Readers Give Fairfax 'F' for Food

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

We recently published an item here noting that the School Nutrition Association, representing school food workers across the country, had designated Fairfax County just outside the nation's capitol as having the best food program in the country.

I have to admit, I did not have a high level of confidence when I printed news of the nutrition association's award. If the food in Fairfax schools was so great, wouldn't we have heard more about it before now?

Well, this just shows the perils of accepting press releases at face value. The Washington Post made the same mistake in a July 15 article by health columnist Valerie Strauss. The photograph used to illustrate Strauss' piece should have been a giveaway: it shows what appear to be high-schoolers eating chicken nuggets, sugary yogurt and chocolate milk.

Readers were quick to set Strauss straight. Here's a sampling of the many comments:

"This is so ridiculous I can't even believe it. The picture used for this article has a group of kids eating pizza, chicken nuggets and drinking chocolate milk. I was in the Fairfax county school system from k-12, and I can assure you that most kids subsisted off of pizza, nuggets french fries and chocolate milk. I doubt that much has changed in the 10 years since I was in grade school, and the photo used confirms it. What a low standard. Jaime Oliver is right, our food education is appalling, we do need a food revolution if anything is going to change. This award for FCPS sickens and insults me."

"If FCPS is the best, I'd hate to see the worst. The food at my child's elementary school was terrible. And I'm in no way disgruntled, as my child brought his lunch every day and no longer attends FCPS.
Lunch was the usual high hamburger/pizza fare and the exotic Give Me 5 offerings are things like cauliflower, bell pepper and oranges. Breakfast is prepackaged food that was high in calories and sugar, basically junk food. Wonder about behavior problems in the classroom? Look no further than the sugar content at breakfast. Here's an example breakfast: EZ Bear Breakfast on the Go”
Box includes:Cereal, Crackers or Pop Tart, Juice
or Yogurt w/Elfi n Graham Crackers
or Cereal w/ Elfi n Graham Crackers

"Come on! Graham crackers for breakfast? I'd hardly call that excellent.WaPO needs to read the menu before doing a story about how great the food is in FCPS and instead do a story about how FCPS contributes to poor childhood nutrition."

"High frutose corn syrup, enriched flour, sodium nitrate, red#4, blue #1 etc...What a joke!!!!!! Their food sources are horrible. It is laughable when you actually look at the menus. These poor children. It's no wonder why obesity is such an epidemic. Why are the adults so ignorant - oh perhaps they are in bed with the manufacturers.
I agree with the previous poster- shame on The Washington Post for doing an article on this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Hah. FCPS food is high quality? I must agree with the majority of comments here- it is terrible. I attended FCPS k-12. On a few occasions the food literally made me sick, and in high school I generally refused to eat it. The "sweet potato wedges" mentioned are simply sweet potato fries loaded with oil and fat- no more healthy than normal ones. The "salads" are in fact a few shreds of lettuce topped with a paper thin slice of tomato, and it is indeed true that students at all levels of FCPS education tend to choose a few cookies and a Caprisun for lunch rather than an actual meal.

"If this is the best fare in the country, I shudder at the dilemma of our public school systems."

Thanks go to one of our own readers, Jane Hersey of the Feingold Association of the United States, for setting us straight on this and providing a useful link to School Lunch.org. It just proves that where school food is concerned, you can't believe what's written on the menu or in anyone's award citation. The only thing that counts is what kids actually see on their cafeteria trays.

The Facts About School Food Service in Rome

Guest Post
By Lisa Suriano

Several months ago I came across a short documentary featuring Rome, Italy’s incredibly progressive school food program. I was impressed by what I learned from the documentary and hungry to learn more. Fortunately, I had already planned a trip to visit some family in Rome, so I pursued an interview with Paolo Agnostini, the Head Nutritionist for the Municipality of Rome and a key player in the transformation of their school food program.

In the weeks before our meeting, Mr. Agnostini provided me with the program’s facts and figures, caterer and vendor contract guidelines and the overarching goals and ideals that brought this program to life. First the facts:

- 150,000 total meals daily

- 740 public schools

- 96% from-scratch meals/4% portable meals

- €5.03 ($6.56) average cost of a school meal (includes a complete lunch and a

snack)

- 70% of the ingredients are organic (The switch to using organic food incurred a €0.16 food cost increase.)

- €5.03 includes all food ingredients, labor and system monitoring costs but not tax.

