Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Joining us, we're going to have an introduction and walkthrough of H536, which is an act related to toxic heavy metal in baby food products. Welcome.

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: Thanks for having me. Good afternoon, chair and members of the committee. I am representative Mary Katherine Stone of Burlington, Vermont, and thanks for the opportunity to come in here and speak about H536. I want to share to start by sharing why this bill is deeply personal to me and then why I felt compelled to introduce it here in Vermont. I first heard about this issue from my friend and colleague, delegate Michelle Maldonado of Virginia. She was speaking about a rare bipartisan win in her state in a time of increasing polarization. And that alone caught my attention. What could have made it out of the Virginia house with no opposition? When I learned it was a legislation addressing toxic heavy metals and baby food, I started digging deeper and what I found was alarming. Around that same time, I was pregnant and thinking carefully about every choice affecting my child's health. I was shocked to learn that even in this year, 2026, toxic heavy metals and things that we have heard of like lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury can still be found in foods marketed for babies and toddlers. As parents, we assume baby food is among the most highly scrutinized products on the market. But the reality is that testing and disclosure are not consistently required and parents often have no way of knowing what is in the products they buy. My concern is not only personal, it's also professional. I am a licensed and registered occupational therapist with significant experience in additional certifications working with children. I have worked in pediatric settings, including a neonatal intensive care unit where I helped infants develop feeding skills. I have spent years supporting child development and partnering with families on nutrition and growth. And yet, despite that background, I did not know this was an issue until I started researching it myself. That realization was powerful. If someone with my training and experience was unaware, how could we expect the average Vermonter to know? That told me immediately that transparency itself is a form of consumer protection, and it's not theoretical. In Maryland, Rudy's law was inspired by a child who suffered lead poisoning linked to contaminated food pouches. That story underscores that this issue has real world consequences for real families. These exposures, even at low levels can affect neurological development, learning and lifelong health outcomes. We're not alone. Other States are recognizing this. California, Maryland, Virginia, and Illinois have all passed similar laws requiring testing and transparency for baby foods. These efforts have been bipartisan and grounded in public health, not politics. They show that this is a workable policy and that states do not have to wait for federal action to protect their residents. What H536 does is straightforward. It sets expectations disclosure and transparency so parents can make informed decisions. It aligns with federal guidance while closing gaps that currently leave families in the dark. It does not ban foods or vilify manufacturers. It simply says that when products are made for our youngest and most vulnerable, we should meet a higher standard of openness and accountability. I've already heard from legislators in other states, as well as our own advocates, medical professionals, environmental groups, and families who are ready to testify. The Vermont Medical Society and others are interested in this conversation because they see the public health value. This breadth of support reinforces what I believe strongly. This is not a party issue and it's not even a political issue. It is a public health issue. At the end of the day, parents have to be chemists or policy experts to feel confident feeding their babies. The very least we can do is ensure they have access to clear information that we and we are minimizing avoidable risk wherever possible. Our children cannot advocate for themselves. So it's our responsibility to do that. If food resiliency means anything, it must include protecting the smallest Vermonters who depend entirely on the safety of our food supply. That's why I brought this bill forward and that's why I respectfully ask your support.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thank you very much. Do we have any questions for representative Stoney? You mentioned that was Virginia first that you were aware of. And has the bill already Is this legislation now passed and enacted in law in Virginia?

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: In 2026, this year. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And how about the other states that you mentioned?

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: Where was it? Maryland has it. It's Rudy's Law. That's the one that was brought forth because of a very tragic situation. I think that went through last year, 2024, 2025, and then California also has enacted it. And Illinois, they're all on board. So some big states. Some big states and all over the red, blue states, doesn't matter.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative O'Brien?

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Can you explain why these toxic chemicals are in these foods? Because you think companies would have nutritionists, and would they actually feed these same baby foods to their own babies?

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: Yeah, that's the million dollar question. I think just because there have been gaps and loopholes that have existed for so long that it's just kind of flown under the radar until kids start getting sick or die. And then we start asking questions and the curtains being pulled back and that's why all these states are coming forward.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. In the processing, does it make the food taste better?

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Mean, I'm just wondering why, is it just happened along the way in sort of industrial food manufacturing?

