Posted Jan 1, 2011
Laramie County public school students may never have to worry about having mystery meat for lunch again.
With greater national concern about school lunch choices and the recent approval of a child nutrition bill that included nutritional guidelines for the food served in schools, meal programs have been making some changes.
For students in Laramie County School District 1, these include more food made from scratch and a focus on lowering the sodium content of meals.
Though schools in LCSD1 were doing some from scratch cooking before the recent reforms, Nutrition Services Director Lena Wilson said, they have recently ramped up the program.
In addition to the selection of from scratch meals, like chili, previously offered, the school kitchens have added new dishes, now make all their own bread and have stopped serving processed chicken.
“Our goal is to do a combination of both fresh and processed food,” Wilson said. “We’re doing testing with student advisory groups, testing different products including fresh fish and a baked chicken drumstick meal.”
Though officials started implementing changes at the beginning of the year, Wilson said she had not heard much student feedback, though many parents had been supportive.
“We’ve heard feedback from the parents — the baked potatoes seem to be very popular with them because it’s something in its true form, and a lot of parents approve of the healthy choices,” Wilson said. “A lot of these changes, they’re not always popular, but they’re best for the kids.”
The new focus on less processed food hasn’t added a lot of time or expense to the meal preparation, Wilson added.
Meal prices did increase this year — it was voted on by the board of trustees last spring — but that was caused by the loss of some state funding, according to Wilson, and not the addition of more fresh fruits and vegetables to the school menu.
Her next goal for the meals program is to find some area producers so she can focus on local foods, she said.
The biggest change for students from LCSD2 may be a focus on where their food comes from.
South Dakota-based Lunchtime Solutions, the company that provides meals for the schools system, has increasingly added local products and informed students of who grew the food, according to vice president Chris Goeb.
The company has worked with the school system since 2004 and last year was re-contracted after a bidding process.
“One of the challenges with local produce is the distribution; it becomes problematic,” Goeb said. “We’ve gone to great lengths to bring it to the school districts outside of our main suppliers — it would be easier to ignore it, but it’s a lot of fun to go out and meet the local producers.”
The company has long focused on giving students vegetables and fruit with meals, rather than having students fill up on desserts, which is in keeping with the new regulations, he added.
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