Lunchables – highly-processed meal kits that are high in sodium – no longer will be on school menus around the country. Kraft Heinz is removing its Turkey & Cheddar Cracker Stackers and Extra Cheesy Pizza meal kits from the National School Lunch Program due to low sales. "While many school administrators were excited to have these options, the demand did not meet our targets," Kraft Heinz spokeswoman Lynsey Elve said in a statement.
Against the outcry of some consumer advocacy groups, the United States Department of Agriculture had approved the two Lunchables meal kits to be served at the start of the academic year as part of the National School Lunch Program . The program receives federal funds to serve "nutritionally balanced" low-cost or no-cost lunches to more than 30 million public and nonprofit private school students around the country. In September, Consumer Reports and the working-class advocacy news outlet More Perfect Union called for the U.
S. Department of Agriculture to pull Lunchables from schools because testing found they contained high levels of sodium and heavy metal, among other potentially harmful ingredients. "We don't think anybody should regularly eat these products, and they definitely shouldn't be considered a healthy school lunch," said Eric Boring, a Consumer Reports chemist who led the testing for the April report about contents of Lunchables and other processed meal kits.
Consumer Reports found through its testing that sodium levels in lunch a.