Utah schools look for kid-friendly solutions to school lunch law


Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah schools are still searching for ways to serve meals that appeal to young tastes while complying with the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, which recently mandated periodic overhauls for school lunches.

Since the federal law's implementation in 2012, students have been required to take a serving of fruit or vegetables with every lunch. In most cases, this led to irked students, higher meal costs and concerned school nutritionists watching students put those higher costs, almost literally, into the garbage.

But thousands of school nutritionists from around the country gathered in Salt Lake City on Monday to find innovative solutions that could help them provide meals that are both nutritious and tasty for students.

"Our children here just have discriminating tastes and they want variety," said Kelly Orton, director of child nutrition at the Salt Lake City School District. "All the changes that happened (with the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act), they hit hard and hit fast, and the industry is just starting to catch up, so we're seeing more and more new items that taste great."

The convention hosted by the School Nutrition Association featured new solutions for school lunch programs, ranging from food samples compliant with the new federal standards to kitchen gadgets to boost safety and efficiency.

"This is the place to be today to look for ideas on how to introduce new menu items that are healthy, that look good and that taste good to students," said Sebasthian Varas, director of nutrition services at the Canyons School District, which serves as many as 19,000 meals in a school day.

In addition to mandated fruits and vegetables, schools in 2012 were required to implement portion increases, adjust to new calorie ranges, introduce different vegetable types and eliminate trans fat in every meal. Last year, schools were required to make all grain foods rich in whole grains and begin a series of goals for reducing sodium in meals.

Related Story

Since implementing the new rules, fewer students are buying school lunch, according to Orton. After the initial mandates were put in place, the district's normal participation of 15,000 meals per day went down by 7 percent, he said.

Costs to families has also risen. With the new rules, the district voted to increase the price of a school lunch by $0.85, bringing the cost to $2 per elementary lunch and $2.50 for high school.

Utah isn't the only place where students weren't thrilled about some of the changes, according to Julia Bauscher, outgoing president of the School Nutrition Association.

"For elementary students, you might have some issues, but it's not been overwhelming," Bauscher said. "But as they get older, especially high school students, they just throw it away right in front of your face in protest because you made them take something they didn't want."

Orton said food vendors are catching on to the problems and offering new products that are both enjoyable for kids and in compliance with the federal mandates.

"The industry partners, they're making the changes as fast as they can. And they're coming up with new items to replace what we're using," he said. "They've just improved the ingredients, the recipe to make a better product, so kids aren't noticing the difference."


The industry partners, they're making the changes as fast as they can. And they're coming up with new items to replace what we're using. They've just improved the ingredients, the recipe to make a better product, so kids aren't noticing the difference.

–Kelly Orton


Varas said educating students and parents about the reasons behind the new rules has helped improve "acceptability" in the Canyons School District.

"Things are getting a little better now," he said.

Technology has also played a role in bringing parents and students on board with new policies. Both the Salt Lake and Canyons districts, as well as several others along the Wasatch Front, now use Nutrislice, an app and website that provides a digital menu for each school and nutrition information on each food item.

Brian Crapo, CEO of the Denver-based company, said keeping families informed on what is being served at schools has helped parents customize meals for their kids and provide feedback.

"Parents and kids eat with their eyes, and visual menus really help them understand what's being served at school and answer all the questions they have about it," Crapo said at Monday's convention. "People are used to having an app for everything in their life. … Now there's an app to find out what's for lunch at school and answer your questions about it."

Nutrislice now serves more than 12,000 schools across the country, including almost half of all students in Utah.

While the School Nutrition Association supports most of the federal mandates for school meals, the organization is asking for more flexibility as Congress considers reauthorizing the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act this year. That includes removing mandates on servings of fruits and veggies, whole grain-rich foods and upcoming sodium reductions.

Local school leaders are also hoping federal lawmakers will make revisions to the law, especially making side dishes optional for students.

"We're up there trying to tell Congress what's happening. They have good intentions, but some things like that (are) just a waste of money," Orton said. "We're really hoping they'll listen."

Contributing: Nkoyo Iyamba

Related links

Related stories

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

UtahEducationFamily
Morgan Jacobsen

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast