The Santa Barbara Independent republishes stories from CalMatters.org on state and local issues impacting readers in Santa Barbara County.
California is the first state in the country to ban ultraprocessed foods from school meals, aiming to transform how children eat on campus by 2035.
In the cafeteria of Belvedere Middle School in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a measure that requires K-12 schools to phase out foods with potentially harmful ultraprocessed ingredients over the next 10 years. The requirements go above and beyond existing state and federal school nutrition standards for things like fat and calorie content in school meals…