When Serving Healthy Food Means Taking a Risk
It's truly sad that, these days, schools have to take a gamble to serve healthy food. The latest illustration of that comes from an editorial in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, which describes the district's new meal program as "ambitious — and risky." Santa Cruz City Schools recently hired a new meal ...
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August 4, 2009
How the USDA Helped Bring Processed Food to School Lunch
Most adults don't have glorious memories of school lunch. It was sloppy Joes, shepherd's pie, spaghetti with meat sauce, and it was usually on the bland side. But the food wasn't bad, and it was almost always cooked from scratch by an army of school lunch ladies. How things have changed. A few ...
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July 30, 2009
Corn Refiners to Ann Cooper: Keep HFCS in Lunch
The Corn Refiners Association really has its eye on school lunch these days. For one thing, the association was one of the sponsors of the School Nutrition Association's 2009 national conference (posters throughout the hall read, "High Fructose Corn Syrup: Making Healthy Foods Affordable for America's Schoolchildren"). The association is ...
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July 27, 2009
Tray Trends: Bubble-Gum-Flavored Apples, and Other Sights at the SNA Food Show
Imagine if Las Vegas built a Costco-themed hotel with a particular emphasis on chicken nugget samples and then filled the building with lunch ladies. That's the best way I can describe the School Nutrition Association's annual food expo, which is taking place right now in Vegas' Mandalay Bay Convention Center. ...
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June 30, 2009
Inside the Soquel Cafeteria: From Homemade Turkey to Burritos in a Bag
Cathy Giannini has been working in the cafeteria in Soquel, California for 21 years. In the world of child nutrition, that's not unusually long (I've spoken with directors who have been working for over 40 years). Still, the changes she has seen throughout her career are striking. When Giannini started out, ...
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June 29, 2009
Tray Trends: Pizza Flavored Stuffed Beef Mini Bites, and Other Goodies From Tyson
Tyson calls itself the "leading supplier of protein" to school foodservice. The company supplies patties and nuggets to thousands of schools across the country, including 95 of the 100 biggest districts. What's coming out of those corporate kitchens? Recently released items include Chicken Round Ups (ring-shaped chicken nuggets made with ...
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May 22, 2009
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