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: I mean, I don't know. That'd be a good question for for the manufacturer, you know, and that's part of this bill is just to be transparent about what is in their food because we don't know. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Representative Nelson.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Where we need the look is what where is food coming from? Mhmm. Where is it being manufactured? Is it was it manufactured in Flint, Michigan with bad water pipes? You know, was the water contaminated in making this is it coming from farms where they've applied sludge on the land? I could just a squash grown anywhere shouldn't have heavy metals in it unless there's heavy metals in the soil. My son wouldn't eat squash. He loves squash now at 28, but he wouldn't eat it as a baby because of way. But, you know, so, you know, but it is so important, you know, and that they get this right because it Well, thank you for bringing it to our awareness.

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: Yeah, thanks for

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Was it even true in some organic foods? I mean, that'd be the interesting thing.

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: Again, I mean, that's why this bill is like pushing for that testing to happen so that we know where the issues are and then can start pinpointing why and where in the process it's happening. But it's something that's the whole point of this bill. It's like figuring out, are they doing the testing and what are the levels? So, yeah, it could be through contamination of soil, water, just like you said, as to why it's happening, yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Greg, did you have

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: a hand up? Somebody else can. Someone's Someone's holding my hand up. I'm just wondering, you mentioned the Maryland law that was passed, and I think you mentioned it was related to packaging. Is there as broad as this, or do you know?

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: I would defer to legislative council, but it was linked to lead that was in a packaged pouch, but it didn't specifically say that it was like from the package. It could have just been it was in

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: the food and then in a pouch. Wasn't just a packaging bill that they passed.

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: It was very similar to this, and this language was directly taken from delegate Maldonado from Virginia, who's the person I heard about.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We'll bring up Legislature Council in a minute to look at the actual bill language, but Representative Bos-

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: I was just gonna ask, I mean, it sounds like in terms of trying to find out where the problem is, testing is the key. Who's doing the testing in this case? Manufacturer.

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: It doesn't and I mean, Legg Council can go through the details of the bill, but it wouldn't fall on, like, the store owner to do it or It's not the Department of Health or something like It's individual. Yeah. And then they would like, you know, it goes through like it did in Virginia. They have QR codes that they put on their products so that when it's delivered to the, you know, general store in Island Pond, it's already on there. Like, they we don't have to do anything. And then the attorney general in the Department of Health would be working together to make sure that that's happening. And if it's not, then they're the ones who would go after the manufacturer. Thanks.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Good. Well, you very much If for joining you need to get back to your Okay. Can feel free to stay if you can.

[Katie McLain Barton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I'll stay. Mister

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: chairman, Mary Katherine, first of all, your presentation was really elegant,

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: serious. I before the New York state thruway was built, we used to you're going west or Wisconsin. You'd ride on US 20. And if you go by Canada, Jaharadore, peach nut baby foods with several sea hoppers

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: for a year, I'm going back well over half a century. I don't know if they're still there. They're not.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's quite a sight, empty, round filled. But

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: the FDA, I can't believe that they don't know. Maybe they've been defunded, but it's just remarkable that these type of toxic metals

[Katie McLain Barton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I said it felt like a

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: I remember reading Upton Sinclair's The Jungle when I was in high school.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: One best

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: thing ever

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: talking about rope ends and stuff being found in the food, and that kinda pulled back the curtain on what Americans were eating. And I feel like this is a similar situation. When I was reading this in the middle and listening to my friend talk about it, I felt the same way. Like I was listening to that Upton Sinclair novel, it's 2026 and our kids are eating arsenic and some kids are dying because of eating lead. Anyway, this bill is really important and I appreciate you taking the time to listen. Thank

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: you. Yeah. All right. Let's have Katie come on up and we'll This is not a long bill. Is not a short form bill. It is a long form bill, but it's not a long bill. We won't have to absorb too much here. Good afternoon.

[Katie McLain Barton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Hey, Anne. Hey, McBarton. Thank you. Office of Legislative Council. Let me share my screen.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We were to move on next chair.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Does this go down to senate, does it go to a different group of the senate? Because they don't have food or sign seat act on there.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. We the reason that we have the bill is that it was originally assigned across the hall. So it's a health related bill, they didn't have the time because of all the other things on their agenda, and they asked if we had time. And I said, we might, so let's take a look. When it got to the Senate, they would probably have go to the Health and Welfare Committee. So

