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Schools to lose french fries next year
By Emily Elders
A state-mandated nutrition program that could eliminate some all-time favorites from elementary schools’ menus will be implemented locally during the 2007-08 school year, and will be fully in place by August of 2008.
French fries, ice cream and cookies are a few of the items that do not meet new state requirements. Though Jackson County’s nutrition program has already made several of the necessary adjustments, a few will require funding and major changes to available offerings – not just to students, but to those who buy meals at the schools. Both school (reimbursable) meals and a la carte meals in elementary schools are affected by the new legislation.
“This is something we’re going to have to do, whether we like it all the time or not,” said Donna Bommer, child nutrition director. “It’s going to hurt us most in supplemental sales (plates sold to those who are not on free or reduced lunch prices), especially not being able to offer desserts.”
Bommer said the new standards would definitely cause an increase in the price of lunches, and that they would be implemented in middle and high schools over the next four to five years.
Minimum standards for reimbursable school meals limit methods of cooking to baking, roasting, broiling, boiling and steaming – effectively eliminating the traditional deep-frying that’s been common in schools for generations.
“The replacement of the fryers is the biggest thing for us,” Bommer told school officials during their Monday (Feb. 26) meeting. “We have to start replacing them with ovens, and all this equipment has to be in place before the first day of the 2008-2009 school year.”
Bommer estimated a total cost of $88,000 in equipment alone to implement the new standards, in addition to current additional equipment needs of $212,000.
Schools will also be required to serve more whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables and foods high in fiber – all options that cost more to purchase.
“There’s really no way around it – we’re going to be forced to raise the price of the meals just to cover our costs,” she said.
All milk choices must be 1 percent or less fat according to the new rules, but Bommer said Jackson County schools have been meeting that requirement for about four years.
“Some of these things we’re close to being done with already, because we’ve been doing them though they weren’t required,” she said. “We are ahead of the game in some cases.”
Limits to the a la carte meals include a maximum of 35 percent total calories from fat and 35 percent added sugar by weight, which eliminates many traditional dessert choices. The laws limit buyers to one additional entree portion and require schools to offer only juice with 50 percent or more juice and no added sweeteners and only 100 percent frozen fruit products with no added sweeteners.
The laws only allow free meals to be given to kitchen workers, preventing elementary schools’ kitchens from providing free lunch to maintenance and grounds crew workers.
“That’s one of the benefits we can offer to those workers, and we have for years given them a free meal,” she said. “We have to come up with a way to pay for those meals so that we can continue to do that.”
To monitor schools’ progress in implementing the laws, the state will require nutrition analyses to be performed in March and October of each year and submitted to the state Board of Education for review. Jackson County’s system has been doing these for a few years, according to Bommer, but will now have to complete them according to a schedule and state standards.
“Overall, I’m a little concerned about this,” she told school board members during her proposal that they begin funding the change as soon as possible to minimize disruption in the schools. “It’s a lot of money, and it’s going to be a lot of work.”
At Bommer’s suggestion, officials approved a resolution titled “Healthy Children for the 21st Century,” a request for state officials to fund part of the cost of the new guidelines. The resolution highlights critical factors, including the fact that one in five children in North Carolina is overweight and that the state is in the nation’s top 10 for incidence of hypertension and diabetes, and asks for $25 per elementary student in recurring funds.
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