Planning Compliant Menus
Even if you are currently using a food-based menu planning approach, you need to consider whether or not your menu planning method or system will help you check to be sure your menus are in compliance with the new meal pattern and nutrition standards. That is, if you want to receive the extra $.06 reimbursement.

You will need an efficient way to check that your menu includes the proper amounts of meats/meat alternatives, fruits, vegetable subgroups, grains, and milk. Remember to keep in mind that protein and grains have minimums and maximums, and that you also have minimum and maximum calories for the defined age groups. This seems to be the area causing a good deal of frustration. Just when you think you have come up with the right balance of proteins, grains, fruits and veggies, you find that you aren’t meeting minimum calories. Adding more fruits and veggies seems like the way to go, but they are expensive and don’t contain many calories. The recommendation is to add sugar or solid fats to boost calorie levels where needed. Really?

As you plan your menus, you are going to need tools that provide a quick and easy way to identify any missing components and out-of-compliance nutrients. Plus, you will need an effective tool for analyzing your menus against the new daily and weekly meal pattern and nutrition requirements. Otherwise, your head might explode.

Ringing Up Compliant Meals
The new regulations will also have to be clearly communicated to your cashiers. They will need to be able to identify the items that must be on students’ trays in order to qualify as reimbursable meals. A good deal of training will be required so don’t get so focused on your menu plans that you don’t equip your staff with the knowledge they will need.

The main point to focus on is the requirement about fruits and vegetables. The new regulations require a full ½ cup portion of fruit or vegetable on the tray, though if you do Offer vs. Serve in your district, you must offer 3/4 to 1 cup of fruit AND a 1/2 cup vegetable. Many districts report that most students already take a fruit or veggie as part of their meals. So, your cashiers will have to be on the lookout to be sure all of them have the right amount of fruit and/or veggies on their tray.

Your Point of Sale (POS) system will need to allow cashiers to ring up each component to ‘build’ a reimbursable meal. Or, if your cashiers are experienced and able to identify the components of a reimbursable meal on sight, your system should provide a way to quickly ring-up a meal as students go through the line.

Providing Documented Proof of Compliance
You will need to be able to provide documented proof that your menus are compliant through reporting and detailed production records that are sorted by meal pattern component. Be sure your production records clearly identify each meal pattern component and subgroup along with associated serving amounts, nutrition information, and calorie counts.

Keeping an Eye on Costs
While doing all of the above, it’s also important to find a way to control costs. By defining cost-per-plate goals, and using a system that helps you compare actual costs of planned menus against that goal, you will be able to keep your costs under control.

For more information, here are some links to helpful information from the USDA.

Read about the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act legislation.

Read about the Nutrition Standards for School Meals.

The USDA introduced MyPlate as a reminder to include the five food groups that form the building blocks of a healthy diet—fruits, vegetables, grains, protein, and dairy—into our meals.

What’s on your plate? Post pictures of your plate on Twitter with the hashtag #MyPlate or add your photo to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Flickr group http://www.flickr.com/groups/choosemyplate

Controversy surrounding “pink slime” stems from various safety concerns, particularly dangers associated with ammonium hydroxide, which can both be harmful to eat and has potential to turn into ammonium nitrate– a common component in homemade bombs, according to MSNBC. It’s also used in household cleaners and fertilizers.

Ref: The Huffington Post

Some heads were spinning when Congress ruled in November that tomato paste on pizza would count as a vegetable, and many protested the refusal to limit weekly servings of starchy foods like potatoes. Yet the general consensus is praise for the new nutrition standards announced last Wednesday by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for school lunches.

These proposed requirements cut calories, trim fat and salt, and provide more whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables in the federally supported National School Lunch Program. They are the first significant changes to school food meals in more than 15 years. For the first time ever, they also set a cap on the calories allowed per meal.

Approximately 32 million children eat school lunches and breakfasts, providing half of many children’s daily calories, according to USDA.

New federal regulations were established for minimum and maximum calories per meal. For elementary school students, lunches must be between 550 and 650 calories. For middle school, 600-700 calories, and for high school, student lunches must provide between 750 and 850 calories.

