haphazard food reduction rather than expansion into healthier, more affordable nutritional options. 

Local Action: In Fremont, the nutritional crisis has been approached more effectively. Through programs such as CalFresh and the Fremont Family Resource Center, local administrations are working to provide vulnerable families in local communities with fresh produce, reducing UPF reliance while simultaneously avoiding complete elimination of food choice. AB 1264 is a heavily flawed step toward improved nutritional reform. Enhanced specificity and involvement, such as that applied on a small-scale within local communities, is necessary if larger governments truly want to achieve the healthier, more equitable future for CA students that they have promised.