Slow Food® Utah

Published by The Salt Lake Tribune, Sunday, August 20, 2006. Written by Sheena McFarland

"At Salt Lake City’s Riley Elementary School, radishes, lettuce and other assorted vegetables that grow in the fall soon will sprout on what was once a grassy patch of schoolyard.

Christi Paulson, a first-grade teacher at the school, 1410 S. 800 West, is creating an ‘edible schoolyard’ to teach her students where food comes from. The project mirrors a groundbreaking program developed by acclaimed chef Alice Waters that now spans California’s Berkeley School District.

‘We’re supposed to teach our students nutrition, yet we send them into lunchrooms full of processed foods,’ Paulson said. ‘It doesn’t work.’

As schools on traditional schedules resume classes this month, the pressure is on. Increasingly, they are being called upon to help reverse discouraging childhood obesity data that show 12 percent to 27 percent of children ages 6 to 19 are overweight.

Food-related challenges that schools face at times seem insurmountable.

Most can’t afford the labor costs of making food from scratch or don’t have on-site kitchens, so processed foods that are easy to heat are commonplace. Vending machines loaded with high-fat snacks and calorie-laden sodas fill the hallways of nearly every junior high and high school to help pay for programs.

Schools say new testing requirements limit the time they can devote to organized physical fitness classes.

And potentially most difficult for schools to address is what they see as a lack of parent and child support for healthful food choices. These and other barriers mean change comes slowly, as in Paulson’s case at Riley Elementary.

She decided to take soil and seeds into her own hands because she has seen first-hand how little children know about food and nutrition, and she knows many children only have tried unsavory, processed vegetables.

‘Kids won’t eat [vegetables] because they’ve never tasted good ones before,’ she said.

Gina Cornia, executive director of Utahns Against Hunger, wonders what gives. ‘When the [potentially] highest quality meal is coming at school, shouldn’t we work to make that the most nutritious meal possible?’

School meals haven’t always been made up of processed foods that districts buy or the federal government supplies through commodities programs. ‘If we still had lunch ladies in the traditional sense, food could be a lot healthier,’ Cornia said.

The School Food Act passed 60 years ago requires public schools to provide lunch.

Starting in the 1960s, federal law required schools to provide subsidized or free meals to students who couldn’t afford them. Then in the early 1980s, cash-strapped schools started moving away from preparing foods from scratch to save on labor costs.

That trend has only continued as more schools have contracted with large companies that provide foods that are easily reheated and served, said Warren Gaddis, a state assistant director for child nutrition.

He says school lunch and its processed foods are not so bad. ‘ ’Highly processed’ has a negative connotation, but ’highly processed’ doesn’t mean bad stuff,’ he said. ‘The food still meets USDA requirements.’

Nancy Denton, another state assistant director of child nutrition, acknowledges that processing adds fat and sodium while removing fiber, but added, ‘it does give food a longer shelf life and allows schools to know exactly what’s going into the food.’

A longer shelf life is not one of the factors Paulson wants to emphasize with her students at Riley Elementary. She wrote a grant last year that made hers one of 25 Utah schools to receive semiweekly deliveries of mushrooms, cantaloupe, grapes and other fresh-grown fruits and vegetables under a federal program.

She also instituted a classroom ‘spit-out’ rule. To comply, students must try everything once but don’t have to swallow if they dislike the food.

She once had a first-grader eat 15 raw mushrooms because, though he had never tried them, he instantly loved them.

‘They eat it all. The only thing that got bad reviews was raw rutabaga,’ she said. ‘Kids will eat fruit and vegetables if they’re fresh and available.’

About twice a month, her students are presented with unusual fruits and vegetables to help them try new foods.

‘Kids adapt,’ Denton said. ‘Kids have loved the fresh fruit and vegetable program, and they’re loving foods they didn’t even know the name of before, such as jicama and snap peas.’

She says the fresh fruits and vegetables program shows promise, as do new dietary guidelines from the USDA that likely will be implemented later this fall. The guidelines may require vendors to make changes toward more healthful foods without increasing costs. Foods such as Uncrustables, which are pre-made peanut butter and jelly white-bread sandwiches, may not be marketable to schools if the USDA addresses trans fat, which is found in peanut butter that is not all-natural.

That may mean natural peanut butter will be introduced, and more whole-grain goods will be brought into cafeterias. Such changes, however, may add to the omnipresent struggle to find food children will enjoy.

Other efforts to address school nutrition seem less promising, such as Farms to Schools, a federal initiative that enables local farmers to provide fresh produce instead of frozen or canned vegetables and fruits.

‘When the farmer has the produce, that’s not necessarily when the school needs it,’ Denton said. ‘Schools could use a farmer through October, but then have to find a new vendor in December and January. It makes things more complicated.’

Complications aside, educators such as Paulson intend to keep trying. She raised $4,500 for her school garden and hopes to use the seven planter boxes – which will be filled with fast-growing vegetables – as tools to teach not only nutrition and other subjects such as math and biology, but also to instill a sense of where food comes from and why it’s important to eat healthfully.

‘I hope students learn how to be responsible for something and connect more with the natural world. I want them to know that dirt is where food comes from,’ she said. ‘It’s so much easier to teach a healthy child than an unhealthy one.’"

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"Teacher Christi Paulson is creating an edible schoolyard behind Riley Elementary School. On Tuesday morning, she laid out the area where students will plant gardens." (Ryan Galbraith/The Salt Lake Tribune)

Contact Sheena McFarland at smcfarland@sltrib.com or 801-257-8619. Send comments to livingeditor@sltrib.com.

In this series

• "School Nutrition" PDF Guide.
• Sunday (August 20, 2006): The state of meal offerings, exercise and nutrition education.
• The article above.
• Monday (August 21, 2006): Tips to help parents shape their children’s eating and exercise habits.
• Back to School: Close-fit family – Kids are easily influenced by their parents’ eating and exercising habits.
• Tuesday (August 22, 2006): A look at health and physical education in schools and the effects of the Gold Medal nutrition and exercise program.
• "Tips for supporting fitness and health at school"
• "Keeping kids fit – Changes are looking to be made in school’s physical education classes."
• "Outside sources help Utah schools fight squeeze on physical education – Keeping kids fit."
• Wednesday (August 23, 2006): What kids really think about school lunch cafeterias, plus nutritious recipes for home or school.
• "What’s for lunch? Schools make nutritious meals available, but many kids would rather fill up on the pizza and ice cream served in the cafeteria. Whose responsibility is it to make sure students are getting good nutrition?"