Sugary, salty and greasy foods are being expelled from school cafeterias as officials revamp lunch offerings to promote health and better dietary habits. They also hope it will mean greater attention spans and better learning. But not all students are eating it up. : Eating Smart

Not too many years ago, a public school lunch meant a foil-covered tray containing a culinary delight such as chicken fried steak, a sloppy joe, or meat loaf with gloppy brown gravy. Off to the side would be some wilted carrot sticks, half of a canned peach and a piece of chocolate cake or gingerbread.

Times have changed. The salad days are here. School cafeterias are revamping their offerings to promote health and better eating habits in children. That, school officials hope, will mean better digestion and increased attention spans now and fewer clogged arteries in the future.

The Santa Monica-Malibu school district is introducing salad bars this year. The Culver City schools did so last year. And throughout the Westside, school food service directors are implementing an array of tactics designed to discourage junk food consumption and steer students toward healthier, more balanced lunches.

The state Department of Education, meanwhile, plans to issue a set of recommended standards this spring for the fat, cholesterol and other nutritional content of school lunches. In anticipation of the state guidelines, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Santa Monica-Malibu, Los Angeles and other school districts in Southern California jointly applied last week for a $300,000, three-year state grant that would establish a regional network to publicize the nutritional guidelines and improve instruction about proper eating habits.

Beverly Hills schools have been pioneers on the healthy eating front. With funds provided by the Neil Konheim Foundation, the Beverly Hills Unified School District six years ago instituted a comprehensive nutrition education program called Health Champions.

As part of the curriculum, first-graders in Maureen Winicke’s class at Beverly Vista Elementary School on a recent day chanted: “Every time I take a bite, I choose a heart-healthy delight.” They then proceeded to name and classify an assortment of less desirable foods--potato latkes, candy, ice cream, bacon--that were high in sugar, salt or fat.

The Health Champions program also provides cholesterol, blood pressure and other health screening tests, workbooks and songs about nutrition, and salad bars in the cafeterias. The Konheim Foundation started a similar program this year in Santa Monica’s Will Rogers Elementary School.

The health kick has even meant new looks for stark cafeterias. Potted plants and smaller tables reduce the institutional feel of the cafeterias, food service directors say. Music systems serenade the youngsters with what Kit Dreyfuss, Health Champions coordinator for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, describes as “child-oriented Muzak,” The goal, Dreyfuss said, is to have the children “eat slower, digest better, and then go out to play all refreshed, instead of cramming down their food and running out.”

Compared to a decade ago, school menus generally have less sugar, salt, fat and cholesterol and more whole wheat products, fresh produce and fiber. Elementary school students are served more chef salads and fewer corn dogs.

At the cafeteria serving Culver City Middle School and Culver City High, for example, sweets such as brownies, cinnamon rolls and cake, which had been sold a la carte, were eliminated this year. Other high-fat or high-salt items that used to be offered a la carte--nachos, chili, pizza--are now only sold together with salad, fruit and milk. No longer can a student fashion a lunch of chocolate cake, french fries and a soft drink, said Marie Boland, food service supervisor. “We kind of forced them into a complete, (balanced) lunch.”

There is no guarantee, of course, that the students will actually eat the healthier foods, but food services officials say the overall strategy is to try to bend students’ preferences.

Younger children in particular still go for spaghetti and tacos, said Lisa Chambers, Beverly Hills food service director. “They’re very basic eaters--they’re not willing to try a lot of new things or out of the ordinary (things).”

At Beverly Hills schools’ salad bars, the items rival that of restaurants: garbanzo beans, red cabbage, broccoli, trail mix, potato and macaroni salads, tuna, cottage cheese, grated mozzarella, beets, carrots, canned green beans, cauliflower, prunes and muffins. The salad bar, offered every day last year, was cut to two days a week at the elementary schools this year because of lack of sales, Chambers said. On the days it is available, however, about half of the lunch-buyers choose the salad, she said.

