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The ongoing war on childhood obesity has not been missed by Bonnie Graves. Northwestern School Corp.'s food director knows all too well the balancing act between creating meals that are healthy, stay within budget allotments and are pleasing to children. Northwestern, like most public and non-profit private schools, takes part in the National School Lunch Program run through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Schools that participate in that program get cash subsidies and donated commodities for each meal they serve.
School lunches must meet the applicable recommendations of the 1995 Dietary Guidelines for Americans -- no more than 30 percent of someone's calories can come from fat, and less than 10 percent must come from saturated fat; foods low in cholesterol, with plenty of variety of fruits and vegetables. The guidelines also require school lunches to provide one-third of the recommended dietary allowances of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, calcium and calories. "Personally, I try to serve things that they like to eat and still stay in the nutritional standards, because you'll have more kids buying more lunch, which means more money," said Graves. She said she thinks of the operation as any restaurant would -- if you don't serve tasty food, the customers won't want to eat it.
Still, in her 20 years in the industry, she's seen a lot of changes -- mainly in the amount of fat and salt served in the food. But St. Joseph Hospital nutritionist Jennifer Jones says there's still a ways to go. "It's great that [the children] are being provided two meals a day, but what if it's poor-quality food?" Jones said the sample meals provided to the Department of Education were fairly standard at all schools in the area, though Tipton Community Schools seemed to be a head above the others with more variety of fruits and vegetables, whole grains and frozen rather than canned products.
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