TL;DR: What a Philippine school may serve is not a matter of taste. DepEd Order No. 13, s. 2017 sorts food and drinks into green, yellow and red. Green should always be available. Yellow may be served once or twice a week only, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in smaller servings. Red should not be served at all, and a packaged product fails outright if any single nutrient lands in red. The feeding programme, governed separately by DepEd Order No. 013, s. 2026, serves hot fortified meals supplying at least one-third of the daily requirement under the Philippine Dietary Reference Intake, on a 20-day or 40-day cycle menu. And since DO 009, s. 2026, legislated observances including Nutrition Month run strictly within the classroom through lesson integration.
If you are planning food for Nutrition Month, the useful question is not what looks good on a table. It is what the canteen is permitted to sell every other day of the year, because that is the standard your activity should match rather than contradict. This guide sets out the actual categories, the nutrient thresholds behind them, and what the feeding programme cooks.
The Rule Behind Every School Menu
DO 13, s. 2017, the Policy and Guidelines on Healthy Food and Beverage Choices in Schools and in DepEd Offices, does four things: it makes healthier options available, introduces a system for categorising locally available food, provides guidance for evaluating and categorising, and governs selling and marketing in schools and DepEd offices, including purchasing for school feeding.
The order is still operative. DepEd cites it in current issuances, including DO 010, s. 2026, which directs that nutritious snacks provided to Key Stage 1 learners during summer remediation follow its standards.
Its core instruction to canteens is blunt: canteens in schools and DepEd offices "shall not sell foods and beverages high in fat and/or sugar and/or sodium."
Green: Always Available
These are the items the order says should always be on offer.
| Group | Examples named in the order |
|---|---|
| Drinks | Unsweetened milk; safe and clean water with nothing added; unsweetened fresh buko water |
| Energy-giving (Go) | Milled rice; brown rice or iron-fortified rice; corn; oatmeal; whole wheat bread; cassava; boiled kamote; boiled saba; binatog; boiled peanuts; suman; puto |
| Body-building (Grow) | Fish; shellfish; small shrimps; lean meats; skinless chicken; nuts; egg |
| Body-regulating (Glow) | Fresh fruits, preferably in season; green, leafy and yellow vegetables |
Read that list next to a typical Nutrition Month display and the gap is obvious. Boiled kamote, binatog, suman and puto are on it. Sweetened fruit drinks and iced desserts are not.
Yellow: Tuesdays and Thursdays, Smaller Servings
Yellow items "contain some nutrients but at the same time also contain large amounts of saturated or trans fats and/or sugar and/or salt." The order permits them once or twice a week only, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in smaller servings, and "less prominent in the canteen menu."
| Group | Examples named in the order |
|---|---|
| Drinks | 100 per cent fresh fruit juices |
| Energy-giving (Go) | Fried rice; bread from white refined flour; biscuits; banana cue, camote cue, turon, maruya; pancakes; waffles; champorado; pancit; arroz caldo; sandwiches with cheese, egg or chicken filling; butter, margarine and mayonnaise used sparingly |
| Body-building (Grow) | Processed meats and fish such as hotdogs, sausage, burger patties, chicken nuggets, tocino and tapa, still subject to evaluation of saturated or trans fat and sodium on the Nutrition Facts panel |
| Body-regulating (Glow) | Stir-fried vegetables |
Banana cue and turon being yellow rather than red surprises people. So does 100 per cent fruit juice. Both illustrate the logic: nutrients are present, but so is enough sugar or fat that frequency and portion have to be controlled.
Red: Not Served in School
Red items "should not be served in healthy school canteens."
| Group | Examples named in the order |
|---|---|
| Drinks | Soft drinks; alcoholic drinks; sports waters and sports drinks; flavoured mineral water; energy drinks; sweetened waters; powdered juice drinks; any product containing caffeine; any processed fruit or vegetable juice with more than 20 grams of added sugar per serving |
| Energy-giving (Go) | Any jelly, ice crushes and slushies; ice cream, ice drops, ice candies; cakes and slices, donuts, sweet biscuits and pastries; all candy types including chocolates, hard and chewy candies, chewing gum, marshmallows, lollipops and yema; french fries and bicho-bicho; instant noodles; heavily salted snacks such as chips or chichiria |
The order is careful to say what this does not mean. Consumption of these foods outside school premises is at the discretion of parents. The rule is about what the school sells and markets, not about policing lunchboxes.
How a Packaged Product Is Judged
For anything carrying a Nutrition Facts panel, the categorisation is arithmetic rather than judgement. Four values are compared per serving.
| Nutrient, per serving | Green | Yellow | Red |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saturated fat | Less than 3 g | More than 3 up to 5 g | More than 5 g |
| Trans fat | None | None | Any amount, however small |
| Added sugar (or total carbohydrate where there is no dietary fibre) | Less than 10 g | More than 10 but less than 20 g | More than 20 g |
| Sodium | Less than 120 mg | More than 120 up to 200 mg | More than 200 mg |
Two rules govern the result. Only items evaluated as green or yellow may be served. And if the item has one nutrient in the red category, the product should not be sold, regardless of how the other three score. That single-fail rule is what most canteen audits turn on.