- The food service programs are managed by private catering companies contracted by the municipality.

- Two independent companies are contracted by the municipality to monitor the ingredients and operations in the schools.

Although I did not obtain a percentage of locally procured products, I did learn a great deal about how local foods were prioritized in the program. When reviewing bids from food providers, points were given to those contractors that could best guarantee the use of the following:

A Bio-dedicated food chain: “foods that were organically grown coming from farm businesses working exclusively in organic food-chains.”

Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO) & Protected Geographic Indication (PGI) products: food products that are typical of the Lazio Region in which Rome is located. These included Mozzarella di bufala PDO (buffalo milk mozzarella-cheese), Pecorino Romano PDO (sheep cheese), Ricotta Romana PDO, Beef PGI (slow growing old breeds: Chianina, Marchigiana, Romagnola.)

Guaranteed freshness produce: meaning no more than 3 days between harvest and intake. Companies are required to state the name of the harvesting farm, the harvesting date and the name of any food-processing center on the produce package.

Meat freshness: Meats must be vacuumed packed and delivered with 4 days of packaging.

In order to further support the ideal of using locally grown produce the Municipality utilized the following two principals in the menu and recipe development:

Seasonality: All menu items must only include ingredients that are harvested in Lazio during that specific time period.

Recipe Variety: Two 9-week menu cycles were created, one for the winter and one for the spring. Teams of professional chefs and dieticians were hired by the city and charged with creating seasonal and student-approved menus. A total of 160 recipes were developed and implemented. Schools varied their starting point in the menu cycles to allow for sufficient supplies of produce. (Agnostini called the recipe development process “key to the program’s success.” He also said that dissemination of the recipes to all schools had been unnecessarily difficult and, in retrospect, should have been more organized and efficient.)

The precise and stringent nature of these requirements is indicative of the strong ideals that shaped Rome’s school meal program. The main goals of the program were to:

Upgrade food quality

Ensure food safety

Provide nutrient balance

Combat childhood obesity

Develop sustainable production

Regulate public contracts

The €5 a day that it takes Rome to accomplish these goals is significantly more than what is being invested here in the U.S. However, this quote that underscores the list of goals explains how Romans have justified this expenditure. “The principle of cheapness must be subordinated to criteria inspired by social requirements, as well as by healthcare, environmental conservation and sustainable development.” In support of this statement Agnostini also said during our meeting, “It is more money to cure people for nutrition related diseases than to prevent them.”

While those of us advocating for improved school food fervently share this belief, unfortunately, there are many people who do not consider nutrition a major priority. I know this lack of concern and resistance firsthand; therefore, I was very curious how Rome managed to overcome the naysayers.

Mr. Agnostini agreed with me that effective change in school cafeterias only happens with a community effort. The Municipality knew that competitive foods would threaten the success of their program. To combat this they banned ALL outside food from the school buildings. This extended to parents not being allowed to send their children with lunches or snacks from home. This was a bold move to take and it was not entirely well received. Some parents loudly protested this mandate. However, Agnostini said, “They were not the majority. We held to our rule.” It was not until the European Union publicly recognized and praised Rome for its efforts that the protest noise quieted.

Having read about the nutrition education initiatives that Rome implemented, I wanted to know how teachers had responded to the changes. Agnostini said, “Children must know where food comes from. It is best to cultivate or cook but this is not always possible. So they must learn and understand through lessons. Teachers need to be motivated. Most will not be by the idea that eating well is important but by money or ease of operations.” Opting for the latter, Rome aided teachers in incorporating nutrition education lessons by providing them with materials, activities, and tools. (This is precisely what I have done with the Veggiecation program.)

Agnostini continued to stress the importance of teacher involvement and support when making school food changes. He said, “More important than the children’s reaction was the teacher’s reaction. Students listen and respond to how teachers react to foods.” He gave me a few anecdotes about how if teachers said they did not like something, the children would not eat it. One vegetable in particular had to be eliminated from the program because despite the students initially enjoying it at lunch, teacher’s balked at the smell it emitted when it cooked was.

Towards the end of our time together I asked Mr. Agnostini what he envisioned for the future of Rome’s school meal program. His response surprised me and slightly disheartened me. He informed me that the political tides had changed within the Municipality. The party that had initiated the city’s school food revolution was no longer in power and the current administration did not value sustainable food development in the same way. He said because of this he was concerned there might a regression due to reallocation of funds and a change in priorities. What a shame it would be for this to happen. Politics created the problem of poor school nutrition and then politicians worked to fix it. How unfortunate it would be have this cycle repeat itself .