Find out more about the new USDA nutrition guidelines for the school lunch programs here.

The effort is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Community Eligibility Option Program, which will be piloted starting with the 2011-2012 school year. Michigan was one of three states selected to participate in the pilot program. Schools and districts in Michigan may participate if at least 40 percent of their students are entitled to public assistance.

One of the goals of the program is to eliminate the stigma that students feel when they get a free lunch, as opposed to paying cash, according to DPS Chief Operating Officer Mark Schrupp. He said the schools are hopeful that sending all students through the lunch line without having to pay will make it harder to identify low-income students and they will be less likely to skip meals.

In the past, students from low-income households were required to fill out meal benefit application forms, which collected valuable income data. Those forms are no longer required, but DPS is still requesting that families complete a supplemental student services survey to ensure that children, schools and the district will continue to receive millions of dollars in benefits and resources from the state and federal governments, as well as private grants.

Among the benefits and services that are still dependent on the district collecting income data include free tutoring, afterschool programs and field trips; extra teacher aides and other specialized staff for classrooms; classroom technology, such as computers, white boards and the Internet; transportation assistance; free summer school; free college testing and waiver of college application fees.

The Community Eligibility Option is among the early reforms enacted under President Barack Obama’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which authorized the USDA to select up to three states to test the option in School Year 2011-12. The option will be offered to more states in successive years, and will be available to all states beginning School Year 2014-15.

The USDA selected states to participate by looking at the prevalence of high-poverty areas and strong Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program performance. Ten states were chosen to apply for the initial year, and Illinois, Kentucky and Michigan were ultimately selected to roll out the pilot program.

As WBBM Newsradio 780’s Dave Dahl reports, a school with at least some free lunch participation can qualify for free lunch for everyone at the school.

“If the school has 40 percent of students eligible for free and reduced lunch, that school; that district can choose to make that building eligible to receive 100 percent free lunch, no charge, and that, we think will remove some of the stigma of the free and reduced lunch,” said Mary Fergus, a spokeswoman for the Illinois State Board of Education.

LISTEN: Newsradio 780′s Dave Dahl reports

The U.S. Department of Agriculture chose Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to be in the first phase of a program that is part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

President Barack Obama signed the act into law last year.

All states will be participating by 2014.

As WBBM Newsradio 780’s David Roe reports, 333 schools across Illinois, most of them in Chicago, are expanding their meal offerings this year and adding supper to their menus.

LISTEN: Newsradio 780′s David Roe reports

The after-school meals, paid for with federal funding, target low-income students who suffer a nutritional gap.

The Chicago Tribune reports the federal government plans to expand school dinners that are now being served in Illinois, 12 other states and the District of Columbia.

The school dinner expansion is part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which is backed strongly by first lady Michelle Obama, the Tribune reported.

Under the program, if a school meets the poverty threshold, all the students in afternoon programs get free dinner, the Tribune reported.

Eating a healthy diet that includes plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables goes beyond simply following the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendations for healthy eating. As obesity becomes more prevalent, so do other serious conditions, including hypertension, stroke and type 2 diabetes. In fact, the American Cancer Society found that 1/3 of cancer deaths in Minnesota are linked to obesity. That means that with about 9,000 cancer deaths per year, 3,000 may have been preventable. Eating fruit and vegetables provide healthy options for snacking and make important additions to every meal; they provide nutrients as well as being good choices to help control weight and avoid related health issues.

Starting at the White House with the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act is a great step in the right direction for the country as a whole. Having fresh, organic fruit from FruitShare™ always at your fingertips is a great way to help keep your family healthy.

Whatever you think of Democrats, President Obama, or first lady Michelle Obama, who could oppose an initiative to fight obesity among American children? Regardless of political preference, why would you denounce a plan that tries to make the 1/3 of American children that is overweight more healthy. Who would be against an attempt to reduce diabetes among children and young adults? You would have to be either insane or plain evil. Well, guess who does just that, Sarah Palin! Sarah Palin has made some derogatory remarks about Michelle Obama and her “Let’s Move” initiative, which encourages better diets and sufficient excercise among American kids. According to Huffpost:

But Palin has maintained that Obama’s effort to combat child obesity — which was recently aided by the passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act — is one that seeks to take away “God-given rights to make our own decisions.” Some have since slammed that comment as Palin’s demanding that Americans cling to their “God-Given right to be fat.”

