Change is Here! New Lunch Menus Announced

The following email was sent out by our district yesterday announcing the improvements coming to our school's lunch:

From: District Email
Date: August 30, 2010 2:35:40 PM EDT
To: North Shore Schools

Dear North Shore School District Families,

The Food Service for the district is busy preparing our kitchens for the first day of another new school year. This year, we find the word “new” to have a very special meaning. Over the last year, we surveyed and spoke openly with parents, students and members of the administration. We learned that many parents were actively keeping abreast of the nation’s drive toward School Food Reform and wanted things to change.

This summer, lawmakers have been busy finalizing the reauthorization of the National School Lunch Program and the nation is abuzz over healthy school lunches. Just today, Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsak, issued a statement to all schools throughout the nation, encouraging them to participate in the Healthier US School Challenge.

In a USDA press release Vilsak said, “Even as Congress considers legislation to make historic improvements to school meals, there are also steps that moms and dads and others in the community can take to improve the health and nutrition of the meals their kids eat each day.”

Over the next months you will find many changes in the ways we nourish your children. Who says school food can’t be real food? As a community, we are committed to:

-Increasing staff training to promote scratch cooking, which helps limit processed foods that contain potentially harmful additives and hidden allergens for those with food allergies and intolerances.

-Creating menus that are appealing and tasteful which, we believe, will have students buying more willingly and after eating a good, square meal they will feel and perform better during the school day.

-Offering entrees and snacks free of High Fructose Corn Syrup, dyes and unnecessary ingredients.

-Supporting our local farms by serving seasonal fruits and vegetables in season in a responsible way by making them plentiful and offering them on environmentally-friendly paper goods that can return to the earth quickly and without a trace.

-Replacing processed meats for sandwiches with Boars Head Brand® cold cuts to all schools.

Did you know that all school lunch programs are required by law to be self-sustaining? (which means that your tax dollars cannot be used to support the program). It is therefore necessary for our food service to increase prices in order to cover costs. Effective September 7, 2010, the following prices will be in effect:

Elementary Lunch $3.00
High School Breakfast $2.00
Middle School and High School Lunch $3.50
Middle School and High School Deli Bar $3.75
Milk $ .60
Bottled Water - Small/Large $ .75 / $1.25

Please find attached the menus for the opening of school. Menus will also be posted on the District's website at www.northshoreschools.org

We look forward to welcoming you to see and taste the changes in the district’s Food Service.

The new menus are not yet on the district website. (They list Sept but they are last year's.) We'll post more shortly on those and work on getting ingredient lists.

I'm very excited about the fresh fruit, variety of vegetables and the end of high fructose corn syrup. Plus, I won't miss the processed entrees with 50+ ingredients.

What are your thoughts? Let us know - click "comments" below.

Sara