Aug. 23--First it was the Pop-Tarts. Then the french fries. Then the nachos.
And this year, another school lunch staple got the ax.
"We're not serving any chicken nuggets," said a triumphant Carol Kon, the food service director for the Maplewood-Richmond Heights School District. "We're the first to do that."
The district of 1,150 students has incrementally, but very deliberately, weaned itself from less-than-healthy offerings, transforming its progressive food program into the envy of school districts around the region.
Students tend the district's own vegetable gardens. Preschoolers look after the district's chicken coop. Local farmers supply about a fifth of the district's produce, and eventually the district could have a processing facility. This year, the district is getting whole chickens. Nothing processed. Nothing breaded.
"There's a huge need for this," said Linda Henke, the district's superintendent, speaking about the improvements. "To get kids to focus on school, and come to class with energy and enthusiasm, this is essential."
With more than a third of the country's children overweight or obese, school food programs, which serve 33 million American students, have come under heavy scrutiny in recent years. Critics have blasted schools and the food industry for pushing junk food and sugary soda, and have blamed the federal government for perpetuating a system the relies too heavily on surplus commodities and highly processed items. School districts have been accused of cutting corners, providing bland, nutrition-less lunch line options. (Think square, cardboard-esque pizza and gluey mash potatoes.)
But in the last few years, the lunch lineup has started to brighten considerably.
"There's Michelle Obama taking initiative, there's Jamie Oliver's TV show. There's a recognition that there's a crisis and schools have the power to make positive change," said Mark Bishop, of the Chicago-based Healthy Schools Campaign. "So many schools are making those changes."
And more could be on the way.
Earlier this month, the Senate voted to reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act, the law that governs the National School Lunch Program. If the House does the same in coming weeks, it could usher in the most significant changes to the school lunch program since it began, advocates say.
Among its most significant provisions: increasing the amount the government gives to districts per meal by 6 cents.
"This is the first noninflationary increase to the lunch program ever," Bishop said. "We're disappointed that it's only 6 cents, but every penny helps."
Another provision would give the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the school lunch program, jurisdiction over all foods and beverages within a school's walls. That would mean federal authority would extend beyond the lunch line to vending machines, a-la-carte lines and school stores -- long criticized for their unhealthful offerings, but essential money-makers for schools and a boon for the food industry.
'ACTUAL FOOD'
The Department of Agriculture also is considering changes to the nutrition standards that school districts will be required to meet. The current guidelines, critics say, haven't been updated since 1995 and don't meet the federal dietary guidelines for all Americans.
The Institute of Medicine last year recommended guidelines that the department could adopt. If it does, schools will have to set limits on calories, fats and sodium in order to get the increased reimbursement rates. That could spell the end for candy bars, whole milk, soda and fried chips.
The new standard also would force districts to meet food-based guidelines, rather than nutrient-based guidelines. The latter, critics say, has led to overreliance on fortified, processed food, rather than "real" food.
"With the focus on nutrients rather than nutrition, you have nutrient-infused food," Henke said. "That doesn't have anything to do with actual food."
The new standard, on the other hand, would require more whole grains and vegetables.
The Child Nutrition Act is supposed to be reauthorized every five years and is now on a one-year extension. With each reauthorization, nutrition advocates have pushed for the changes this version of the law would bring. But the food industry lobby resisted. This time, though, the food industry largely supports the changes. And, it seems, so do even the most reluctant school districts.
"Part of the attitude has been: 'Get the government off my back. I'm a food professional. Don't tell me how to do my job'" Bishop said. "But now there's a much greater awareness that this is about building relationships. We need the government, the state, the community, to figure this out."
TAKING THE INITIATIVE
Many school districts are already doing that.
The Parkway School District, which serves 17,000 students, has lowered its soda offerings and upped its quotient of fresh fruits and vegetables. Last year the district launched an Internet-based program that allows parents to track what their children are buying in the school cafeteria.
"They can check their child's spending history, and they can put a comment on their account. We can put a code in that says, 'no chips,'" explained Michael Kanak, the district's longtime food service director. "When Johnny comes through with two bags of chips, we say, sorry you have to put those back."
At the Mehlville School District, the newly hired food service director, Katie Koester, has been experimenting with baked fries and has added whole grain bread. Koester is also working to connect with parents, trying to make sure kids start to develop better eating habits at home.
"It's about educating them to eat in moderation. That's the key," she said. "You don't eat a whole pizza."
While school districts are making improvements, there are still challenges. Most districts struggle with budgets, something the proposed increase in the reimbursement rate will barely address, some say.
"The number they're considering is $8 billion," Kanak said, referring to the proposed boost. "That sounds like a lot, but that's for 33 million kids, and over 10 years it works out to about a nickel a meal. You really can't do a lot of radical improvement on that."
The biggest challenge, most food services directors will say, has nothing to do with budget or resources. It has to do with kids' palates, which are developed on a diet of sugar, fat and salt.
"The challenge is to serve healthy food, but also something the kids are going to take," Kanak said. "If it's going in the trash it doesn't matter how nutritious it is."
Still, districts say, they're trying. A recent survey by the School Nutrition Association showed that nine out of 10 schools are increasing offerings of whole grain products and fresh produce, nearly 70 percent are reducing or eliminating sodium in foods, and about 65 percent are reducing sugar.
Advocates hope that momentum will continue.
"We need to get this bill passed," Bishop said, referring to the Child Nutrition Act. "If this doesn't happen this year, it won't happen. Next year everybody's going to be fighting over the Farm Bill."
-----
To see more of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.stltoday.com.
Copyright (c) 2010, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail services@mctinfoservices.com, or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544).