She even went as far as delivering cookies to a Pennsylvania School last month! She wanted to show her disapproval of Obama’s plan by giving the school kids cookies. She justified this action with a completely inappropriate appeal to god-given American rights and too much government interference. Does the initiative ban children from eating cookies at home or at school? No, it doesn’t. It simply stimulates excercise and a balanced diet among children, that’s all. And this sunday in her reality show “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” she said while searching for “s’mores” ingredients on a family camping trip:

Where are the s’mores ingredients? This is in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert.”

S’mores is a disgusting dessert with cookies, melted marshallows and chocolate by the way, which seems to come straight from This Is Why Your Fat:

More on Huffpost.

(Dutch readers, check this piece on Michelle Obama and Palin in VN)

To be more specific, public schools provide breakfast and lunches, at a low price (sometimes free) to their students. The federal government then reimburses school districts for a portion of that expense.  This new law prevents that money from being used to support “a la carte items.” That would be the food you may remember being served at lines in the lunch room that didn’t include the “school lunch.”  Let’s look at my own life for some perspective.

In 1994, at the tender age of 12, my 6th grade classmates and I went on a field trip. This particular trip was to Santa Fe Trail Junior High School, which we would be attending the next school year. As I recall, we went for a short presentation of what life was like leaving recess for the grueling task of a more professional student life. In other words, the life where you don’t get to  go out and play kickball.  The life we were to endure for the rest of compulsory public education. However, we also saw what lunch was like for budding, young teenagers. Those of us with older siblings (like myself) had already told our classmates of the wonderous pizza and french fry utopia that awaited. Everyday was a new adventure into the fast food paradise we had all dreamed of.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t really that cheap. In fact, with the amount of money my parents gave me for lunch in a week, I could have gotten that pizza and french fry dream three times a week .  Like any bright, intrepid, young child, I came up with a new plan.  I discovered the “a la carte” line.  In this mesmerizing nirvana of snack cakes, I lived and ate. Through the 9th grade Hostess Chocolate Donettes, were my lunch.   By high school, I had gained the understanding that the doughnut diet wasn’t right, but the onslaught of soda and junk food was constant.

I mention all of this to illustrate the fact that consumption was ingrained in me.  As I have grown older, I have gained a much better appreciation of not only good tasting food, but also nutrious food. I don’t eat at McDonald’s anymore. I would but they have destroyed the McNuggett. The real truth is that I have gained an appreciation for eating mostly nutrious food. I’m not going to stand on a pedestal and say I live a life of pure nutrition (let’s face it I’m a sucker for barbecue) but I do try.  This new bill only tries to support the idea that if schools are going to provide food to children, we should also be providing the message that healthy eating is important.

For five hundred words I’ve been ranting about this because when Kelly Eckerman read this story on Sunday it included a clip of Sarah Palin talking about how she opposed it.  My first thought was, “How can you be against schools giving kids healthier food?”  Then I thought, “Is she just against. . . WHAT THE HELL?”

The truth is that Sarah Palin is just using  a simplistic attack on anyone who could possibly be against her. Her tactics are simple. The particular merits of a piece of legislation are not important. The only thing she cares about is how can she say it is wrong.  If she can say “government regulation” or “Obama is forcing,” whatever, she will. Shew knows that the issue of government being to involved in our lives strikes a chord with many Americans. So when President Obama restricts the kinds of food in public schools, she can say that “government is regulating what our kids can eat.”  She just wants to make sure that you think the government is intruding on your life. It isn’t. Government is only restricting the food provided to your children on their money. Or to be more accurate, your money. It is tax dollars that pay for this after all.  This bill isn’t regulating what we allow our kids to eat, it’s regulating what the government gives them to eat. If parents want to send their kids to school with Hershey’s Bars and butter, fine. The school, however, might only provide a piece of chicken and a salad.

