Current eating patterns are damaging the environment and there is a need for dietary guidelines to address this issue. Schools can act as springboards to promote sustainable food habits. However, unlike other European national dietary guidelines, the Spanish school dietary guidelines do not include environmental sustainability guidance. In this study, a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach was used to quantify the carbon footprint (CF) of school menus designed following the Spanish school dietary guidelines and adjusting to approximately 610 kcal/lunch-meal. To do so, the menus assessed were the baseline menu and six alternative menus served in schools (the menu without dairy and without legumes, the menu without meat, the menu without fish, the menu without eggs, the hypocaloric menu and the astringent menu designed to address intestinal illnesses). The CF of the baseline menu was 24.39 kg CO₂ eq/person/monthly lunch-meal which resembled, to some extent, the CF of the Mediterranean diet obtained for adults and approximately 700 kcal/lunch-meal. Regarding the alternative menus, the astringent menu and the menu without meat presented the lowest CF, being 14.77 kg CO₂ eq/person/month and 17.11 kg CO₂ eq/person/month, respectively. It is recommended that Spanish dietary guidelines include the environmental performance of foods to optimize school menus and favor a gradual transition towards a more environmentally-friendly diet.

当前的饮食方式正在破坏环境，因此需要饮食指南来解决这个问题。学校可以充当促进可持续饮食习惯的跳板。但是，与其他欧洲国家饮食指南不同，西班牙学校饮食指南不包括环境可持续性指南。在这项研究中，使用生命周期评估（LCA）方法来量化学校菜单的碳足迹（CF），这些菜单的设计遵循西班牙学校的饮食指南，并调整为大约610 kcal /午餐餐。为此，所评估的菜单是基线菜单和学校提供的六个替代菜单（不带乳制品和豆类的菜单，不带肉的菜单，不带鱼的菜单，不带鸡蛋的菜单，用于解决肠道疾病的低热量菜单和收敛菜单）。基线菜单的CF为24.39 kg CO₂ eq /人/月的午餐膳食，在某种程度上类似于成人获得的地中海饮食的CF和大约700 kcal /午餐的膳食。关于替代菜单，收敛菜单和不带肉菜单的CF最低，分别为14.77 kg CO ₂当量/人/月和17.11 kg CO ₂当量/人/月。建议西班牙的饮食指南包括食品的环境性能，以优化学校菜单，并逐步向更环保的饮食过渡。