[Katie McLain Barton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: as you've heard, this language was pulled from a couple of different states. I pulled language from Virginia and I pulled language from California as I was putting this together. This does a few different things. This requires that a manufacturer test the final product before it goes, is distributed, and that those test results be accessible to consumers via a QR code on the back of the product or wherever on the product. And so that the consumer could scan that and have a sense of what the test results were. There's also language that says if a certain substance exceeds toxicity levels established by the FDA that they cannot be sold. If a consumer were to find that a product does exceed those levels when they're using their QR code, there is language that this would be enforced by the AG's office. It's sort of standard language that we use throughout the VSA. So that gives you a sense of where we are. This language would be located in Title 18, our health title, under the labeling of food, drugs, cosmetics and hazardous substances. I'm creating a new subchapter. And in that subchapter, we have this new section for baby food products. I usually don't spend a lot of time on definitions, but I think here it might be useful to spend a little bit of time. So a baby food product means food manufactured, packaged, and labeled in a jar, pouch, tub, or box sold specifically for babies and children younger than two years of age. But it does not include infant formula. We have the Commissioner, meaning the Commissioner of Health. The final baby food product means the finished baby food product, not the constituent ingredients. That language is used when we're referring to testing, that it's the final baby food product that's being tested. And because we just had a carve out for infant formula, what does that mean? That means the commercially available milk based or soy based powder, concentrated liquid or ready to feed substitute for human breast milk that is intended for human consumption?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Can we get a question?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. Why would we care about formula? We've had some problems with infant formula, especially stuff that maybe comes from a country that produces para cloth, but doesn't allow it to be used, just saying. You know, why would we carve out infant formula?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So that might be a question for the bill sponsor, but if you have an answer that you think you wanna share, Katie, feel free to

[Katie McLain Barton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: say it was a policy question.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's a policy, yeah, okay.

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: It's up to y'all.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I'm sorry, go ahead I'm with that

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: the opposition to that, if that's the route that you wanna go. I mean, arsenic is arsenic. I don't want anything that I'm given Salem, period. So it's up to y'all.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Does this follow Virginia's?

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: The Virginia did not include, I know Virginia doesn't include infant formula, but I spoke with the bill sponsor, delegate Donato about it and she wasn't against it. She was just like, it's up to y'all, you go for it, go for it. They didn't just because, I don't know if they didn't have time, but she wasn't against it.

[Katie McLain Barton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Production aggregate means a quantity of product that is intended to have uniform composition, character and quality, and is produced according to a master manufacturing order. And then we talk a little bit about the laboratory that's going to be doing the testing. It's referred to as a proficient laboratory, and that means it is accredited under the International Organization for Standardization or the International Electrotechnical Commission pursuant to certain standards. And those are standards are general requirements for competence of testing in calibration laboratories. It means that it uses analytical method as sensitive as the analytical method described for the US FDA's Elemental Analysis Manual for Food Related Products. And also the laboratory demonstrates proficiency in quantifying each toxic element to at least six micrograms of the toxic element to kilogram of food through an independent proficiency test by achieving a Z score that is less than or equal to plus or minus two. QR code, we know what that is. That's the label that would be printed on the package. Representative sample, that's what would be tested. It means a sample that consists of a number of units that are drawn based on rational criteria, including random sampling and intended to ensure that the sample accurately portrays the material being sampled. When we say toxic heavy metal, that's not open ended. That means arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury. URL, I think we all know what that means. And then US FDA is our Food and Drug Administration. So in subsection B, we have language that a person is not permitted to sell, distribute or offer for sale any baby food product that contains a toxic heavy metal, one of the four listed that exceeds the limits established by the US FDA. The provisions of this subsection shall not restrict the continued sale of inventory and stock before 01/01/2026. So if there's already been product made and distributed, it's already on shelves January. This is not, assuming that it hasn't expired, this is not prohibiting the sale of those particular products. Subsection gets into the testing and the labeling of products. So in Subsection C, a manufacturer of a baby food product shall test a representative sample of each production aggregate of the manufacturer's final baby product for those four toxic heavy metals. The testing of the baby food product shall be conducted by a proficient laboratory. That's the term we just went over in the definitions at least one time a month. And the manufacturer of a baby food may test the final baby food product before packaging individual units for sale or distribution. Upon request of the commissioner, meaning the Commissioner of Health, a manufacturer is to provide the results of the test conducted pursuant to this section. The Commissioner of Health can request for that information directly from the manufacturer. Why

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I can understand and estimate before it's packaged.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Mhmm.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: But shouldn't there be a random sample done after packaging? You know, if it's packaged in a glass jar, that's sterile. I have confidence in it. But if it's packaged in these foil things that maybe aren't manufactured, how how do you know that the heavy metals could be introduced via the packaging?