The simple fact is that government action is not always wrong.  I’m tired of the argument that government is evil.  Sarah Palin doesn’t care about any of that though. What she cares about is making “big, scary, government” the bad guy.  To paraprhase  President Andrew Shepard in The American President, ” she is interested in two things and two things only. Making you and afraid of it and telling who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen is how you win elections.”

I’m not totally sold that Palin’s objective is to win an election. At least for herself, but I do optimistically believe that her “Just Say No to Government” approach to any policy won’t work.  If she chooses to believe that government is always wrong, it won’t be surprising.  But, she will increasingly find herself on the fringe of politics; which is the most generous place that she belongs.

You’ll find a link to a video of President Obama and Michelle Obama’s speeches, more facts about the Child Nutrition Act, and a proposed lunch menu as a sample of what the First Lady hopes school lunches will soon look like.  To me, it looks like more fresh fruit and vegetables, and less [insert protein here] patties.

Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act Proposed Lunch Menu

It will likely be a long while before we see any of these changes take effect in our cafeteria, but I’ll hope for sooner rather than later!

Be well!

No More Lunch Lines for Child Nutrition–It Just Became Law

DEC 13 2010, 5:29 PM ET

Today Barack Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (also known as the child nutrition bill) into law at Harriet Tubman Elementary School in Washington, D.C., The Washington Post reports. The House of Representatives passed the bill on December 2 with a vote of 264-157, clearing the way for Obama’s signature this morning.

Democrats, especially Michelle Obama, have lobbied for the legislation for months. They initially feared that obstacles would derail it, as with the still-lurching food safety bill, but U.S. children will soon know a new law of the lunchroom:

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act will expand the number of children in school lunch programs by 115,000, increase the reimbursement rate to school districts for meals by six cents and replace the junk food available outside the cafeteria, such as in vending machines, with more healthful options.

The $4.5 billion expansion of the school lunch program, which feeds 16 million children, gained bipartisan support in the Senate, yet initially stalled in the House before passing mostly along party lines. Republicans balked at the cost and constraints of the bill.

Before supporting the law, liberal Democrats needed assurance from the White House that the $2 billion cut from the food stamp program to fund it would be restored.

“While we may sometimes have our differences, we can all agree that in the United States of America, no child should go to school hungry,” Michelle Obama said Monday. “All children should have the basic nutrition they need to learn and grow. . . . Our hopes for their future should drive every decision we make.”

via No More Lunch Lines for Child Nutrition–It Just Became Law – John Hendel – Food – The Atlantic.

We decide what you can and cannot eat~Food Nazi Michelle Obama

The Food Nazi is at it again. Michelle Obama believes she should regulate what your children eat because she’s just smarter than us.

(CNSNews.com) — Speaking at Monday’s signing ceremony for the “Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act”– a law that will subsidize and regulate what children eat before school, at lunch, after school, and during summer vacations in federally funded school-based feeding programs — First Lady Michelle Obama said of deciding what American children should eat: “We can’t just leave it up to the parents.”

“Everywhere I go, fortunately, I meet parents who are working very hard to make sure that their kids are healthy,” said Mrs. Obama. “They’re doing things like cutting down on desserts and trying to increase fruits and vegetables. They’re trying to teach their kids the kind of healthy habits that will stay with them for a lifetime.

“But when our kids spend so much of their time each day in school, and when many children get up to half their daily calories from school meals, it’s clear that we as a nation have a responsibility to meet as well,” Mrs. Obama said. “We can’t just leave it up to the parents.  I think that parents have a right to expect that their efforts at home won’t be undone each day in the school cafeteria or in the vending machine in the hallway.  I think that our parents have a right to expect that their kids will be served fresh, healthy food that meets high nutritional standards.”

Continue reading the wisdom of the First Lady Food Nazi>>>

A record number of Americans are on food stamps thanks to this awesome ‘recovery’ we are experiencing. Michelle Obama has a pet project and its going to be funded by taking money away from the food stamp program. However, the Obama administration has no idea how they will replace those funds without adding to the deficit.

