A school district in Minnesota has made news for removing seven problematic ingredients from its school food: artificial colors, artificial sweeteners, artificial preservatives, trans fats/hydrogenated oils, antibiotics and hormones in meats, and bleached flour. As a result, kids there are now eating entrees like grass-fed beef hot dogs on whole grain rolls, with the ultimate goal of bringing more scratch cooking, and fewer “carnival food” entrees, to their lunch rooms.
That’s great news, of course, but these menu improvements come at a cost — reportedly, 35 cents more per meal per child, a deficit that’s being privately funded by an outside organization, the Lifetime Fitness Foundation.
Thirty-five cents might not sound like a lot to most people. But after paying their overhead, school districts are usually left with about one dollar per child per meal from their federal reimbursement to spend on food. This means that “real food” meals with “clean” labels, like those in this Minnesota district, can cost over one-third more than the school meals containing more highly processed food.
This funding gap is why, at least in my observation, districts doing the best job of feeding kids healthfully almost invariably rely on outside funding, including Chef Ann Cooper‘s district in Boulder, Colorado and the Orfalea Foundation-funded school meal program in Santa Barbara, California.
But, as I noted in my recent piece on the New York Times Motherlode, relying on outside funding is not a true solution to improving school food in this country. Instead it creates what I called “a nationwide patchwork of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots,'” in which the kids who most need healthful school food — the ones living in economically impoverished areas – may be least able to round up private money to help pay for it.
Yet it’s sobering to realize that, in most experts’ estimation, Congress hasn’t yet fully funded school meals as they’re currently conceived, replete with all kinds of highly processed, heat-n-eat foods. So before we ever see federal funding levels adequate to finance “real food,” “clean label” meals like those in this Minnesota district, it’s going to take a truly seismic shift in how our nation thinks generally about food and the feeding of its school children.
To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure it will happen in my lifetime.
[Hat tip: School Nutrition Association newsletter for alerting me to the Minnesota story.]
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Casey says
You tapped into some of those same mixed feelings I had reading the article. Our schools recognize the importance of trying to teach kids to love reading and math. It’s time we all recognized the importance of also teaching them to learn to love food that loves them back.
Claud Mann says
Your point regarding lagging federal funding and the added food cost when making the shift to higher quality, unprocessed foods is a good one. It should be made clear however that The Orfalea Foundation is not offsetting costs of higher quality ingredients for SBUSD, or any of the other school districts it assists in Santa Barbara County. We do not provide ANY funds for food. The Orfalea Foundation provides training, equipment grants and technical assistance with the goal of assisting schools that wish to make the shift to scratch cooked foods. SBUSD procures between 60%-75% of its produce from local farms; makes it’s sauces and dressing from scratch, bakes its own granola and emphasizes clean label products whenever possible. SBUSD’s Food Service Director, Nancy Weiss has demonstrated that when food quality improves, so does participation (free/reduced and full pay). With greater participation, a school food service operation stands a greater chance of remaining cost neutral or even showing a surplus. Moreover, culinary training and the proper equipment make labor more efficient and effective resulting in greater productivity and less food waste.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Claud: Thanks very much for coming by TLT and for that correction, which is duly noted. But outside financial assistance, whether directed toward food per se or toward equipment and training, still provides a district with valuable resources not currently provided for by the federal government. But please understand that I enthusiastically applaud the work you’re doing in SBUSD! I just wish it were available to cash-strapped districts all over the country….