[Katie McLain Barton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The packaging? I think that's a policy question. I I think you could write that into your bill that you after packaging has happened, you would like random sampling of products before they go out the door. I think that's up to the committee.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Maybe after they sit on the shelf a month. I'm just trying to wrap my head all up.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: That's a good Yeah. I think that sort of two things that you flagged here that we might Like wanna add back to

[Rep. John O'Brien]: the BPA, know, turning to the BPA.

[Katie McLain Barton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So we just talked about the testing. Dee will start talking about the labeling. The manufacturer of the baby food shall make publicly available on its website for the duration of the product shelf life, plus an additional month for each baby product sold, manufactured or delivered or offered for sale in the state. The name and level of each toxic heavy metal and the final baby food product is determined by the testing that we just talked about in C. The website would have sufficient information, including the product name, universal product code, or a lot or batch number to enable consumers to identify the final baby food product. And lastly, the website would include a link to the US FDA's website that provides the most recent FDA guidance and information about the health effects of toxic heavy metals on children.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And

[Katie McLain Barton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: then subsection E, if the baby food product is tested for a toxic heavy metal subject to an FDA action level, regulatory limit or tolerance, And the manufacturer is to display on the baby food product a label stating in a clear, legible, conspicuous manner that more information about toxic element testing on the product is available by scanning that QR code. Also, a QR code or other machine readable code that directs consumers to the manufacturer's website or the baby food product information page providing the test results for the toxic heavy metal and a URL to the website on the FDA's website that includes the most recent guidance and information about the health effects of toxic heavy metals in children. So there's two ways consumers are getting information. It's going to be posted on the manufacturer's website. And if there's a certain threshold or substance that's found during the testing, there's also going to be the QR code that consumers can access right on the product. Subsection F. If a consumer reasonably believes based on the information provided on the baby food product that it's being sold in the state in violation of this section, the consumer can report that product to the Commissioner of Health. And then this subsection G is the standard language that I was referring to earlier that says that a violation of this would be a violation of the Consumer Protection Act, which would be enforced by the Attorney General's Office. So this is language that I'm sure you've seen throughout the essays. And it takes effect July '26.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Great, thank you. Questions about language the of self implications. All

[Rep. John O'Brien]: manufacturers of baby food have to follow this? I was just thinking if they were Vermont based baby foods, if it was at a farmer's market level, they have to do this.

[Katie McLain Barton (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Doesn't have a carve out for the size of the manufacturer. I think the threshold question is where is it being sold and distributed? And if it's in the state, then they would be subject to this.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, do have, I think we do have some small scale, I think so, producers, manufacturers, yeah. Okay, represent Lipsky.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Sure, Durfee, we have one of the greatest state of the art agency of agriculture,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: food,

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: and markets testing laboratory down in.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: We were down adjacent to it where weights and measures are also just three weeks ago. But, they could test parts per trillion of EFOS and those sort of things that there aren't a lot of labs in the country that do. You could maybe get

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: some text.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You might have I'll a add it to the list here, yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You were thinking the same way I was, Jed. I can't my brain waves.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, we were there a couple of weeks ago, so you got to see exactly where it was. That helps. All right. If there are any other questions, thank you, Katie, for If coming we move forward with the bill, then we'll be in touch and maybe have feedback for some markup.

[Nancy James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sounds great.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Some of our testimony in the meantime. Okay, very good. Thank very much.

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: Yeah, you're welcome.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right, next up, I think we have our own representative log in pop job.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Right, thank you. You're welcome. All

