By Courtney West
School lunches may be getting a healthy
makeover, steering away from former staples like pizza and nachos.
The Tuesday, Feb, 28, meeting of the Poudre
School District (PSD) Board of Education revolved around the topic of nutrition
in school lunches.
Community speakers said that they felt that schools need to offer healthier choices, but that they also need to appeal to students, especially when they have the option of leaving campus.
“If an item is healthy and students aren’t eating it, it’s not doing them any good,” said Craig Schneider, dietician and Director of Child Nutrition at PSD.
Deirdre Sullivan, a member of the School Nutrition Action Council (SNAC) came to the podium to discuss changes to the system of school lunches. She introduced the idea of nutrition being a learning process, referring to the kitchen staff as “lunch teachers, not just lunch ladies,” and stressing the importance of such ideas as utilizing local produce, scratch cooking and not serving items with “ingredients lists that take up half a page.”
Scratch cooking, according to Schneider, is cooking that involves combining minimally processed food items together on site to create items such as chicken burritos, vegetarian lasagna and other healthier items than frozen, processed and reheated menu items.
Another dietician, Virginia Clark, also spoke about the nutrition in school lunches and proposed changes that could be implemented to take the district from “good” to “great,” in the words of PSD Board of Education President Thomas Balchak.
Clark, a member of the Coalition for Activity and Nutrition to Defeat Obesity, or CanDo, stated that school nutrition is directly linked to school performance, which is why it is such an important issue.
CanDo consists of both individuals and organizations that assist Colorado communities to “defeat the damaging effects of obesity through healthier living,” according to its website (www.candoonline.org/fort-collins).
Clark’s agency has been involved with PSD to help schools create healthier meals that students enjoy.
Healthier meal options and entrees, meals made from unprocessed or minimally processed foods, a decreased amount of sugar-sweetened beverages and an overall consistent health message were possible solutions presented by Clark.
She further suggested that a comprehensive food service assessment was in order to see the areas in which PSD falls short concerning current nutrition issues. A similar survey has already been completed by her agency, but she emphasized the importance of a follow-up survey to determine what more the district could do in the coming years.
The agency is not a direct part of PSD, so they would give an “outside objective view” to school nutrition, which would result in a final report “specific to the Poudre School District” with ideas for yearly goals, said Clark.
Schneider echoed many of Clark’s ideas in his presentation. He focused on ideas like scratch cooking, an increase of local and organic foods and a decrease in overly processed foods with added preservatives “to increase shelf life.”
He was also in favor of a food advisory panel with an updated food survey to get parents’ opinions on school nutrition. In his plan of action, he suggested an outside program evaluation that would rank where the district stood in terms of nutrition.
The board of education asked a few questions but did not offer a lot of counterpoints to either Clark or Schneider’s presentations. However, financial issues were a small point of contention.
Patrick Albright, a director on the PSD Board of Education, said that he agreed with the need to beef up nutrition, but pointed out that he did not feel a complete overhaul was necessary. He said that he did not feel that the nutrition system was broken, and that he did not want to fix it until it was, among cheers from the audience.
Community speakers said that they felt that schools need to offer healthier choices, but that they also need to appeal to students, especially when they have the option of leaving campus.
“If an item is healthy and students aren’t eating it, it’s not doing them any good,” said Craig Schneider, dietician and Director of Child Nutrition at PSD.
Deirdre Sullivan, a member of the School Nutrition Action Council (SNAC) came to the podium to discuss changes to the system of school lunches. She introduced the idea of nutrition being a learning process, referring to the kitchen staff as “lunch teachers, not just lunch ladies,” and stressing the importance of such ideas as utilizing local produce, scratch cooking and not serving items with “ingredients lists that take up half a page.”
Scratch cooking, according to Schneider, is cooking that involves combining minimally processed food items together on site to create items such as chicken burritos, vegetarian lasagna and other healthier items than frozen, processed and reheated menu items.
Another dietician, Virginia Clark, also spoke about the nutrition in school lunches and proposed changes that could be implemented to take the district from “good” to “great,” in the words of PSD Board of Education President Thomas Balchak.
Clark, a member of the Coalition for Activity and Nutrition to Defeat Obesity, or CanDo, stated that school nutrition is directly linked to school performance, which is why it is such an important issue.
CanDo consists of both individuals and organizations that assist Colorado communities to “defeat the damaging effects of obesity through healthier living,” according to its website (www.candoonline.org/fort-collins).
Clark’s agency has been involved with PSD to help schools create healthier meals that students enjoy.
Healthier meal options and entrees, meals made from unprocessed or minimally processed foods, a decreased amount of sugar-sweetened beverages and an overall consistent health message were possible solutions presented by Clark.
She further suggested that a comprehensive food service assessment was in order to see the areas in which PSD falls short concerning current nutrition issues. A similar survey has already been completed by her agency, but she emphasized the importance of a follow-up survey to determine what more the district could do in the coming years.
The agency is not a direct part of PSD, so they would give an “outside objective view” to school nutrition, which would result in a final report “specific to the Poudre School District” with ideas for yearly goals, said Clark.
Schneider echoed many of Clark’s ideas in his presentation. He focused on ideas like scratch cooking, an increase of local and organic foods and a decrease in overly processed foods with added preservatives “to increase shelf life.”
He was also in favor of a food advisory panel with an updated food survey to get parents’ opinions on school nutrition. In his plan of action, he suggested an outside program evaluation that would rank where the district stood in terms of nutrition.
The board of education asked a few questions but did not offer a lot of counterpoints to either Clark or Schneider’s presentations. However, financial issues were a small point of contention.
Patrick Albright, a director on the PSD Board of Education, said that he agreed with the need to beef up nutrition, but pointed out that he did not feel a complete overhaul was necessary. He said that he did not feel that the nutrition system was broken, and that he did not want to fix it until it was, among cheers from the audience.
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