Browsing by Subject "early childhood education and care"

Background: Food systems and diets affect both human health and the environment. As dietary behaviour adopted in childhood often track to adulthood, the meals served in daycare centres offer a good opportunity for promoting healthy and climate-friendly eating habits in both short- and long-term. Objectives: As part of the FoodStep project, the objectives of this study were to examine compliance with the food-level recommendations, nutrient content per child and climate impacts of the conventional menus in Finnish daycare centers, as well as the potential changes in the compliance with the food-level recommendations, nutrient content per child and climate impacts of the FoodStep menus, modified towards more plant-based diet. Methods: Menus, recipes, and planned portion sizes were used to create hypothetical food diaries, representing the planned foods per child during a full-day daycare. Nutrient calculations were performed for conventional menus and modified FoodStep menus for four Finnish municipalities. Climate impacts of the same meals were calculated at Natural Resources Institute of Finland. Results: In the conventional menus, food-level serving frequency recommendations were not met for several food groups, but the compliance was clearly improved in the modified FoodStep menus in all the municipalities. At nutrient-level, the issues in the two menus were similar in every municipality: compared to the recommendations for daycares, too low proportion of energy was derived from fat and too high from protein. In addition, the planned salt supplies were excessive. The planned supplies of energy and micronutrients fulfilled the recommendations with the only exception of iron in the conventional menu of one municipality. In three of the four municipalities, the FoodStep menu modifications led to markedly reduced climate impacts. Conclusions: More focus in daycare menu planning would be needed to meet both the food- and nutrient-level recommendations. Moderate modifications of the conventional daycare menus – increasing vegetables, fruits, and berries, and sustainable fish species and decreasing meat and dairy products – can improve the compliance with the food-level recommendations and decrease the climate impacts of the menus without negative effects on the nutrient supplies.