Serving healthier school food at no additional cost?  Here’s how Green Charter School in New Orleans did it and your school can too! 
April 13, 2009

Imagine a school where an expansive organic teaching garden and indoor and outdoor teaching kitchens are venues for students to grow, harvest, prepare and eat food together.  

This ultimate interactive learning environment is a part of everyday life for the students at Samuel J. Green Charter School located in the Freret neighborhood of New Orleans.  The Edible Schoolyard New Orleans (ESYNOLA) launched at Green in fall of 2006 as the first sanctioned expansion of the original Edible Schoolyard in Berkley, Ca. founded by Alice Waters and the Chez Panisse Foundation.

Since many of Green Charter School’s students eat breakfast, lunch and snack at the school, there is a tremendous opportunity to positively influence their diets.  ESYNOLA is creating the demand for fresh, healthy foods among children and raising awareness of the importance of healthy eating among parents.              

Beyond the classroom, ESYNOLA is addressing the nationally debated issues of quality and nutritional value of foods served in school.  Through negotiating with their food service provider, Sodexo, requesting the healthiest commodity foods available and working with local growers, ESYNOLA is drastically changing the cafeteria’s daily menu.  Whole wheat rolls are now baked daily, roasted chicken on the bone is served once a week, and a fresh salad bar and fruit are offered daily. 

When Donna Cavato, director, and April Neujean, chef teacher, of ESYNOLA reflect on the progress they’ve made changing the culture of food at Samuel J. Green Charter School in such a short period of time, they are amazed and want to encourage other schools to take such steps.      

Children in grades K-8 who once failed to identify a Satsuma are now growing and eating a wide variety of seasonal fruits and vegetables, and saying “that doesn’t agree with my palette” to politely decline a particular food item.  The children are developing new interests, skills and tastes while learning hands on about math, science, English and social studies through gardening and cooking classes. 

ESY NOLA serves as a model project for other area schools looking to integrate gardening, cooking, and nutrition into their curriculum and/or to change their cafeteria’s offerings and school snack programs. 

The following list written by ESYNOLA outlines 10 steps all schools can take to transform their cafeteria to create healthier food environments for children. 

Edible Schoolyard NOLA: Cafeteria transformation at S. J. Green Charter School

First steps toward creating healthier schools for our kids

1. With the help of the Wellness Committee, create a Wellness Policy to serve as a guideline for daily practices.  As of 2006, every school participating in the National School Lunch Program is required to have a Wellness Policy.  Doing so allows schools to set goals to promote student wellness.  It combines education with practice to create healthful school environments and encourage healthy behavior

2. Assemble a Wellness Committee to act as an advisory board to the School Food Authority and participate in drafting the Wellness Policy, creating school-wide buy-in for a school food culture, assisting in cafeteria menu planning, and giving feedback.  Using the feedback from the Wellness Committee, work with the food service provider to tailor menu cycles to the school’s needs.

3. Create an educational component to introduce children to a variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, lean proteins that may or may not be meat, and whole grains.  This educational program should include hands-on activities such as gardening and cooking and should always include tastings.  These activities can happen in the classroom as part of the science or nutrition curriculum, as a separate class, or as part of school-wide extracurricular events.  At Green, in addition to regular gardening and cooking classes we hold school-wide tastings each season as part of our Meet-the-Farmer program.  Each season a local farmer brings his/her seasonal crop to school to share with everyone.  We simple and fill out tasting cards.  We might also graph our favorite varieties and incorporate the harvest into our math or language arts lessons in the classroom.

4. Add a salad bar to the daily cafeteria menu featuring a variety of fresh vegetables, fruits, legumes & homemade dressings.  Salad greens other than just iceberg lettuce such as romaine, spinach, arugula, red leaf or mescaline can be featured.  There are grants available for schools that want to add salad bars to cover the cost of equipment and no additional funds are necessary to serve a daily salad bar.

5. Make fresh fruit available in the cafeteria every day instead of canned fruit and serve fresh or frozen vegetables in place of canned.  A variety of fresh fruits and vegetables are available to schools as part of the FFAVORS program for commodity foods.  Schools can decide how much of their commodity food budget to designate for fresh produce and then use those items as part of the salad bar or daily cafeteria menu or for snack.

6. Switch to whole grains whenever possible in place of refined carbohydrates (ex: brown rice instead of white, whole wheat buns, etc.)  Keep in mind, kids will always respond better to eating whole grains when they are incorporated into the entrée.  For example, a child is much more likely to eat brown rice in jambalaya than to eat a piece of whole wheat bread served on the side.
   
   
7. Serve a high quality protein at breakfast every day.  We all know breakfast is the most important meal of the day so make sure to serve a balanced menu.  Schools typically serve a breakfast laden with highly refined carbohydrates that quickly turn to sugar such as pancakes, waffles, French toast sticks, muffins or sugary cereals.  For many students, this is the first thing they’ve eaten in over twelve hours.  It’s no wonder students can be sluggish or unfocused in the classroom.  Studies show that students who start the day with a balanced meal that includes a good source of protein perform better in the classroom as demonstrated through ability to concentrate, fewer errors, and higher test scores.  Opt for a variety of balanced breakfast entrees such as a yogurt bar with fresh fruit and granola, breakfast burritos, omelets, or whole grain pancakes served with a lean meat.

8. Instead of selecting “mystery meats” full of synthetic fillers, opt for unprocessed meats such as bone-in chicken from the commodity list.  Choosing more expensive items from the commodity list is actually a great way to get more high-quality foods that may otherwise be cost prohibitive.  Since changing the types of meat we are willing to accept from our commodity list, we’ve had fewer stomach aches, increased participation from our older students, and better behavior during meal times.  Our baked chicken is now one of the most popular entrees served among both students and staff.

9. Don’t give up!  Remember change is hard for everyone, particularly for youngsters with undeveloped palettes.  It’s been shown that it may take a child as much as ten times to try something new before they’re willing to accept it into their regular diet.  It’s important to create an atmosphere where kids feel safe trying something new without consequences.  We teach our kids that “I don’t care for that,” is always an acceptable response to trying something new and no one is required to clean their plates.  With no fear of consequences, kids are much more likely to try something they wouldn’t normally eat and it makes them feel valued to be allowed to express their opinions.
   
   
10. Don’t be swayed by those who say that kids will never eat these kinds of food.  Often times it’s the adults who make more of a fuss about change than the kids.  Many adults thought that implementing these changes was going to be much harder for the kids to accept than it actually was.  They feared that children, particularly those from Louisiana, would never eat brown rice.  A Chinese fried rice class using brown rice quickly put that issue to rest.  Others never thought they’d see the day that Kindergarteners would choose the salad bar over a cheeseburger, but after growing and harvesting spinach, radishes, broccoli, and assorted greens, they were delighted to see these foods on the menu.  We’ve been sold this idea by the fast food industry that kids will only eat cheap processed foods full of man-made fats, salt, and sugar manufactured to smell alluring and make them addicts of empty calories.  Here at Green it has become obvious that this is nothing more than a myth.  We’ve seen our kids happily eat everything from roasted eggplant dip to sautéed kale.  With schools routinely offering breakfast, lunch and snack each day, our children consume approximately 80% of their calories at school.  We have an obligation to ensure that we are providing them with the most wholesome foods possible and a tremendous opportunity to impact their health for the rest of their lives.  For those still unconvinced that this is possible, remember what Alice Waters always says, “If they grow it or cook it, they’ll eat it”.
    
    Click here to sign up for "Fitting New Orleans."