Change on Menu at L.A. Unified Cafeterias

Attention to childhood obesity has prompted parents and school officials to give new thought to that age-old source of griping: school food.

Cafeteria food has changed. Tacos and pizza have taken the place of mystery meat and green beans cooked to a medium gray.

And more changes may be ahead for students in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest after New York. Board President Marlene Canter, with co-sponsors David Tokofsky and Julie Korenstein, has introduced the Cafeteria Improvement Motion, to be voted on today.

Question: What’s the beef?

Answer: Students who have breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria are eating nearly half their weekly meals at school. And for some children living in poverty, those may be their only meals, Canter said.

More than 75% of L.A. Unified students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. These are the same children, Canter said, who might be at increased risk of obesity.

L.A. Unified serves 346,293 lunches each day. It annually uses more than 61 million 8-ounce cartons of milk and 11 million boxes of cereal.

“It is especially incumbent upon us to serve the healthiest food we can,” Canter said at a hearing Thursday. “The time for change is now.”

She noted that 66% of California teenagers drink soda every day, and just 25% are eating the five servings a day of fruits and vegetables recommended by the federal government.

“We are compounding the problem with the food we serve in the cafeteria,” she said, noting that students have complained of food that is frozen, burned, moldy or spoiled.

In addition, cafeterias are crowded, and students say there’s not always enough of the food they want.

Q: Didn’t the school board already get rid of junk food and soda?

A: The board was among the first in the country to ban soda, in an August 2002 vote, and junk food sales, as of July 2004. Those decisions mostly governed food sold at student stores, in vending machines and elsewhere on campus.

The latest motion covers cafeteria food; it goes before the school board today.

California also enacted laws this year to limit the fat and sugar content of foods sold on campuses and to prohibit the sale of sodas during school hours. Advocates of the measures say they are the most sweeping rules of their kind in the United States.

Q: What would the new motion do?

A: Among other things, it calls for reducing the sodium, sugar and fat in cafeteria food; posting nutritional information; making sure that lunch is served at an “appropriate” time; seeking partnerships with chefs; and involving students in the plans.

The measure seeks to increase the number of students eating school food and to “make sure we’re serving them the healthiest food and giving them the information they need to make good choices,” Canter said at last week’s hearing.

Amy Dresser Held, director of policy and communications for Canter, said some items in the motion would cost no additional funds. Others could be phased in over time, including some facilities improvements that could be paid for through existing bonds. The total has not been determined, she said.

One key to making it work, if the board adopts the motion, would be serving food that students want to eat, said Marilyn Wells, the director of food services for L.A. Unified. “If we do not have food that students like to eat, they will not eat in the cafeteria,” she told the board.

“One of the major facts that most people don’t understand is that we don’t have a captive audience in the cafeteria,” Wells said after the hearing. Many students simply don’t eat at school, saving their money to spend off-campus after school.

Q: Have school lunches changed over the years?

A: Yes.

The federal school lunch program began in 1946, to combat hunger and malnutrition, after the military found that some young men were not fit for service because they were malnourished. That was long before the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food pyramid and today’s worries about obesity.

The lunch ladies of the 1960s, who made food and dished it out, stereotypically with wagging fingers and nagging voices, also are no more. L.A. Unified’s cafeteria workers generally serve food prepared or packaged either by contractors or at the district’s Newman Nutrition Center.

Efforts have been made to make the food culturally familiar to the many ethnicities among the students.

But school food services are “driven by a revenue goal, not by how nutritious their foods are,” Canter said. Funding is based on meals served, so the department operates as a business, luring customers with tacos, pizza, orange chicken and burgers. L.A. Unified spends $100 million a year on food; the food services operating budget is $270.7 million.

Q: Does school food have to follow rules about health and quality?

A: The U.S. Department of Agriculture or the district require menus that limit sodium, fat and sugar content.

Nutrition standards are not set by the individual item, but over the course of a week.

“There is supposed to be some combination of school foods across the week that meet those USDA guidelines,” Held said.

That is because “individual foods should not be classified as either healthy or unhealthy. It is your diet that is healthy or unhealthy,” Wells said.

So if one menu choice is pizza or nachos, a student could take that every day. “They could be eating things that are bad for them every day,” Canter said.

But Wells said the meals are well-balanced and a better nutritional deal than the food students buy at convenience stores or fast-food chains off campus. Her department, she said, has worked hard to serve healthful, appealing food. As an example, she cited a low-fat pizza that is being developed.

Students get low-fat or skim milk, and some schools have salad bars. Policy allows secondary school students to take extra fruit or vegetables for free, though students have complained that there are not always extras to be had. And Held said Canter’s office has “heard anecdotally over and over and over” that when salad is on a school menu, there often is not enough.

Q: Are there problems aside from the food?

A: With many schools crowded, cafeterias are bustling. Students complain that lunch periods are too short. Cafeteria workers sometimes have to feed as many as 3,000 students in 30 minutes, Wells said.

Lunch periods can run from as early as 10:30 a.m. to afternoon, Canter said. But changing school schedules is a complicated job, said Matt Sharp, regional advocate for the group California Food Policy Advocates.

Indoor cafeterias would help, critics and officials alike say. The walk-up windows at many schools make it hard for students to see the food offered, and they help create long lines.

And although participation has increased in recent years, more than half of secondary students do not eat school lunches.

Q: What would critics like to see changed?

A: Groups such as Sharp’s and the Healthy School Food Coalition, which have been working for changes in cafeteria food, would like to see more meals prepared from scratch at schools, as well as school gardens and farmers markets on campuses. They also want to see more whole grain foods and more vegetarian options.

Francesca de la Rosa of the Healthy School Food Coalition said many high school students are aware that it’s important to eat healthy food. They want more salad bars, more fruits and vegetables. In some schools, such as Venice High, they are getting items such as turkey wraps, she said.

One easy change would be for cafeteria managers to display produce where students can see it, she said.

Q: What’s going right?

A: French fries are baked. Fish sandwiches come on whole wheat bread. Corn dogs are made with turkey franks. Some schools have salad bars or packaged salads. More children are eating school food; participation has grown from 17% in 2001 to 43% today, according to L.A. Unified.

Even critics have some good things to say. Sharp’s group noted that children who eat school breakfasts do better on tests and have better attendance than those who do not. And children who eat school lunch consume more fruits and vegetables than children who don’t.