Working to change school meals

[donco6]

Wendy Blake and her two kitchen assistants turned out 56,000 meals this past school year to feed the students in Wiggins. Blake, the food services director for the school district, admits they relied on a lot of processed frozen food in order to do it.

But Blake says she learned a valuable lesson in kitchen time management this week. “I’ve learned it takes the same half hour to thaw and reheat chicken nuggets that it takes to roast a fresh chicken,” she said.

You can bet that Wiggins students are going to be seeing more roasted chicken and fewer chicken nuggets next year. More fresh produce and less frozen commodities. More scratch cooking and less reheated processed fare.

http://www.ednewscolorado.org/2010/06/10/boot-camp-aims-to-remake-school-meals/

We took part in this boot camp. We're hoping we can work to improve our meals, as long as we can keep our labor hours under control and we don't have to increase the cost of our meals (when you're 80% free lunch, you can charge whatever you want . . . you just aren't going to collect any of it.) So far, we see some good offsets that might make it work. It's not easy, though.

[LaurenG]

1. Awesome that they are going to feed children food instead of garbage.

:thumbsup:

[spin]

2. The grades will go up if the kids eat good food. (n/t)

[donco6]

3. My only worry is being able to afford it.

I get $2.68 per meal served to pay for my lunch program. That has to pay for everything, as the district cannot afford to subsidize the lunch program. It's not easy to make it work in the best of times. But we're going to give this a try and see if we can do it.

[spin]

4. I watched a series of programs on a British chef, Jamie Oliver ...

the programs were interesting and informative as he tried to change the eating habits of Huntington, West Virginia. Much of his effort focused on school lunch programs.

I would imagine that you are familiar with him, but if not he has a web page at:
http://www.jamieoliver.com/school-dinners

With only $2.68 a meal you have a real challenge ahead of you. Good luck. I believe that cutting back on highly processed foods is a great idea and will lead to healthier and happier children.

[donco6]

11. Those are fun shows, BUT . . .

I don't think Jamie really schooled himself on the WHY'S of how school lunches got to where they are. We would LOVE to make fresh rolls every day. I have convection ovens that could do it - I just can't afford the LABOR. And in my district, I don't have volunteers who can come in reliably every day to make it happen. But he does have a lot of good ideas and he does skewer us where we need to be. So, overall, I like his show.

[mzteris]

5. Wisconsin passes Farm-to-School bill

The Wisconsin State Assembly passed the Farm to School bill Tuesday creating the framework for a statewide program. A Farm to School Advisory Council will be established within the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection along with a coordinator and grant program.

The program links locally-grown food with school cafeterias, Assembly Ag Committee Chair, Amy Sue Vruwink says “it will help farmers gain access to new markets while providing students with nutritious and fresh locally grown foods.” Vruwink adds, “Farm-to-School pilot projects around the state have shown that serving our school kids locally grown food increases their consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables both at school and at home.”

For more info:

http://reapfoodgroup.org/Programs-Events/farm-to-school.html

[LWolf]

6. I hope it works. Keep me updated. nt

[femmocrat]

7. Our school lunches and breakfasts are disgraceful.

Many of our children depend on school meals for 2/3 of their daily nutrition. I really wish the parents would get involved and take a serious look at the junk their children are eating.

The packed lunches aren't much better, though. I see a lot of those "Lunchable" meals that are all processed meat and high in sodium. Toss in some candy, sugary fruit cups, a can of soda and some students bring nothing but junk food in their packed lunches! No wonder there are so many health problems in the schools today.

[donco6]

8. Different states have different practices.

In my district, we don't own any deep fat fryers anymore - haven't for years. We don't sell any soda at all. We have limited Gatorade things, and juices (which are still pretty high sugar, but we're trying to hit some medium with the students and community and the state regs). In Mississippi, they still fry a lot. They're trying to get away from it, but that's a LONG cultural issue that's going to be difficult to beat.

In some richer districts, they can charge a lot more for a meal and use that additional income to improve the offerings. Boulder, for example, subsidizes their food service program by MILLIONS because they charge fees for everything. My distict is 80% free/reduced. I have to survive on the $2.68 per meal I get in reimbursement. From that I pay the labor, food, transport of food, storage of food, all materials, - everything from A to Z. It's not easy, but we are always trying to improve - that's what this boot camp was about.

Yes, we can buy fresh chickens and roast them. But someone's got to make sure I can get enough to feed 3500 kids per day. If they can't guarantee the supply, I can't offer it. Same with fresh vegetables. Colorado is a desert state. We don't grow vegetables, generally. For me to get enough fresh green beans from a local producer - I don't think one exists that I know of. So we applied for a federal grant to get the veggies supplied to us - including the SHIPPING, which kills my budget.

So many people have so many misconceptions, too. The chefs at this boot camp for example, assumed we were adding lard to our refried beans. Uh . . . no. Now, they do at home, certainly. But not here. There were some really offensive accusations that we just let slide by - we're used to it. And we take our lumps when they're deserved. But I just wish someone would really LISTEN to our problems instead of just assuming we don't know what we're doing and we're all trying to make people die young.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. Last time I was in Colorado I was blown away by the price of groceries

It was amazing to me that just one state west of me had food that expensive, especially the fresh vegetables. You bet you're a desert state.

But we get most of our veggies from Texas. Or so I have always assumed. :shrug:

[donco6]

10. I think things might be changing.

We've gone to such large corporo-farms that no one thinks about the profit margin in vegetables. We have the migrant labor here (legal, I might add). So some people are switching portions of their irrigated fields to veggies. Farmer's markets are becoming ubiquitous - 5 years ago, I had to drive all over town to find ONE on a weekend. Now there's one here in Stapleton every Sat. We have farmer coops that you can subscribe to and they'll deliver a week's supply of whatever's in season - maybe tomatoes, maybe squash - but it'll be fresh and really organic.

So, hopefully, with training for our parents (who simply rely on whatever's quick and fast that can be prepared between Job Number One and Job Number Two), we may be able to make some inroads.

BTW, I did get a grant to re-install bike racks at all schools. They had taken them all out years ago because no kids were riding. Now we have a good group that rides every day.

[mzteris]

13. someone tell p2bl

here's a link to what's already in MO. http://www.farmtoschool.org/MO/programs.htm

[mzteris]

12. here's the farmtoschool program in CO

http://www.farmtoschool.org/CO/programs.htm

[donco6]

14. Greeley isn't too far from us.

I'll send it to my CNS director.

We do use the menus with the "vegetable of the month" on them - so we must be taking part in that much.