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: right, so moving forward now to Bill H-sixty eight. This is a short form bill on our wall and was introduced by Representative Bos-Lun, who we all know, and who drew on the corner from her seat. So if you want to give us There'll be very little for Ledge Council to show up when we have the bill up on the screen. So we can give you a little more time than we normally would, I think, Michelle. You can fry her? Yes.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: So when I So hello, I'm representative Michelle Bos-Lun from the next seat over, but also representing Windham 3 District. The form the bill was introduced in, as you all know, is extraordinarily short and there wouldn't be much to report on. Although that can tell you what there is. But when I put in the bill with very general language, it was with the goal of giving us some time to think more carefully about what would work for us, what would work for Vermont. And as a person who cares about food and cares about kids and cares about health, when you put all those things together, it's kind of this bill. It's what can we do for kids to promote their health? We can try to make sure that the food that they're getting at school every day is as healthy as it can be. So I do actually have some paragraphs of description of why we need a change, and then two actually relatively short specific recommendations for what I would suggest we do to go forward with the bill for this year. And then there would be future steps that a future legislature would need to decide. So I'm going go ahead and read my prepared remarks. As members of the committee with jurisdiction over food issues, we all know how important the school lunch program is to the well-being of Vermont children and youth. We know there are some schools already doing a great job cooking meals from scratch in Vermont, often with ingredients grown on farms or gardens close to them. And yet other schools face constraints that make it more challenging to transition to cooking from scratch using Whole Foods. The quality of food available to kids in school cafeterias across Vermont is sometimes excellent and sometimes not. Our farm to school programs are doing great work bringing locally grown Vermont produce into our schools. And I've heard from teachers how much the students enjoy eating vegetables they've grown. We can get kids to like healthy food, but we need to remove or at least reduce the tempting fast and ultra processed foods that are not the best nutritional option and can cause our kids harm. I worked in a Vermont public high school last year and watched many students carrying trays filled with tater tots and chicken nuggets day after day. Rarely did I see a fruit or vegetable, unless you count the tater tots, which are highly processed. Kids can build better eating habits if we provide them with tempting options. I visited the cafeteria in my hometown school in Westminster a couple of years ago and was impressed by the abundance of tasty items, including things like hearty salads. The kids were very eager and ate everything that was put out. So the food that we feed our kids is going to impact how they grow. And what has happened in many cases is that our kids are growing up to be unhealthy in some of the same ways that our generation is becoming unhealthy. And that's with the obesity crisis. So I was looking at the Vermont Department of Health Statistics this morning, and they said sixty percent of Vermonters are either obese or overweight. It's about fifty percent in each category. And this leads to a lot of chronic diseases, forty thousand new cases of type two diabetes every year in Vermont, forty two thousand cases of cardiovascular disease developing in Vermont each year. And these are diseases that are very much correlated with and exacerbated by carrying too much body weight. Well, if you look at kids, about one in four Vermont children, 12 to nineteen is either overweight or obese. And even among very young children, ages two to five years old, about thirteen percent are obese. So our kids are starting out on a dangerous track that is likely to lead to a not very good place, at least a number of them are. There are several factors contributing to the excess weight issues in chronic disease in Vermont's children. Increased consumption of empty calorie, lower nutrient dense food and reduced physical activity all contribute to the rising obesity rates in Vermont's children. With many children in Vermont consuming one to two meals a day at schools, we have an opportunity to have an impact, a positive impact on the health of our children here in Vermont. California was the first state to make a law setting a timeline for the elimination of ultra processed foods with their Real Food Healthy Kids Act that passed last year. But 30 other states are considering it right now, too. We all want the best for our kids, and that means real food, not chemicals and processed foods. The intention of H868 is to help Vermont move towards the elimination of ultra processed foods in Vermont school lunches and move towards a day where lunches will be made almost entirely from whole foods. I should say lunches and other meals. We don't wanna get stuck the way the milk bill was. So we'll make sure that anytime food is mentioned as a meal, it should say meal, not just lunches. We'll move towards a day where meals will be made almost entirely from whole foods and with minimally processed without high sugar, high fat or high salt. Transitioning Vermont school lunches will be more challenging for some schools than for others. This will not be a quick process nor an easy one, but I believe we all agree that serving kids wholesome real food instead of highly processed less nutritious offerings is a goal worth pursuing for Vermont's kids. California's law to eliminate ultra processed foods focused on a list of chemicals and when those chemicals would no longer be served in the school lunch program. West Virginia passed a bill which eliminated some dyes and preservatives. My vision for our bill is that it's not gonna look like that, at least not the version that we're gonna move forward this session. This is partly because we don't have time to learn about all the chemicals that go into packaged food and which are critical and which aren't. But it's more important because we want the process of helping move Vermont schools towards healthier offerings to be decided on by a broader variety of stakeholders that would include nutrition directors who'd be making the changes within the schools and other stakeholders. So the changes should be determined by a bigger team that includes more people than us who have more experience with the day to day experience of providing school meals. So now I'm going to tell you what do I envision for the bill this year? I told you what I don't envision for it. I'll tell you what I do envision for it. First of all, I would like to see H-eight sixty eight establish a Vermont School Meals Task Force. It would include school nutrition directors, teachers, legislators, parents, and advocates involved in food policy. The group would address questions like, what are the challenges facing schools that use more ultra processed foods? What are the strategies that schools utilizing the most local produce have embraced to make from scratch cooking workable? What foods or chemicals do we want to absolutely phase out? Are there other factors such as the school schedule and how long students are available to eat breakfast and lunch that we need to factor in when making plans? I spoke with the school nutrition director yesterday, and he told me if we passed the bill and started a Vermont meals, school meals task force after the session adjourned in May, he thought we could convene the task force and come up with guidelines to submit to the House and Senate Agriculture Committees and the Department of Education by December 15 year. These recommendations should consider the full days at school and how food is available to students can be as, sorry, how the food available to students can be as healthy as possible with ultra processed foods being minimized or phased out, perhaps over a five to six year period as California did. The recommendations of the task force would be sent to the members of the committee, as well as to the Senate Agriculture Committee most likely, and the future of the elimination of ultra processed foods would be in the hands of the next legislature. So the second part that I would wanna include it in the bill this year is just to establish a timeline. What is the goal that we're gonna tell the task force to work towards? Are we looking at five to six years? Are we looking at three years? Are we looking at ten years? What's realistic, what's ambitious enough to be helpful for our kids, but also not cumbersome and unrealistic in terms of making changes in the kitchens where that would be needed. So those are my ideas. My vision for the bill is to have August set up a task force to develop guidelines, to help improve the delivery of meals without harmful chemicals and additives, and with more whole foods and to give the task force a timeline of when we want these transitions to be accomplished by. I look forward to working on these important goals to help Vermont kids with our committee.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Thanks, Sean. I'm really glad now that we had Boisey Toof here in this morning, even though it's kind of flipped, you're able to hear her the Yeah, last time Richard.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: So earlier, you know, when I talked about the hot dog, there's nothing wrong with hot dog once in a while. Right. Don't live on hot dog. Yeah. Mentioned tater tots. So there's a condition in potatoes called hollow heart.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Mhmm.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And this year, there was quite a few hollow heart potatoes, and what it is is potatoes are growing in a drought condition. Yep. And all of a sudden, they get some water.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yep. And