. .

Lastly, I asked him to share any advice to those of us in the U.S. advocating for school food change. He simply said, “It will be difficult but you must keep walking forward.”

Lisa Suriano caters school meals and is the developer of the curriculum-based lunch program Veggication.

Potpourri: School Food News Roundup

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

In a somewhat surprising move, following months of foot-dragging and hand-wringing, the U.S. Senate by unanimous consent approved a re-authorization of the Child Nutrition Act that would add about six cents to the federal subsidy for a school lunch. Critics contend that what schools need is more like a dollar raise. In fact, I was at the farmers market this morning and bought a Golden Crisp apple for breakfast. It cost exactly $1.

Meanwhile, the House version of the legislation would provide more money--closer to 10 cents per meal--but has yet to come up for a vote and supporters still cannot identify the money sources that would be used to pay for it.

Perhaps more significant than the small boost in federal subsidy for school meals is the authority these bills would give the U.S. Department of Agriculture to regulate for the first time the non-nutritious "competitive" foods that schools sell outside the lunch line. Chips, ice cream sandwiches, sport drinks: this is what many students spend their lunch money on, and healthy food advocates for years have been trying to get these junk foods out of schools.

How boldly would the agriculture secretary act where junk food is concerned, or would the food manufacturers have their way behind the scenes? That is truly an issue worth keeping an eye on.

*****

Despite all the talk about eating more healthfully, and despite all the attention on Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign, Americans just get fatter and fatter.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that obesity rates have reached 30 percent of the population in nine states. That's up from only three states in 2007. The new figures mean that 2.4 million more people became obese from 2007 to 2009, for a nationwide total of 72.5 million people, or nearly 27 percent of the population.

“Over the past several decades, obesity has increased faster than anyone could have imagined it would,” said Dr. Thomas Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which issued a report on the prevalence of obesity. Obesity rates have doubled in adults and tripled in children in recent decades, Dr. Frieden said.

If the numbers keep going up, he added, “more people will get sick and die from the complications of obesity, such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer.”

*****

In Italy, meanwhile, the health minister is so concerned about rising obesity rates among children that he says vending machines and second helpings at lunch should be banned, and that pizza should only be served once a week.

New regulations would prohibit selling pre-packaged cake, and instead have schools serve fresh fruit, yogurt or fruit juice without added sugar.

*****

Congress has launched a probe to discover why a certain chemical prompted Kellogg to recall millions of boxes of cereal in June.

In a letter sent to Kellogg CEO David MacKay on 2 August, Rep. Henry Waxman and Rep. Bart Stupak also cited a US media report that claimed Kellogg had “destroyed tainting packaging before announcing the recall”. The company told FoodProductionDaily.com that this was not true, as it vowed to co-operate with Congressional body.

The committee said it would focus its probe on the chemical 2-methylnaphthalene which Kellogg eventually identified as the substance responsible for the tainting of the food that sickened around 20 people. The company has repeatedly stressed that the chemical used in the manufacture of a common wax –like coating in its packing liners is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

But the lawmakers raised their own concerns about the substance, saying: “At least one study has shown that 2-methylnaphthalene may cause lung injuries in adults. There are no studies indicating whether children are more susceptible to this chemical.”

*****

And you thought Vitaminwater was healthy?

The non-profit Center for Science in the Public Interest is suing Coca-Cola, owner of the Vitaminwater line, for making unwarranted health claims about the beverage. But in a novel twist, Coca-Cola's response is that no consumer in her right mind would consider Vitaminwater healthy.

Lawyers for Coke say that "no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage." In fact, Vitaminwater contains 33 grams of sugar, plus a few vitamins.

Americans now get nearly 25 percent of their calories from liquids. In 2009, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, finding that the quickest and most reliable way to lose weight is to cut down on liquid calorie consumption. And the best way to do that is to reduce or eliminate beverages that contain added sugar.

Still, Vitaminwater must be good business. Coke is paying basketball superstars Kabe Bryant and Lebron James to advertise it as a good way to hydrate.

*****

Finally, schools in Houston, TX, are facing many of the same food issues dogging schools here in the District of Columbia. A new breakfast-in-the-classroom effort has drawn criticism from parents for taking time away from studies. Sound familiar? The schools are also grappling with how to replace overly processed and sugary foods served by the contracted food services provider--Aramark--with healthier fare.

