for Ukiah Daily Journal
It seemed apt that the path to last week's conference titled
"Feeding
our Future: A Celebration of Healthy School Food Services in Mendocino
and Lake Counties" wound through the bountiful gardens located on the
grounds of
Hopland's Campovida Culinary Pavillion.
More than 100 cooks, kitchen managers and public school food service
directors from Mendocino,
Lake and Del Norte counties gathered for a
first-ever training and celebration of the staff who coordinate, cook
and serve the food for public school children across the region.
Attendees came to the meeting energized and ready for the first day of
school, and left with a virtual cornucopia filled with solutions, ideas
and inspiration gleaned from local and regional leaders within the
culinary community.
"It brings me so much joy and satisfaction to see all of you having
such a good time," Susan Lightfoot told the audience. Lightfoot is the
coordinator of
NCO's Farm2Fork program that spearheaded the conference.
The conference provided opportunities for learning new techniques and
sharing best practices for serving fresh, healthy, locally grown meals
to children through the
National School Lunch Program.
"All of our
districts are doing an incredible job of serving healthy food to our
kids. Almost all our schools have gardens, which is not the case in
many parts of the country," Lightfoot notes.
The free, all-day conference provided food service employees information, culinary training, networking
and team building.
"This was the first event of its kind to bring
together these unsung heroes who feed our communities," says Lightfoot. Experts from the Center for Ecoliteracy and state leaders from the
California Department of Education discussed and presented strategies
to help meet new federal meal pattern regulations as a result of the
Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010.
Karen Brown, creative director of the
Center for Ecoliteracy, and Adam
Kesselman, founder of the
Lunch Trust, presented training on preparing
school meals with fresh, seasonal ingredients. Using recipes from the
Center's cookbook, "Cooking with California Food in K-12 Schools,"
participants learned to prepare simple, healthy dishes utilizing
California crops, with an emphasis placed upon "flavor profiles"
familiar to the area's diverse school populations.
Participants were provided hands-on experience making and sampling
recipes as well as exchanging new ways to utilize fresh, local
ingredients.
Deborah Beall from the
California Department of Education has been
training food service employees on changes to the federal meal pattern
regulations. She presented a "Salad Tool Kit" to attendees. "Fruits and
vegetables are your new best buddies," Beall explained. Vegetables are
now divided into subgroups, and schools are required to provide daily
minimum servings based upon student age. Dried beans are now an
important feature of school lunches. Half of grains served must be
whole grains.
New requirements include the serving of 1/2 cup of dark green
vegetables, beans or peas and starchy vegetables per week. Red and
orange vegetables must be served weekly - 3/4 cup for younger students
and 1 1/4 cups weekly for high school students.
Additionally, notes Beall, there is an emphasis on
reducing sodium in
student meals. "If you're using herbs, citrus and different spices
you're probably automatically reducing the amount of salt. If you
decrease the amount of processed foods, you're probably decreasing
sodium," she noted.
Breakout sessions facilitated by members of
Mendo Futures offered food
service workers opportunities to share successes and offer solutions to
colleagues in similar lines of work. Participants discussed techniques
to encourage better eating habits, shared recipes, Internet resources
and strategized how best to meet federal guidelines, provide the
highest level of nutrition and stay within lean district budgets.
Jamie Smith, senior manager of
Food Services and Nutrition at Santa
Cruz City Schools, discussed their enlivened food service program. His
district retooled its food service and wellness policies to incorporate
the utilization of more local foods, reducing environmental impact,
increasing scratch cooking and continued elevation of nutritional value.
"We changed our brand, distanced ourselves from the rest of our
district and then went about the business of changing our food," Smith
noted. He helped to spearhead the increased use of local foods and
changed the way his staff utilized USDA commodities in meal
preparation. "We buy whole muscle meats. We started cooking rice, pasta
and beans and making our own rice bowls from scratch. We make our own
sauces using USDA chicken and have incorporated meatless Mondays," he
explained.
Smith and Jim Stewart, executive chef at
Ukiah Valley Medical Center,
prepared a Mexican-themed lunch for conference goers, creatively using
fresh vegetables and items regularly found in school lunch programs. A
portion of the food for the luncheon was donated by
Leonardis Organics,
Gowan's Oak Tree and
Mendocino Organics.
Pilar Gray has created a "
farm to school" relationship with
FortBragg's Noyo Food Forest, which
provides fresh produce for the Fort
Bragg School District. Over the past nine years, the district has
chipped away at unhealthy food practices - ditching deep fryers and
working to promote kid-friendly, healthy alternatives like whole grain
spaghetti and more fresh vegetables. "
The whole nation is looking at
school lunch programs. Our country is in a health crisis - and we've
found that many of these diseases are directly connected to how we eat.
What we feed our kids at school may be the majority of the nutrition
they get. Our sixth-graders have never seen chicken nuggets at our
schools. Undernourished children don't test well.
The foundation of
health is what we put in our body," Gray told the audience.
Gray encouraged attendees to embrace change, seek support and make
incremental changes to their food programs, focusing on youngest
children first. "
Every day you're in the kitchen, you have the power to
make a choice of what to serve our children. Is your recipe reading
like a chemistry experiment or real food? We are forging the way for
how school food services are going to look in the future," she
concluded.
To conclude, event organizers recognized food service employees who
have worked in the industry for 30-plus years. "
We are honoring the
folks in our community who work tirelessly to improve school meals,"
said Lightfoot.
Terri Rhoades Culinary Arts Instructor/Food Service Director, Anderson Valley Unified School District
Lorri Hardeman Food Service Specialist, Ukiah Unified School District
Linda Vandervort Elementary Site Lead, Oak Manor Elementary
Les Ridgeway Food Service Director, Ukiah Unified School District
Jan Taylor Food Specialist II, Pomolita Middle School
Jana Boomer Cafeteria Manager, Blosser Lane Elementary
Judy Wangerin Food Service Director, Del Norte Unified School District
Dyane Foruster Cafeteria Manager, Baechtel Groove Middle School