Salad is faring better in the upper grades. Culver City middle and high school students, who got a salad bar installed late last school year, give it rave reviews. Seventh-graders Susi Riederer and Akemi Taylor say they choose the salad “because it tastes good,” not necessarily because they’re health-conscious.

At Beverly Hills High School, the daily salad bar, offered for the past five years, is still doing well, Chambers said. About 400 students, or 20% of the student body, frequent the salad bar each day, downing, among other things, 24 heads of lettuce and five pounds of cottage cheese. Salad bar regulars, however, complain about getting the same offerings day after day and say the vegetables could be fresher. Yas Yadegar, 15, said that she waits to eat salad at home, where she can throw in feta cheese, olive oil and sun-dried tomatoes.

“The salad bar is not one of their star selections,” she said.

Indeed, the salad at Beverly Hills High faces fierce competition from a dizzying array of hamburgers, pizza, enchiladas, made-to order sandwiches, frozen yogurt, trail mix and brownies, touted at stations with neon signs.

Similarly, Culver City students can sidle up to separate windows for the salad bar--or for pizza, nachos, chili, chicken nuggets, baked potatoes, sandwiches and hamburgers, accompanied by fresh fruit, salad, milk, french fries or muffins. The burger lunch sells at a rate of about 450 a day, while the salad bar and the other lunch variations lag at about 100 each, Food Services Director Sue Koehnen said.

There are several holdouts against the health tide. The cafeteria at Beverly Hills High still sells Winchell’s doughnuts. Culver City schools still have sour cream and croissants. Los Angeles schools still offer the peanut-butter coffee cake, brownies and German chocolate cake.

It is pointless to “put a menu out that the kids won’t buy,” noted Culver City’s Koehnen. “They have to have a little bit of choice, so they feel like they’re treated like grown-ups,” added Koehnen’s associate, Boland.

One almost sacrosanct item is french fries. At all Los Angeles schools and at elementary schools in Westside districts, frozen manufactured fries are simply warmed up in cafeteria ovens--and are lower in fat and oil as a result. But largely because of student demand, the fries are still deep-fried at high schools in Culver City, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica. “Just like McDonald’s,” several high school students proclaimed happily.

“To change the product, I think we’d see a drop of participation,” said Beverly Hills Food Service Director Chambers. “Students at that age know how to make the right choice. If they know deep-fried french fries are bad for them, then they’ll know they should take salad or fruit (instead).”

Carolyn McCary, the Health Champions program consultant in Beverly Hills, says she regularly urges Chambers’ staff to cut the potatoes thicker so they’ll absorb less oil. At Culver City middle and high schools this year, salad or muffins replaced french fries in several of the lunch combinations. As a result, the cafeteria goes through about 130 pounds of french fries a day, compared to 450 pounds a day last year, Boland said.

The dietitians have other tactics. In Los Angeles schools, unbreaded, charbroiled chicken strips are offered alongside the more popular fried Chicken McNugget-style pieces. Beverly Hills High serves Granny Goose potato chips with half the salt of conventional brands and Spree “all-natural” sodas. Culver City will experiment with offering whipped cottage cheese instead of sour cream on baked potatoes.

The reviews from students are mixed. Generally, they say they want lower prices, better quality and, perhaps most important, variety.

Salad bars, for example, were a well-received innovation when they were introduced at some Los Angeles high schools 10 years ago. But patronage dwindled to the point where most have now been dropped. Carol Noelting, deputy food service director, says they became passe. Beverly Hills and Culver City students likewise say they’re getting bored with an array of lunch choices that doesn’t change.

And though they agree the menus are healthier, many students crave some grease and salt.

A survey last month found that Beverly Hills High School students don’t want the natural Spree soda. “They want Coke, Pepsi--real soda,” Chambers said. They don’t want the reduced-salt chips, “they want the salty ones.”

Taylor, the Culver City seventh-grader, likes the new salad and deli bars, but longs for tacos, that were dropped from the menu this year. “The grease would drip down my arm,” she said of the tacos, but “they were pretty good.”