Essentials Magazine Essentials Fall 2016 | Page 40

School Cafeteria Debuts at EDspaces

Lunch Anyone?

&

Lunch

Learn

W

BY JIM MCGARRY
EDmarket President & CEO

hen we talk about the school cafeteria, most of us think of
distasteful and unattractive food, poor service and rowdy classmates. As with most areas of the education environment, the
school lunch experience is going through a renaissance. It is a sad fact that
with 47.5% of the U.S. student population eligible for free or reduced
lunch, this is often their primary meal/s of the day making it essential that
the food is appetizing, nutritious, and filling. It is also important that the
whole idea of where food comes from — gardens and farms — becomes
part of the curriculum as our society moves further away from an agrarian
society and that students become engaged in the process.
Those in charge of school cafeterias
have the dual challenge of preparing
food for a population notorious for
being picky eaters, while still follow40 essentials | fall 2016

ing the government’s strict limits on
sodium, fats, calories, and of course,
cost. They must provide fruit, vegetables, proteins, milk and whole grains

at every meal, and they must prepare
everything at a cost of less than $1.35
per student.
As school budgets get tighter, it is
also important that the amount of waste
is reduced. We have heard many
stories of students being required to
take a milk container as part of their
lunch only to throw it away unopened.
Or students taking much more food
than they can eat just hoping something
will be palatable and throwing the
rest away.
The new model in school food
service, which will be highlighted next
month at EDspaces 2016 in Cincinnati,
is to show that schools can provide a
healthy, scratch-cooked lunch that students will eat within the district’s budget