An editorial in the Houston Chronicle says students routinely were eating animal crackers, Uncrustables processed sandwiches and Trix yogurt laced with sugar. One option being considered is to hire Revolution Foods to serve at least a portion of school breakfasts in Houston. But Revolution Foods charges about $3 per meal, or twice the federal subsidy for a fully reimbursable school breakfast.

(Revolution Foods has been tapped to provide meals at seven D.C. schools in a pilot program when classes resume August 23, but its contract calls for its food service to be "cost neutral," or only what the federal subsidies will pay for.)

Editors at the Chronicle say "parents are right to keep the pressure on, and right to keep proposing better meal alternatives," and that the school district "merits praise for seeing the importance of breakfast for all - and working to fix its imperfections"

The Trouble with Local Produce

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

I wonder if anyone else attending the "food services roundtable" this week at D.C. Public Schools headquarters was struck by food services director Jeffrey Mills' comment that he and his crew have recently taste-tested some 300 different "food products" for the upcoming school year.

Mills said he personally had tasted "30 different chicken products," in the effort to improve school meals.

"Food products"? "Chicken products"?

The emphasis seems to be on "products" rather than fresh food. And that's one of the problems schools face when their idea of serving children revolves around hiring a giant food services contractor--in this case Chartwells--whose method of producing meals involves reheating industrially processed convenience foods. Or should we say "products"?

D.C. schools under Chancellor Michelle Rhee have determined that cooking is not a "core competency" of schools and so have farmed out the job to Chartwells. This year they are introducing two pilot programs--14 schools to be served meals either from Revolution Foods or D.C. Central Kitchen--to create a little competition and light a fire under Chartwells.

Still, the problem remains: how do you get fresh produce into the meals if no one in the kitchen is trained to handle it, or doesn't have the equipment?

As well as being pressed by healthy food and farm to school advocates, Mills has a financial incentive to put some sort of locally grown food on every cafeteria tray. The "Healthy Schools Act"passed earlier this year by the D.C. Council offers a five-cent bonus for each school meal that contains a locally grown component.

That wouldn't be hard at all if D.C. schools had salad bars. But D.C. schools don't have salad bars. They could put it in the soup. But D.C. schools don't make or serve soup. They could put local vegetables in the the pasta sauce. But D.C. schools don't make their own pasta sauce. It comes out of a can. Does that mean replacing cooked-to-death broccoli from Mexico or California with local cooked-to-death broccoli?

Mills remarked that "there's a ton of local produce around us" here in the District of Columbia. He said one local distributor, Keany Produce, has assured him it can deliver all the local produce D.C. schools might require. But as far as actually using that produce in school kitchens: "Hopefully as years go on, we can improve the skills of our kitchen workers and upgrade our kitchens."

Years? Is there a plan we don't know about?

Anthony Tata, chief operating officer for the schools, seems perfectly content to rely on vendors. When asked whether D.C. schools might ever emulate other schools districts who "self operate" their food service and cook with raw products, he said it's all about "good contract management." "I can't predict the future," Tata said, "but we will make decisions to bring the most nutritious food to our kids. We think we've found the sweet spot of what we're driving toward. We'll be ruthless in holding [vendors] accountable."

Meanwhile, other school districts around the country are doing everything they can to train their own cooks and upgrade their kitchens in order to prepare meals more economically from scratch using fresh produce and other raw ingredients. Here's a report that aired last night on PBS Newshour, describing how schools in Colorado are using federal stimulus funds to conduct "culinary boot camps" to train their own cooks.

A glass half-full perspective

By Constance Newman

I’m not too concerned about the lack of a clear vision for the future for DC school food. I thought the Tuesday night meeting was energizing in that there was a large attendance of concerned parents and other community members. It’s only been a year since Rhee’s team has tried to make change, and the hiring of Jeff Mills seems like a very good first step.

From the little he said, Mills seems to “get it” in terms of our interests in reducing processed food, increasing local produce, etc. I trust them when they say it’s hard to make big changes right away. The fact that they are removing flavored milk is huge (way beyond the vaunted Institute of Medicine standards), and now they have awarded contracts for pilot programs to two firms that are very committed to local, farm-fresh produce.

