Schools try to keep kids from tossing out fruit, veggies

[Silent_Bob]

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/os-school-food-waste-20120930,0,1993800.story

At Triangle Elementary School in Mount Dora, students shuffle through the lunch lines loading their plates with pears, plums, pizza slices and fruit slushies.

At the lunch tables, many devour the cheese-and-mushroom pizza, guzzle their milk but leave whole pears, ripened plums and the slushies destined for the garbage.

"Unfortunately, we do force-feed some of it," said Carol Brewer, a school food-service manager, while monitoring the bustling cafeteria. "They've got to have a fruit or a veggie."

This year, prompted by changes in federal school-lunch rules, Central Florida students are not allowed to turn down the healthful produce, much of which can end up in the dumpster. The issue has caught the attention of Lake County school leaders who say they want staff to use surveys, or even trash cams — cameras mounted on cafeteria garbage bins — to study what's being thrown away.

Last year, Lake schools were the only ones in Central Florida to sample the new rules a year before they were required. And they estimated that students tossed $75,000 of produce in the garbage. This year, School Board members say they want stricter trash monitoring to figure out what's working and what's not with the new federal policy.

"It would give us an idea of what food was being eaten," said School Board member Todd Howard, who suggested the trash-cam idea.

The new rules have dramatically reshaped the school-food business by placing calorie limits on meals, requiring a colorful variety of veggies and demanding more-frequent food audits. Districts that don't comply risk losing thousands of dollars a year in federal money a year.

School food staffers can't serve as many french fries and now must make weekly servings of bright veggies such as spinach or carrots.

Calorie cutbacks also mean portion sizes are smaller, and some foods are nixed altogether. Burritos in Seminole County, for instance, are stuffed with less cheese and rice, while baked chips are no longer on the menus.

Food audits, which count calories as well nutrients such as protein and calcium, will happen more frequently. Those who pass will get an extra 6 cents on top of the $2.77 they receive for an average free lunch.

The changes are the first in decades to revamp the nation's school-food program, and supporters say the overhaul is necessary to introduce children to more-healthful foods and to fight obesity and disease.

But uneaten lunchtime food nationwide costs taxpayers about $600 million a year or more, according to a 2002 congressional report.

Supporters say the challenge of getting children to eat all their fruits and veggies goes beyond studying the trash.

At Triangle Elementary, where 80 percent of the students get free or reduce-price lunches, Brewer says getting students used to the taste and smell of fresh produce can help them become interested in actually making it part of their regular meals.

Some of her students don't even recognize fruits and vegetables that don't come in cans, she says.

"They have no concept of what, say, a squash looks like," Brewer said.

To combat the veggie resistance, Brewer applied for grants to fund a school garden that now supplies the cafeteria salad bar. The garden — a series of futuristic-looking, soilless white towers — holds bibb lettuce, tomatoes and eggplants. It's regularly tended by classrooms and harvested by Brewer.

"We're growing everything they need," she said. "It's not just a learning experience, but then they get to eat it."

Other districts have also whipped up their own solutions to reduce food waste or appeal to fickle taste buds. In Orange County schools, nutrition chiefs have won several awards for their creative food programs.

Staff does focus groups and hundreds of surveys and has invited chefs to create tasty recipes. In Seminole, staffers also do taste tests and chat with students to see what they enjoy.

"Maybe we have to see this as an investment in nutritional education instead of focusing on the trash problem," said Gary Dodds, Lake County's school-food chief. Dodds says he'll likely focus on informally polling lunchroom staff to see what's not working rather the trash-cam approach, which could prove costly.

Nationally, as more schools adjust to the new rule, many are starting to take trash studies more seriously. The U.S. Department of Agriculture already has sunk $2 million into a similar idea in San Antonio schools, where researchers photograph students' plates during lunch.

Other districts in Texas and Massachusetts are contracting with researchers who will monitor lunchtime trash, but Dodds is still unsure how many answers can be found in the garbage.

"I think part of the puzzle is in the trash," Dodds said. "But it's not going to solve the whole problem."

[Russell Kanning]

Funny

[Raineyrocks]

http://www.infowars.com/lake-county-considers-trash-cams-at-school-cafeterias/

Lake County Considers 'Trash-Cams' at School Cafeterias         

Infowars.com
Oct 4, 2012

TAVARES, Fla. – Lake County School Board officials are considering attaching cameras to school cafeteria trash cans to study what students are tossing after officials found that most of the vegetables on the school menu end up in the trash can.

[Russell Kanning]

After thy watch the kids throw away the food...... then what

[Jim Johnson]

After thy watch the kids throw away the food...... then what

No need to stop for groceries on the way home.

[Raineyrocks]

After thy watch the kids throw away the food...... then what

No need to stop for groceries on the way home.

Yeah really.  They will probably zap the kids with those cattle prods, (sp?), they just bought.