For canteen-cooked dishes and common Filipino snacks with no Nutrition Facts panel, the order tells schools to build their own food list classified green, yellow and red, using the sample lists above as the model, with locally available natural foods preferred over processed products.
What the Feeding Programme Actually Cooks
The canteen policy governs what is sold. The School-Based Feeding Program, governed by DO 013, s. 2026, governs what is served free to identified beneficiaries, and it is a different set of rules.
| Parameter | What the order sets |
|---|---|
| Preferred modality | Freshly prepared hot fortified meals daily |
| Nutritional floor | At least one-third of the daily requirement under the Philippine Dietary Reference Intake |
| Staple | Iron-fortified rice, stabilised brown rice or brown rice, as far as practicable |
| Menu structure | A 20-day or 40-day localised cycle menu, quality assured and approved by regional SBFP focal persons |
| Hybrid option | Hot meals recommended at 60 per cent or more of the cycle menu, alternating with nutritious food products |
| Duration | Minimum 120 feeding days, up to 220; 200 feeding days set for SY 2026-2027 |
| Milk | Implemented under joint DepEd and DA-Philippine Carabao Center guidelines, with schools as drop-off points |
Cycle menus are deliberately local. The order directs divisions to map food supply and market availability, localise the standard menu for culturally and religiously acceptable ingredients, and promote indigenous vegetables and locally available products. It also names the institutions whose standardised recipes may be incorporated, including DOST-FNRI, DOH-NNC, the Jollibee Group Foundation and the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction. So the honest answer to "what does the feeding programme serve" is that it varies by division by design, within a fixed nutritional floor.
Who receives it is set separately. For Fiscal Year 2026 the programme covers all incoming Kindergarten and Grade 1 learners under a universal directive, plus Grades 2 to 6 learners classified as severely wasted, wasted, severely stunted or stunted, along with named vulnerable groups beyond Grade 6. Nutritional status itself is recorded per learner on School Form 8, covered in our SF8 guide.
Where Nutrition Month Now Happens
This is the change most likely to affect a planned activity. DO 009, s. 2026 protects instructional time by moving things around:
- Legislated activities including Nutrition Month "shall be conducted strictly within the classroom through integration into regular teaching and learning processes." Teachers contextualise and embed the themes, objectives and key messages into relevant subject areas "using age-appropriate learning tasks, discussions, performance outputs, or formative assessments."
- Annex D lists Nutrition Month for 1 to 31 July under Presidential Decree No. 491, s. 1974, with the suggested activity recorded as a culmination activity at school or classroom level.
- Central Office-initiated activities are programmed into the End-of-Term Block, and national-level activities into the end-of-school-year break.
In practice that pushes the emphasis toward food used as teaching material inside a lesson rather than a day-long event. A Grade 5 Science lesson comparing Nutrition Facts panels against the green, yellow and red cut-offs is exactly the kind of integration the order describes, and it uses the canteen policy as its content. The wider observance, the plan behind it and who sets the annual theme are covered in our PPAN and Nutrition Month guide.
Planning Without Contradicting the Policy
- Match the categories. An activity that publicises nutrition and then hands out red-category items undercuts the point and the order.
- Watch the drinks first. Drinks are where the red list is longest and where most events slip.
- Do not charge for it. Collections from learners are constrained by the no collection policy. Check before planning anything that assumes contributions.
- Use what is already grown or sold locally. The feeding programme is built on localised cycle menus for a reason: cost, availability and acceptability.
- Keep hygiene in scope. Food handling sits alongside handwashing and safe drinking water, covered in our WinS guide.
If the interest runs deeper than a July activity, the professional route into this field is set out in our BS Nutrition and Dietetics guide.
Disclaimer: food standards, feeding programme parameters and observance guidelines are set by DepEd issuance and are implemented through regional and division memoranda that differ by area. Confirm the current issuances and your division memorandum before planning school activities or canteen menus.
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Sources
- DepEd — DO 13, s. 2017, Policy and Guidelines on Healthy Food and Beverage Choices in Schools and in DepEd Offices (official PDF)
- DepEd — DO 013, s. 2026, Institutional Guidelines on the Implementation of the School-Based Feeding Program (official)
- DepEd — DO 009, s. 2026, Guidelines on the Implementation of the Three-Term School Calendar in Basic Education (official)
- DepEd — DO 010, s. 2026, Guidelines for the Implementation of 2026 Summer Remediation Programs (official)
- LawPhil — Presidential Decree No. 491, s. 1974, Nutrition Act of the Philippines (Section 7 designates July as Nutrition Month)
- National Nutrition Council — 2026 National Nutrition Month Celebration (official)
- SchoolFinderPH — PPAN and Nutrition Month
- SchoolFinderPH — SF8 Learner Health and Nutrition Report