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: they grow rapidly Yep. But the outside grows, the inside doesn't, so it creates that hollow heart. Yep. A hollow hearted potato is not marketable in a store. Yep. Those all go to the hot dog of the work potato world, which are tater tots. And I'm not completely sure how they make, I know they they wash them and they chop up the whole potato skins and all. What skin can be the best part of the potato? I don't know what kind of hydrogenate, hydra Hydrogenated. Oil they put with it, that's the bad stuff. Mhmm. That's the bad stuff. It's not the potato. But anyway, it it it's a worthy it's worth looking into. And as we heard earlier from the the ad department, you know, Maybe it's picking out certain chemicals we don't want in here.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Yeah, mean, and there's all different ways that you can define. I mean, like I decided not to put a strict definition of ultra processed foods into the bill because in a way it doesn't really matter. What matters to me is that we're trying to move Vermont and Vermont Food for Kids to a healthier place that includes more whole foods. It's less chemicals and more whole foods, But there are some chemicals in our food and some of those maybe are acceptable and some of those aren't. But I think instead of us determining that, working with the nutrition directors to determine what are the critical ones and what could be better, I think that would be helpful. Mean, when we had the nutrition director visiting here a couple of weeks ago, he said he thought this bill would be a good idea because it would nudge them to do better. Well, let's nudge them. If they want to be nudged, let's nudge them.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Representative Burtt. Well, that's

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: again, we're all on the same lines now. We figure out a system where those potatoes will go to schools at a discount rate and they can make their own french fries with them, you know, mashed potatoes.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: That's what I do. I use EVO and I bake them in the oven. Or I use Cabot and I fry them

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: in a pan. I think that difficult, and obviously Rosie could speak to that more, these contracts are so rigid in a lot of ways, and these companies, they don't wanna have to think about oh, there's discounted potatoes, let's offer that to the schools. Don't perform a swim group doesn't, I'd love to see that kind of stuff happen.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: I was talking to Rosie in the hallway after she presented to our group this morning. And one of the things she said in terms of a way that the school districts that are more economically challenged, one of the ways that they have found to be able to use the local food incentive is through having when their contracts come due. If they have a management company, they write into the contract, you need to use this percentage for for in terms of the local of the local buying, and they do it. So like the Springfield School District is not a wealthy school district, and they had 25 local buying, and they put that into their contract the last time that they signed on. So there are ways that that can happen, but people need to be thinking about it proactively. And then there also has to be a will, because it to is be more work to make more stuff from scratch than to have things packaged. But I think that with a bunch of smart people sitting together with good intentions, we can come up with something good. And I don't think it has to be entirely exclusionary. I think we could really make our own bill and see what works for Vermont.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Jed? Yeah, I have a question, and then I'll start with

