Published:
April 9, 2025
Weekly menu limits for added sugars: What will they generally look like?
Effective school year 2027-2028, added sugars will be limited to 10% of calories across weekly menus for the School Breakfast Program and National School Lunch Program. How will that look during menu planning?
Calorie ranges are already set for the different grade groups at breakfast and lunch. We use these to find out the added sugar limits for a particular weekly menu.
Breakfast
- K-5: 350-500
- 6-8: 400-550
- 9-12: 450-600
Lunch
- K-5: 550-650
- 6-8: 600-700
- 9-12: 750-850
Again, added sugars will be limited to 10% of calories over the week. Let's multiply each calorie range by 10%, or 0.10. These ranges will give us a general idea of how much added sugar can be on the menu.
Breakfast
- K-5: 35-50 calories from added sugars
- 6-8: 40-55 calories from added sugars
- 9-12: 45-60 calories from added sugars
Lunch
- K-5: 55-65 calories from added sugars
- 6-8: 60-70 calories from added sugars
- 9-12: 75-85 calories from added sugars
When planning a menu, you may find it easier to have the limits for added sugars in grams, since that will be the output from a nutritional analysis. Let's convert calories from added sugars to grams.
Recall that there are 4 calories in 1 gram of carbohydrate, and sugars are carbohydrates. Therefore, we divide the number of calories by 4.
Breakfast
- K-5: 8.75-12.5 g added sugars
- 6-8: 10-13.75 g added sugars
- 9-12: 11.25-15 g added sugars
Lunch
- K-5: 13.75-16.25 g added sugars
- 6-8: 15-17.5 g added sugars
- 9-12: 18.75-21.25 g added sugars