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Chefs & Students Collaborate with Schools for Better Meals

By ASBO USA posted 12-22-2014 13:22

  

This month, the School Nutrition Association (SNA) published “Running on Empty,” an article in their School Nutrition magazine that addresses severe product shortage—a major problem that school nutrition operators are facing throughout the United States. The article states that several production and supply chain issues are affecting the availability of proteins, fruits, and vegetables for schools. With the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) and USDA nutrition standards in addition to the shortage problem, school nutrition staff are challenged more than ever to provide healthy, delicious meals for students. 

According to the article, several items have been cited for supply shortages on
USDA’s Mealtalk listserv or by SNA operators. Raw beef, potato wedges, whole grain cinnamon dough, juice, low-sodium beef patties, canned fruits, peanut butter, and whole-wheat flour products are just some of the items experiencing shortages. So, with this and the additional problem of increased plate waste due to healthier menu changes, what’s a school nutrition manager to do? 

The Wall Street Journal reports that Santa Clarita Valley Schools are relying on culinary school graduates to spice up their menus as nutrition staff find delicious ways to comply with federal nutrition standards. While hiring trained chefs is not a new solution, recent USDA regulations have made it necessary for districts to hire more of them if schools want any hope of generating cafeteria revenues. Ann Cooper, the director of food services for Colorado’s Boulder Valley School District, told WSJ, “Once you move from chicken nuggets to roast chicken, somebody needs to know how to cook.” She said that the number of districts employing professionally trained chefs has “gone from virtually none to dozens, if not hundreds, in a decade.”

Since the 2012 nutrition standards were put into effect, student participation in school lunch programs has dropped by an average of 1.4 million students per day (the largest decline in 30 years) according to USDA data cited in the
WSJ article. Schools are now turning to experienced chefs to experiment with healthier versions of popular recipes such as popcorn chicken, chow mein noodles, quesadillas, and tacos to meet standards and appeal to students’ taste buds at the same time. (A 2012 study showed that such collaboration between chefs and nutritional staff produced healthier, more palatable meals, and improved student lunch participation as well.)

Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) have taken a similar approach to finding healthier alternatives for favorite recipes with the
typical American burger. CPS added mushrooms to its original burger recipe to make it more nutritious, and the new beef-mushroom patty mix helped cafeterias meet student vegetable quotas, low-fat and low-sodium requirements, and it even cost less to serve than the original recipe. (For ideas on how to incorporate mushrooms into school meal planning, visit the Mushrooms in Schools website.)

Meanwhile, Orange County Public Schools
are counting on students to provide menu ideas with USDA restrictions in mind. Orlando Sentinel reports that students were challenged in a team contest to concoct recipes that met nutritional guidelines, required minimal preparation, incorporated local produce, and didn’t exceed a budget of $1.22 per plate. The winning team produced “a chicken fried rice dish paired with Miyabi Japanese onion soup and a peanut-butter encrusted banana that earned raves from the judges.” The winners will bring their meal to compete in a June 2015 culinary competition called Cooking Up Change, launched by the Healthy Schools Campaign to encourage better school nutrition. Incentives like contests and opportunities for recognition can be a great way to get students involved with school nutrition and help nutrition staff devise better meals that match student preferences. 

Finally, other schools across the country have been
incorporating salad bars into their cafeteria menus with resounding success, according to School Meals That Rock, a small organization dedicated to helping school nutrition programs serve kids effectively. The organization cited a report from the Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition (GSCN) that says adding a salad bar has increased student access to fruits and vegetables and student participation in school lunch programs for most schools observed in the study. 

Whichever strategy your school district plans to use or is currently implementing to adapt to changing federal nutrition standards, we hope some of these ideas and resources will help.

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