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: a comment that I would recommend that when this committee takes action,

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: the

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: legislative representative on this task force. Yeah.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: But now I'll go to my flat you know, in the last few years, we've heard where we get these commodity foods that come to not just the food shelf, but schools. And then we heard this morning how, you know, $2.29 for a lunch. You know? What will the impact of this bill have on cost per meal? Do you have any sense? Will it be similar, or will it raise

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Well, I mean, it's hard to say exactly. I mean, I think the way Rosie was describing it, the amount of money that's going into our lunches is very small. And so if you're going to improve the quality of the food, you're probably gonna need to spend a little bit more money. That said, it doesn't have to be that. I don't believe that at least in all cases that it has to be that. I mean, you think about something like a potato, if you buy a potato and bake a potato, you can eat it. It's a whole food. It's a good food. Maybe you add a little bit of butter in it, not the healthiest, but a little bit, fine. But you know what? You take that same potato, if somebody made french fries or tater tots or shoestring potatoes or potato chips, you're processing it more and more and more. And actually, it's gonna be more expensive to buy a bag of potato chips than to buy a single potato. Absolutely. And so I think there are ways depending on, it might have to involve changing some of the ways that people cook in the kitchen in order to make it work. But I think there are a lot of schools that have been transitioning to making more and more things from scratch. And I actually don't know how much of a cost differential that is. So I can't answer your question exactly, except to say, like in my house, I cook almost everything from scratch. And I actually think I save money doing that compared to buying foods that are ready made, the kind of food that I would like to eat. So it feels like there should be some way to do that on an institutional scale, but it's gonna take a lot of minds thinking together to figure it out. So, I don't have a simple answer for you today. Well, I'm not saying the cause. But my guess is there could be an increase, but we also might be able to make some notable improvements without it being substantially more expensive. Like we could rule things out without it necessarily becoming more expensive. It would just involve some variations.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: I see an important aspect of this bill that I don't think you mentioned, and that is education, which I think our schools are still supposed to do that. And basically when you're going through school, you're learning a lot about judgment and decision making and these are the kinds of things that stick with you for the rest of your life. And that whole thing can be carried over the food and learning what developing appetites, learning what's food, what isn't food. So I think that's a really important aspect of this in addition to the other things you mentioned.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: That there'd be some curriculum developed around nutrition for instance.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt]: Just the fact that the exposure and at the earliest stages to readjust what people view as good food and what they wanna eat, And that can change their behavior for the rest of their life.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Yeah. Well, and I absolutely believe that if kids are exposed to more healthy food, they will adopt those foods and see those as normal because it's whatever they're used to. I mean, my first job out of college, I was working at a school for Lakota kids in South Dakota. And I was a vegetarian and most of them weren't. But I made quiche one day. Well, I can tell you none of them had ever had quiche. They looked at it and they said, What is this? I said, Well, it's got eggs and broccoli and cheese. And one of them quick right away says, Egg pie, gross. And then they were all, Gross, gross. Nobody wanted to eat the egg pie. So my husband and I ate the egg pie and a couple other kids tasted it, but not very impressed. You know what? I made it two more times, and then they started asking for it. You know, I would tell them they had to take a bite. And once they got used to it, they were like, Oh, this is good. You know? So kids can eat kids can get used to stuff. They can't their Their palates can be educated to make better choices.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think we should thank you, Michelle. And we'll keep the ideas percolating here, but why don't we ask a pledge council to come up and show us the bill?

[Bradley Schulman (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, it's such a complicated bill.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: Might have it memorized already.

[Nancy James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Nancy James, Office of Legislative Council and

[Bradley Schulman (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Bradley Schulman, Office of Legislative Counsel.

[Nancy James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I am your education policy attorney. And with some of you, a few years ago, we did the universal school meals bill, which is why I'm here. But I don't know anything about ultra processed foods. That's why Bradley is here. So should you choose to take up this bill, this is probably something that we'll do together depending on where you go and what you do with it. As Let's see.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: It's for anyone who's following along, it's 868, and it is on our committee page.

