Now that I am working in a school cafeteria, I can see first hand how much improvement we need to make. The idea of cooking from scratch isn’t new, but doing it within the school lunch program will take years of undoing a broken system. Almost everything comes in frozen or canned. The foods they purchase have to come from the agreed upon food vendors, as well as the government commodity foods, and the quality for the most part is pretty bleak. I requested they order honey for an apple cobbler I was making, and the only honey available was a honey blend, where the first ingredient was corn syrup, followed by glucose syrup. Honey was at the bottom of the ingredient list, and there was no option for ordering real honey. Needless to say, I had them return that and I ran out to Costco and bought real honey for less money then the honey blend that they purchased. Slowly and patiently, we are working to make change, along with many other schools that are waking up to the need for feeding children healthier, nutritious meals. One of the goals from the NYS Farm to School Grant is to make connections with local farms, and to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables from them. This week, I am busy peeling and roasting butternut squash for the district children to taste, which Restoration Organic Farm in Bethpage grew specifically for us! One of the challenges in cooking from scratch is the added time it takes to prepare the raw ingredients, and the need to improve the kitchen facility with equipment to process fresh food. In order to be successful, we need to bring all the stakeholders on board, from the cafeteria staff, to the teachers, students and parents.

Just this week, there were two great articles on school food, both worth reading. One is from the Washington Post, and the other was in yesterday’s NY Times.