CNSNews.com reports:

 U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Monday he supports using stimulus money originally intended for the food stamps program to pay for a bill expanding child nutrition programs in the nation’s schools.

But Vilsack did not tell CNSNews.com how the government, which now has a record number of people on food stamps, could replace the missing funds without raising the deficit.

Vilsack appeared with Education Secretary Arne Duncan at the River Terrace Elementary school in Washington, D.C., on Monday to urge the House of Representatives to pass the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (S. 3307), which the Senate unanimously passed earlier this year.

The bill reauthorizes major USDA nutrition programs, including the National School Lunch and Breakfast programs, WIC (nutrition for Women, Infants and Children), and the Summer Food Service programs, and it provides $4.5 billion in additional funding to improve meals and expand access to them. This would be the first funding increase for the federal school nutrition programs in 30 years.

Child nutrition and fighting childhood obesity are pet projects of First Lady Michelle Obama, and she has endorsed the bill.

Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ala.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) forged a bipartisan compromise that allowed the bill to pass the Senate by unanimous consent, where no voice vote is recorded because no one opposes the legislation.

In the House of Representatives, however, many Democrats balked at paying for the school lunch bill by cutting $2.2 billion in stimulus funds for the food stamps program (also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP). By making those cuts, the stimulus-backed funding increase for the food stamps program would end months earlier than intended, in November 2013.

In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 106 House Democrats expressed disappointment that the Senate had used “historic increases in the SNAP program” to fund the school lunch bill. They called such a strategy a case of “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” Instead, they asked Pelosi to consider a House-authored bill with different cost offsets.

Continue reading>>>

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2008-9 food security report, 1.1 million children were living in households where they and/or their siblings sometimes had a  skimpy meal or no meal at all because their parents couldn’t afford to buy enough food.

The Senate Agriculture Committee’s bill to reauthorize the Child Nutrition Act seeks to reduce child hunger. It goes at this through various measures to expand access to subsidized meal programs.

For school meal programs, the bill would simplify the process that allows schools in high-poverty areas to offer free meals to all students. These areas, the Committee report says, enroll more than 5 million children–over 10% of the public school population. The current, burdensome process may deter some schools from claiming “community eligibility.” So low-income children may be left out because their parents don’t know free meals are available or are overwhelmed by the paperwork.

The bill would also make foster children automatically eligible for free meals and do a couple of things to promote “direct certification” for other low-income children. At this point, schools must certify free-meal eligibility for children whose parents receive food stamps. They may also directly certify children whose families participate in TANF or the program that distributes food on Indian reservations. The bill would provide bonuses to school districts that adopt these options.

It would also allow school districts to directly certify children covered by Medicaid, but only selectively. In the 2012-13 school year, USDA would designate districts representing 2.5% of children eligible for free or reduced-price meals. Additional districts would be added annually, at the same rate, up to a total of 10% of low-income children. The rationale for this cap is not explained.

The bill does more than increase access to in-school meals. It would allow eligible after-school programs in all states to receive reimbursements for a full meal, rather than only a snack. At this point, programs in only 13 states and the District of Columbia can get reimbursed for a full meal. The expansion would go a long way toward ensuring that low-income children get three well-balanced meals a day–at least, during days when school is in session.

So far as I can see, summer meals get short shrift. Participation in them is egregiously low, compared to participation in school lunch programs. Indeed, the Food Research and Action Center reports that only 17.3% of the children who ate free or reduced-price school lunches during the 2007-8 school year then participated in a summer meal program. And not all programs operated all summer long.

To expand access, the bill would require school food administrators to help nonprofits that operate summer meals programs with outreach to families. Period.

But, of course, changing the standards that now restrict reimbursements for summer meals to programs in high-poverty communities would increase the federal government’s costs. So would funding transportation in rural areas, where needy children may live far from summer meal sites.

And then, as with in-school meals, there’s the issue of reimbursement rates. Somewhat higher than rates for school breakfasts and lunches. But, as FRAC reports, a USDA survey found that 73% of sponsors expected to lose money operating their summer meal programs. This may partially explain why the number of meals served last August was substantially lower than the number served in June and July.

