February 3, 2023
U.S. agriculture officials on Friday proposed new nutrition standards for school meals, including the first limits on added sugars, with a focus on sweetened foods such as cereals, yogurt, flavored milk and breakfast pastries…The goal is to improve nutrition and align with U.S. dietary guidelines in the program that serves breakfast to more than 15 million children and lunch to nearly 30 million children every day, Vilsack said…
Courtney Gaine, president of the Sugar Association, said the proposal ignores the “many functional roles” sugar plays in food beyond sweetness and encourages the use of sugar substitutes, which have not been fully studied in children. Sugar substitutes are allowed under the new standards, Vilsack said.
Read the full article here: https://apnews.com/article/new-school-meal-nutrition-standards-30963aeb9f56aae0ee743c26f1117f19

February 25, 2026
Courtney Gaine, president and CEO of the Sugar Association, which represents the industry on scientific matters, said at the International Sweetener Colloquium. “It is really easy to regulate sugar. You can get easy wins for sugar,” Gaine said as she others discussed the impact of the MAHA movement. “The narrative is: The government and food […]

February 20, 2026
Courtney Gaine, president and CEO of the Sugar Association, a scientific body which supports the U.S. sugar industry, told the USDA Outlook Forum that the school meal standards taking effect next year might prohibit added sugars in kindergarten meals and significantly restrict them in other grades. That change alone would cut sugar demand by over […]

January 10, 2026
The health secretary’s new dietary guidelines tell parents to cut the added sugar until their kids turn 11. “Misleading rhetoric “declaring war” on and creating unsubstantiated fear about a real ingredient like real sugar will not improve children’s health,” said Courtney Gaine, the association’s president and CEO, in a statement. “Real sugar — which comes […]
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