[Nancy James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So as your chair just mentioned, this is eight sixty eight as introduced. It is a short form bill. So all it has is a statement of purpose that reads, this bill proposes to establish guidelines to phase out the use of ultra processed foods and increase cooking from scratch using more whole fresh foods in Vermont's school food programs. And the bill is entitled an act relating to prohibiting the use of altered processed foods in school food programs. And for those of you who worked on universal meals, and it sounds like you had Rosie in earlier, so maybe you've already covered this, school food programs is a defined term in Vermont law. So we're referring to the federal meals programs, the school lunch and breakfast programs. And that is it.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Does that include the sort of smart snacks universe we were hearing about from Rosie?

[Nancy James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, I don't know anything about that, but there's nothing in the title 16 Universal Meals Program that mentions smart snacks.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: We're ready for machine food. Oh,

[Nancy James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't think the school Well, let's look at it. I don't think so. So the definition of school foods is the provision of food to persons under programs meeting standards for assistance under the National School Lunch Act and the Child Nutrition Act, which is the breakfast piece. So if the food you're talking about is covered under those programs, then yes. But if it's not swept in through those programs, then I would

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: say there's nothing in Title 16 in our Universal Meals programs that talks about those foods. Some schools or some of the legislation that I've looked at has included limiting snacks and snack sales and vending machine sales, but it doesn't have to. Like, we could we can decide if we wanna include that or not. Have

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: you considered reaching out to secretary Bobby and the Baja movement, make America healthy again, and because he would probably endorse this. Just saying that you could be the bridge between the left and the right to come together, Michelle?

[Rep. Mary Katherine Stone]: I have to say, I haven't thought

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: of that, Richard, but now that you've mentioned it, I'll ponder it a little bit.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And being a little bit facetious with that, but I this is how can you not support this? For

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So thank you for I know you came in a half hour ago, and I hope you were able to do some work while you were sitting on the sidelines there. But I appreciate all the work that you put into drafting this bill. Oh, Thank you.

[Nancy James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: All the power. Yeah. Thank you. Anything else from us?

[Bradley Schulman (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The only thing I was going to add, but it sounds like with Representative Bos-Lun's overview, I think that the goals of this, the bill takes care of this, but ultra processed food is not defined in state law. And in federal law, the FDA is examining a definition of ultra processed foods. So they're taking comment on how to define that as part of the federal administration's health initiatives to define what an ultra processed food is. But it sounds like the goals of this bill is less so defining an ultra processed food, certainly not defining ultra processed food for agriculture as a whole, more of defining what is good food, whole foods for kids to eat in schools and to examine what that means for our school system. So just to kind of get that context of the narrow kind of goals of this bill as to not create like a definition of multi process food that would affect all of that culture or something of the sort.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Jed? Yeah, just what was the sort of intended universe of school? Because is that definition in there too? Because it could be pre K or PCCs up through UDM.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun]: It's the public schools. I mean, currently, I think it goes from daycare centers through high school.

[Nancy James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So there's two, and this is really where Rosie's expertise comes in. There's two, there's the federal food programs that operate Well, food programs as defined in our state law refer to programs that are run under the National School Lunch Program and the Child Nutrition Act. The way our universal meals program operates is that if you are a public school, an approved independent school, or there are some pre K programs that qualify. If you are running one of those federal meals programs, then you can participate in the universal meals program. There may be other childcare programs or adult care programs or after school programs that are also participating in federal programs related to food that aren't covered under the National School Lunch Act or the Child Nutrition Act. So that is one piece that you can have if you vote to take this bill up and if you choose to advance it. And if it does end up being a task force, that is something that you could ask the task force to make recommendations to you all. Is, are there any other food programs that are either federally supported or state supported that you want to include whatever guidance to? But our universal meals program does cover some independent schools, all the public schools. The public schools are required to participate. Independent schools can opt in. And then there are some pre K programs that are operated in childcare centers that can also opt

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: It's

[Nancy James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: not straightforward.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: If we vote to take this bill up, or in this case, Beth, should I come to you or Bradley for

[Nancy James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think if you are doing If your goal is to do a task force, I think either of us can handle that. And so maybe both of us and then we can amongst ourselves But yes, I think we'll probably both be involved no matter what. Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right, any questions for either or any of our witnesses here? All right, thank you very much. You're welcome. You are back and we're done, Patricia, for this segment.