Local schools making sound efforts to ensure your children
receive nutritious food
San Benito County schools do a good job at providing food for
thought, but it has been a process to improve what they are feeding
children’s bodies.
Local schools making sound efforts to ensure your children receive nutritious food
San Benito County schools do a good job at providing food for thought, but it has been a process to improve what they are feeding children’s bodies.
When considering the nutrition of the food children in San Benito County schools are being fed, consider that on average half of local children eat cafeteria food through federal free or reduced-cost lunch programs. At some schools that figure climbs to nearly 75 percent.
Every day studies point to the fact that America is growing more obese by the day, especially children. Now more than ever before people need to be aware of what they are eating and what affects that food has on the body.
At Calaveras and R.O. Hardin schools in Hollister, nearly three out of four students are on free and reduced cost lunches, meaning a significant portion of their calories and nutrition is provided by the school cafeteria.
Nutrition is a big concern for the Hollister School District, especially since the district served more than 450,000 meals last school year, said school district Manager of Food Services Janet Felice. This year the district added the breakfast program to five additional schools.
The Hollister School District bases breakfast and lunch programs on the guidelines handed down to them by the United States Department of Agriculture, which requires the district to meet its guidelines for nutritional content in order to receive federal funding.
Each meal that the district serves counts as one-third of the child’s recommended daily allowance. Each meal must contain no more than 10 percent saturated fats and no more than 30 percent total fats. The calorie allowances are based on the ages of the students.
The school district contracts with different vendors for different food products, but all the vendors adhere to the guidelines established by the U.S.D.A.
“The vendors do a good job of preparing the foods,” Felice said. “The program really pushes [vendors] to really work hard. A lot of the foods they put out might look like their unhealthy counterparts, but in fact they’ve replaced items so it’s actually healthier.”
For example, Felice said that the bean burritos might look like something you’d get off of a lunch truck, but in fact the beans contain no trans fat, which has been shown to contribute to cardiovascular disease. The same is true for the traditional kids’ favorite, corndogs. While the outside of the product still looks the same, the inside contains a turkeydog instead of a hotdog, so there is less saturated fat.
Adam Duker, a food policy advocate with California Project LEAN, who works in Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties, did not return calls requesting comments on local menus by press time.
In the rural school districts, like Spring Grove, they use a cook rather than pre-packaged meals, but the same standards apply. Sixty percent of the students at Spring Grove are eligible for free or reduced meals. It’s up to school cook Anna Lopez to ensure that each one of them is eating healthy.
Lopez gets instructions pertaining to what she can and cannot cook and helpful recipes from the state Web sites, but she still has freedom to craft her own recipes, as long as she adheres to U.S.D.A.’s guidelines.
“A lot of the kids eat hot lunch, but when they eat here they’re eating healthy. The kids really like the spaghetti and the turkey gravy over mashed potatoes when we serve it.”
Other traditional favorites like corndogs and pizza have also received a makeover at Spring Grove. Pizzas are now made with whole-grain flour and the corndogs contain turkey and the batter is made with a special recipe that contains less fat as well.
“We don’t tell the kids their favorite foods are now lower in fat, as long as they’re still flavorful and healthy it’s okay,” Lopez said.
Every lunch that Spring Grove serves also features fresh salads and carrots and fresh fruit. Lopez said that there are only six days during the year that the district does not offer fresh fruit.
Even the standard sandwiches have been made healthier with the subtraction of mayonnaise. Instead, Lopez makes sandwiches with mustard and 1000 Island dressing, or just mustard.
She also introduced “vegetable tastings” to the whole school in an effort to get kids excited about eating vegetables. The most recent tasting featured zucchini. During the tastings Lopez and her staff cut up vegetables and serve them with ranch dressing so the students are exposed to tasty vegetables.
At San Benito High School, students are tempted with islands of juicy cheeseburgers, piles of burritos, towers of tacos and mountains of pizza. Not to mention sandwich stations. While SBHS has the same requirements for its cafeteria as other schools in the county, it isn’t in 100-percent compliance.
“We’re working with a consultant, but we’re in transition right now. We comply with the standards as much as possible,” said Brenda Pinsonnault the Food Services Supervisor for San Benito High School.
She said that the school does feature fresh fruit every day and a selection of fruit juices. She said that the snack bars also sell salads, but that students typically don’t choose them.
“We want people to know that we do serve healthy foods, but that kids like pizza better,” Pinsonnault said. In addition to the cafeterias and snack bars, the high school district also has strict guidelines for the lunch trucks that service the campus. Regulating the lunch trucks ensures students won’t dump healthy lunches for cookies and Coke – as much as that can be ensured.
La Palma Catering Co. has been selling its products at the high school for eight years, said owner Ana Avendano. The truck sells the usual assortment of burritos, beef tortas and corndogs. The rules specify that the trucks cannot sell any item that contains more than 100 calories. They cannot sell anything with bacon, sausage or pork, nothing fried and no large cookies.
La Palma can sell any juice product that contains 100 percent fruit juice and Gatorades, up to 20-ounce servings. Even the corndogs La Palma sells must be grilled instead of deep fried.
The question that still remains is that if you serve healthy foods will kids eat them? According to at least one principal, the answer is maybe.
“I think it really depends,” said Sunnyslope School principal Melinda Scott. “There are so many variables. The biggest thing we’ve found is that if kids are served nutritious foods at home, they will eat healthy at school, but we have to compete with fast food.”
One of the things that Sunnyslope has done to move kids away from the fast food mentality, is to change its rewards system.
“We used to give out a McDonald’s lunch, but now we’re trying to think healthier,” Scott said. “I think it’s hard to make huge changes overnight.”
But there is hope.
The most popular items on the lunch trucks are the fresh fruits and vegetables – watermelon, strawberries, jicama and cucumbers – said Avendano from La Palma.