DCPS has been pushed by The Healthy Meals Act to make changes, so maybe they’re learning as they go. That’s okay with me. I’m thankful they are making Chartwells compete and that they’re open to new ideas. In fact, if they were forced to write a strategic plan right now, I’m afraid we wouldn’t like it.

Maybe they’ll figure out that it would be more cost-effective to hire a non-profit entity headed by a local chef. Jamie Oliver, DC style! They didn’t talk about it, but Cathal Armstrong and other chefs are supposedly going to take over food services at Tyler Elementary. That’s the model that many of us are more excited about. Not because they’re chefs, per se, though that is important, but because it’s a non-profit venture. I agree with Ed that the idea that there’s money to be made in school food service is highly suspect. Schools are prohibited by law from making a profit when running school lunch programs, but somehow private companies are allowed to?

I’d like to see a rigorous evaluation of the pilots and Chartwells. The fact that they are private probably complicates the ability of D.C. to publish information about food quality and cost structure (and that’s another problem with outsourcing to for-profit firms—lack of transparency). What is D.C. Public Schools going to use as their criteria? Tony Tata mentioned the need to serve healthy meals while keeping costs down and participation up. With more people watching, how is DCPS going to measure and demonstrate the successes and failures of the different models? What are the criteria that we’d like them to use?

And what was the ever-so-brief mention of a school garden program (“pilot”) that Jeff Mills said we’ll be hearing about in the future? It did seem like we weren’t getting a full picture of all of the models being discussed and/or planned, especially when this was mentioned rather surreptitiously. Hopefully there will be more good news in our future.

As Jody Tick said in her post yesterday, DCPS needs to involve the community directly at this experimental stage. We can help set the criteria they will use to measure whether the new and old models are really delivering. We can help engage parents to support school food reforms. An advisory committee sounds perfect.

Here’s to seeing the glass half full.

Constance Newman is a member of Parents for Better D.C. School Food

A Shared Vision for DCPS Food Services

By Jody Tick

There has been a lot of buzz and excitement about the new leadership and direction of the DCPS food services. The conversation continued yesterday at a DCPS Community Forum, where about 60 parents, teachers, food service professionals, and community organizations gathered to ask questions of DCPS Food Services Director Jeff Mills, Chief Operations Officer Tony Tata, and Director of Health & Wellness Diana Bruce.

As an active DCPS parent, and a program director at the Capital Area Food Bank, I recognized almost every face in the room - fellow parent activist Constance Newman, garden educator Kacie Warner, and anti-hunger advocate Kristin Roberts, to name a few. Each of those wonderful stakeholders could be so much more than just a face in the crowd. We could be valuable assets to the DCPS school meal system, and advocates in support of the changes you plan to make.

Since coming in to town a few months ago, the DCPS food services team has undertaken incredible efforts to transform D.C. school meals. This has been a challenge, given that D.C. school meals have a rocky history plagued by contract mismanagement, financial accountability issues, food safety concerns, and inconsistent leadership. Jeff Mills and his team have inherited a 60,000 meal-a-day beast of a system, and have been quick to make big promises about how they’re going to turn it around on a dime. To their credit, they’ve made huge expansions to breakfast in the classroom, piloting supper programs at after-school programs, taking on two new vendors as pilot projects, and hiring new staff. And there are big promises of things to come, such as a garden-kitchen educational program, special celebratory events, a totally new menu based on unprocessed, fresh foods, 20% local produce, and compliance with Institute of Medicine standards. The list goes on.

But who’s calling the shots? What is the end goal? Where are we headed?

All the people in that room last night are on the same side as Jeff and his team. We want the great things for our kids and our community that they rattled off - more fresh, unprocessed foods, more local produce, better access to school meals. But we understand that it won’t be easy to get those foods on D.C. cafeteria trays, and then get kids to eat them. You’ll need the community to be your allies in this. But a few things need to change.

First, you must engage us. We need a formal system for providing input and giving feedback. It is not enough for you to stand in front of us and tell us what’s happening. We need to have a formal “Advisory Committee” comprised of a wide swath of community members and national experts to be a part of the planning and execution of the new DCPS school meal operation. We need this NOW, as plans for the future are being shaped and defined, not after they have already been developed.

Second, slow down. Nobody is expecting a barrage of reforms that will solve every aspect of the DCPS school meals all at once. The issues plaguing the DCPS school food system run deep, and have been decades in the making (as you probably know better than we do). We would rather see a few simple, measurable goals achieved than dozens of efforts pulled together quickly.

