Childhood Hunger
Latest News
Summary:
The Bryan Adams High School cafeteria looks a lot like it’s looked for 40 years, plus some new paint and bright banners. And the lunch line food looks familiar, too - hot dogs, chips, onion rings, peach cobbler.
Students at Bryan Adams High School in Dallas have a variety of food to choose from for their lunches - but none of it is fried.
October 14
Dallas Schools Finding a Fresh Approach to School Lunches
The Dallas Morning News
Karel Holloway
October 6, 2009
The Bryan Adams High School cafeteria looks a lot like it’s looked for 40 years, plus some new paint and bright banners. And the lunch line food looks familiar, too - hot dogs, chips, onion rings, peach cobbler.
Students at Bryan Adams High School in Dallas have a variety of food to choose from for their lunches - but none of it is fried.
But there are some new items - fajitas, yogurt parfait, salad, apples, oranges and grapes. The traditional entrees are a little different as well. As of this year, all the breaded foods, including the chips, are baked, not fried. The milk is low-fat, and there are a lot more whole grains in crusts and breading.
At a recent lunch, the kids were cleaning their plates, but they still groused.
“I don’t like it, but it’s the only thing there is to eat,” Osvaldo Cruz, a junior, said.
At Bryan Adams, and schools statewide, deep-fried foods and sugar-filled sodas are out, under state law.
This then is the challenge for school lunch planners: How do you make food that’s healthful and something students will eat? It’s a question that experts locally and nationally are trying to answer in increasingly creative ways, and not just during National School Lunch Week, which began Monday.
Often, they have to compromise: Offer pizza made with low-fat cheese and whole-grain crust. Give low-fat chocolate milk and lower-fat hot dogs. Add some salads and fresh fruits to the lunch line and hope kids eat them.
Osvaldo’s tray was a good example. He had breaded cheese sticks, onion rings, toast and baked hot Cheetos. The milk and juice were unopened.
Given a choice, he said he’d go home. There he might have meat and rice. They have that at school sometimes, but “the rice tastes different. It tastes like it’s canned,” he said.
Christian Ramirez, also a junior, was sitting across from Osvaldo, his tray laden with foods to make a mother, and lunchroom lady, glad. He had the yogurt parfait, grapes and a carton of fruit juice blend.
“I like it. I’ve been waking up every morning feeling good about eating like this,” Christian said.
Ann Cooper, who has been leading a school lunch revolution first from California, and now in Colorado, believes we can persuade more students to eat the way Christian does.
Cooper, nutrition director at the Boulder Valley School District, said she regularly asks students what they want for lunch and has been surprised at some of the things they’ve chosen.
“They really wanted sushi. A lot of kids really wanted junk food. A lot of kids really wanted comfort food,” she said.
Tofu and brown rice salad and hummus were surprise winners in her cafeterias.
This year, Cooper is working with Whole Foods and others on a Web site, thelunchbox.org, providing menus and other assistance to school food-service workers and parents in adding more fresh, locally grown foods to school menus.
The opening menu in her schools: roast chicken, roast potatoes, roasted or steamed vegetables and organic milk.
“We’ve seen lunch period as somebody else’s responsibility,” Cooper said. “I think many more teachers and advocates understand the benefits. Every moment the child is in school is a teachable moment.”
Dora Rivas, the Dallas school district’s executive director of food services and school nutrition, also has been working on improving lunches. But in addition to balancing what kids want and what is good for them, she said schools also must look at costs.
School districts receive $2.70 from the federal government for each lunch for a low-income student and work to keep lunch prices for all below that. In Dallas, lunch costs $1.50; few districts charge more than $3.
“You try to go out and buy ingredients for a good meal and pay to prepare it for a dollar-fifty,” she said.
School food budgets depend on selling the lunches, and she has seen a steady rise in the number of students buying lunches.
Cafeterias nationwide all face the same problems, said Rivas, also president of the School Nutrition Association.
Dallas, like most districts, has added more fresh fruits and salads. There is a daily vegetarian option. Rivas said such foods sell well, but there were few salads on the plates at Bryan Adams.
The number of students eating in Dallas school cafeterias has been growing, up 16 percent over the last few years. More than 130,000 are served daily.
“I attribute that to the staff who has been working hard to provide food they like,” Rivas said.
If you liked this, please help us spread the word by sharing it with others. |
