Families with students who have birthdays this fall, take note: You can't bring cupcakes or cake for class parties anymore.
That's if the treats contain one or more of 11 chemical additives and food dyes now banned from Arizona public schools during the school day and if the school wants to be listed on the Arizona Department of Education’s webpage of schools in compliance.
Under the Arizona Healthy Schools Act, which goes into effect this school year, prohibits students who have upcoming birthdays to bring in cupcakes or cake to class parties anymore.
The Arizona Healthy Schools Act, which goes into effect this school year, prohibits public schools that participate in federally funded or assisted meal programs from serving, selling or allowing a third party to sell ultra-processed food on campus during the regular school day, according to the Arizona Department of Education.
The banned ingredients include:
Potassium bromate
Propylparaben
Titanium dioxide
Brominated vegetable oil
Yellow dye 5 or 6
Blue dye 1 or 2
Green dye 3
Red dye 3 or 40
People are also reading…
The law also prohibits the service or sale of ultra-processed foods at any point during the school day, including at student celebrations, birthday parties, prizes or incentives and classroom snacks.
Cake mixes from Betty Crocker, Funfetti and Pillsbury, as well as tubs of sprinkles, strawberry icing, store-made cupcakes and candy canes, all usually contain at least one banned ingredient.
“It's not saying that you can't have celebrations,” said State Representative Leo Biasiucci, who sponsored the original bill. “But now you can do all those things and not have those dyes in it.”
The consequence if a school doesn’t comply: The Arizona Department of Education won’t give them a shoutout on their webpage.
“There was talk about … what do you do if a school doesn't comply? What if they don't care and they just don't do it?” Biasiucci said. “At the end of the day, I stuck with not doing that. So how it's going to work is ADE will have posted a website, a school is going to say ‘Yes, we're in compliance’ and they're going to let the ADE know, and then they're going to post what schools are in compliance with this new law.”
If parents don’t see the schools listed on the page, he believes they’ll question the districts and “be the kind of the police on this.”
“My whole point and goal is how do we get the school there and not just punish them and fine them,” he said.
Law is part of a national trend
Biasiucci said the law, passed unanimously in the state legislature, was inspired by a family trip to Italy.
“I was down the cereal aisle and the first thing I noticed, there was maybe 10 different cereals as opposed to a thousand that you see in the United States,” he said. “When I was looking at those I noticed how none of them had these colors and all these different things that we have here.”
He said he went down a “rabbit hole” and realized Europe had banned many of the ingredients in normal American snacks.
“When you do the research, you realize Red 40 is causing ADHD and cancers and all these huge host of problems,” he said. The National Institutes of Health says artificial food coloring is not a major cause of ADHD, but can increase hyperactivity, irritability and concentration issues in some sensitive children, which can worsen existing ADHD symptoms.
The push against food dyes and chemicals is not just an Arizona issue. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and federal health officials like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are pushing to phase out many of the same ingredients.
“I think the timing is everything,” Biasiucci said. “I think having Secretary Kennedy in the position he's in, and now there's somebody with a big microphone, people are now being receptive of it.”
Last year, 38 states saw a surge in food additive legislation with 140 proposed bills, according to MultiState, a government relations company. Most focused on restricting the “standard 11” additives, especially in schools.
“This is a bipartisan thing, we all care about our children and our health,” Biasiucci said. “It's just great to see the whole country in general care about this and care enough to pass or run legislation.”
How districts are adapting
Tucson Unified School District's breakfast and lunch menus will see no changes, said Lindsay Aguilar, the district's food services director.
"We have a clean label initiative for our meal program, so our menu already aligned," she said. "The main areas of impact would be at the campus level in terms of classroom celebrations or classroom snacks."
Aguilar said district administration sent principals and assistant principals a resource flyer to distribute to parents and teachers outlining the law and which snacks are approved for classroom distribution.
Some approved snacks include baked and kettle-cooked chips, whole grain Goldfish, unsweetened applesauce, Triscuit crackers, Angie's Boomchickapop popcorn and Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches. A full list is available at tuc.life/2lp.
Parents can still pack whatever they'd like for their own child, but must stick to school-approved snacks when providing food for the whole class.
“We're kind of in the midst of just getting this communicated out to parents,” Aguilar said. “The spirit of it is to improve health and wellness for students, health and nutrition, so we're trying to view it as a positive impact.”
Not everyone is on board.
"What really bothers me is that we are a high poverty district, and for some of our kiddos, those birthday treats are really that, a treat," one Facebook commenter wrote under a Bonillas Traditional Elementary School post on the new law. "They probably aren't eating cake often. Then there's cultural differences. Shared snacks and treats are giving children food experiences that teach them about others' cultures. That's too important to give up."
Another commenter on the same post said treats should be "OK once in a while."
"Also, brand specific? Groceries are expensive, parents have budgets," the commenter wrote.
Some approved snacks cost more than their generic counterparts. While whole grain Goldfish are priced about the same as the regular version, a four-count box of Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches costs roughly $3.64 at Walmart, compared with $2.97 for a 12-count box of Great Value-brand sandwiches.
Kenneth Harlan, the PTO president of Wakefield Middle School, told the Star the law affects the group’s ability to sell items to generate revenue for teachers and faculty. He said they will need to change how the snack bar the PTO hosts operates.
“We're gonna have to get rid of it (right after school) entirely,” Harlan said. The snack bar can continue operating as usual during night sports games or weekend events, as the law only applies during the school day to 30 minutes after.
He said overall, it’s a good law, but it does add barriers for parents and fundraising groups who sell snacks to fund field trips and extra supplies.
Marana Unified School District faces a similar situation to TUSD. Allison Benjamin, Marana’s director of public relations, said the law will mainly affect snacks donated by parents for class sharing.
“We are going to follow the rules,” she said. “But if someone comes in with a whole bag of cupcakes during their first week in school, we're of course going to take it on a case-by-case situation … while trying to proactively communicate with our families that these are the goals.”
Sunnyside Unified School District’s director of food services John Oakley said the manufacturers who provide the district’s food proactively reformulate products to exclude restricted ingredients, such as dyes, to maintain business. He said costs had not significantly increased.
Marisela Felix, the district’s director of communications, said the district and schools were communicating the new regulations to parents on shared snacks.
“The word is definitely out there, and I think our principals are pretty good about just complying with the changes that come along,” Felix said. “And so it'll be interesting to see how this plays out.”
Tanque Verde Unified School District is taking a stricter approach to comply: The district will not allow any shared food during the school day at all, according to TVUSD Communications.
In an online letter to parents, the district said it will not permit classroom parties or celebrations involving food, birthday or holiday treats, or food-based rewards. Parents can pack snacks for their own children only and are asked to provide non-food items for birthdays and other classroom celebrations.
TUSD, Marana and Sunnyside officials told the Star the state had not yet communicated the consequence if a school did not follow the rules.
After the Star relayed Rep. Biasiucci’s information on the consequence, TUSD’s Aguilar said the district still “intends to comply with the law and has, and will continue to communicate these new standards to our schools,” in an email statement.
Sunnyside’s Felix said the district would continue complying.
“There's a reason we've communicated this widely to everyone in the district, and so we do plan to be compliant with this,” she said.
Marana’s Benjamin said the district “is committed to operating in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.”