As I wrote last week, the Senate Agriculture Committee’s bill would provide $4.5 billion over 10 years for all the programs included in the Child Nutrition Act. The Committee Chair’s framework indicates that $1.2 billion of the total would be for “a path to end child hunger.” Not to eliminate it, as President Obama promised. But to take us down the road apiece.

Is this really the best we can do?

NOTE: I apparently skipped over a section of the bill. It would actually do more to expand access to summer meal programs than require school food administrators to help with outreach. It would also authorize $20 million in competitive grants for “activities that improve and encourage sponsor retention.” This translates into about $5 million a year for Fiscal Years 2011-15. This doesn’t alter my view that the bill fails to address the significant barriers to access.

At this point, there’s no companion bill in the House. So the Senate bill is likely to become the basis for whatever Congress ultimately passes. That’s not a bad thing because there’s a lot to like in the bill. Also some things not to like.

On the positive side, Committee Chair Blanche Lincoln (D-NE) and her colleagues seem to have their minds around the top priorities. We see this in the bill title–The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.

I’ll focus on the “healthy” part here and deal with the”hunger-free” part in a subsequent posting.

Basically, the bill aims to improve the nutrition quality of meals and snacks children get in school and in daycare and after-school programs. A couple of big initiatives here.

First, the bill would authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to establish standards for all foods and beverages sold on school campuses, including those in vending machines, snack bars and the a la carte lines that give kids an alternative to regular cafeteria meals.

So-called competitive foods are available at virtually all high schools and high percentages of middle and elementary schools too. At this point, they’re primarily high-fat/high-sugar options that appeal to kids. So they undermine whatever efforts schools are making to improve the nutritional value of the regular meals they serve. Who’s going to go to the cafeteria for broccoli and beans when they can buy a burger with a side of fries?

The bill would also require the Secretary to issue new school meal nutrition standards based on recommendations developed by the Institute of Medicine. These call for significant changes–more fruits, more vegetables (dark green and orange, with a limit on starchy), whole grains, 1% or fat-free milk and a maximum as well as a minimum number of calories.

As I’ve commented before, meals like these will certainly cost more than what schools can–and, in many cases, do–serve now. So the Agriculture Committee would give school districts that comply with the new regulations an additional 6 cents per lunch, with an annual adjustment for inflation.

Reality check. The current free lunch reimbursement rate is $2.70, up 2 cents from the 2008-9 school year. This rate is only for schools where 60% or more of the children are eligible for free or reduced-price meals.

The School Nutrition Association says that the 2008-9 average cost of preparing and serving a school lunch in compliance with current USDA nutrition standards was $2.92 cents and that costs have continued to rise since then. The Institute of Medicine estimated that its recommendations would increase food costs by 4% to 9%. Do the math.

The bill would also require child and adult care programs to serve meals based on the latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans–the source for the IOM school meal recommendations. More cost increases here, I suspect. But no mention of a boost in reimbursement rates.

There’s more in the bill, even in just this category, e.g., an ongoing funding stream for school gardens, linkages to local food sources and other Farm to School activities, especially in schools with high proportions of low-income students.

But I’ll cut to the chase. What’s not to like is the funding. First, it’s too stingy to achieve its worthy objectives. Total funding would be $4.5 billion over 10 years–less than half of what President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2010 budget proposes. Hence, I suppose the measly 6 cents more for lunches.

Second, the bill would offset the new spending in part by gutting the SNAP/food stamp nutrition education program. If this isn’t robbing Peter to pay Paul, I don’t know what is. We want children to eat more healthfully–and to reduce the child obesity rate. So we cut support for efforts to help their parents choose a well-balanced selection of foods and encourage their kids to be active.

The Committee’s not allowed to grab funding outside its jurisdiction. So it’s possible that alternative and more generous funding will be found.

But concerns incorporated in the Committee report and outcries from farming and environmental interests suggest that more attention will be paid to another offset, which would level-fund EQIP (the Environmental Quality Incentives Program).