Third, show us a strategic plan. This city has seen too many well-intentioned but piecemeal efforts to improve the health and well-being of our youth. We need to be thinking not months, but years into the future at what DCPS food services will look like. Tony Tata himself said that DCPS has no idea what this operation will look like after this year, and that’s unacceptable. Other large, urban school districts have overcome the same issues we are facing and are serving the types of meals we strive to serve. Let us learn from their successes and failures, and develop a strategic plan to get where we all want to go, with attention to the unique strengths and weaknesses we have here in the nation’s capital.

Fourth, be transparent. Keep us in the loop with your plans, the criteria you use to evaluate foods, how you spend our taxpayer dollars, where your food is coming from and what’s down the pipeline. It’s not enough for you to give us vague responses to our questions from time to time - stay ahead of the curve and provide us with concrete information.

You can have our 100% support in these efforts if you engage us, and make calculated, strategic change towards our common goals, and are transparent with the community you’re serving. And believe me, it is going to take our support and buy-in on a much deeper level to realize the ambitious goals that we all have for D.C. school food. We owe it to the thousands of children who depend on these meals each day to work together on this while we have the chance. Let’s get it right.

Jody Tick is a member of Parents for Better D.C. School Food.

There is No Plan

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

Those who went to a "food services round-table" with D.C. school officials expecting to hear a long-term strategic plan for improving school food came away disappointed last night. Despite good buzz around the announcement of vendors for two new pilot meal programs offering more fresh and less processed food, it's clear that schools Chief Operating Officer Anthony Tata and Food Services Director Jeffrey Mills are utterly fixed on the idea that a hired contractor can somehow deliver more for a buck than what the schools are currently getting from their hired food provider, Chartwells.

This might help explain why Mills has begged off visits to places such as Boulder, CO, and St. Paul, MN, where public school districts are "self-operating" some of the most innovative food programs in the country. The key difference, of course, is that paying vendors to provide school food means that money that otherwise could be used to improve the quality of the food on cafeteria trays instead ends up in the pockets of hired contractors as profit. But as Tata explained to a room full of parents and food activists last night, food is not a "core competency" of schools under the regime of Chancellor Michelle Rhee, a polite way of saying that D.C. schools don't know how to cook or run a food service operation.

Tata said that the schools were losing "$11 million to $14 million" annually before Rhee took office, an astonishing amount considering that kids were being fed pre-packaged airline-style food trucked in from a factory in suburban Maryland. Chartwells, as part of its contract with D.C. Public Schools, agreed to cut those deficits at least in half. Tata said the school food deficit ran around $7 million in the last year. And that was to serve kids industrially processed convenience foods, such as Apple Jacks, Pop-Tarts and strawberry-flavored milk for breakfast, and frozen "beef crumbles," tater tots and steamed-to-death broccoli for lunch.

A former military procurement specialist, Tata said he and others conducted a "deep dive" into the school food issue last fall and realized they needed someone to fill the food services director job that had been vacant for a year. Enter Jeffrey Mills, a restaurant developer from New York, who almost immediately focused on starting a school garden program. The garden program is still in development. Meanwhile, Mills last night said he and his staff in recent weeks have taste-tested some 300 products, looking to improve the food Chartwells serves.

"I think I tasted 30 different chicken products the other day," Mills said. Mills and Tata have decided to discontinue serving flavored milk in D.C. schools beginning this month, a move that has reverberated around the country and was greeted with cheers from last night's audience. In other school districts, the dairy industry is campaigning to keep chocolate and other flavored milk products with added sugar in schools. But Mills said he is determined to remove processed foods from school menus and introduce locally grown produce.

Mills said he has been meeting with local farmers and produce distributors and has concluded "there is a ton of local produce around us." He said one local distributor, Keany Produce, has assured him it could fulfill the school system's needs, but there remains a question of how to introduce local fruits and vegetables that kids will actually eat. The Chartwells scheme relies on frozen foods that can be served with minimal preparation or skill. Mills has a financial incentive to change that. Under the "Healthy Schools Act" passed by the D.C. Council earlier this year, schools will receive a five-cent bonus in funding for every meal they serve with a locally produced food component.

To introduce some competition into the meal vendor system, the schools announced on Monday that they had chosen D.C. Central Kitchen and Revolution Foods to run the pilot meal programs, each targeting seven schools, one group slated to receive "portable" meals made in Revolution Foods' facility in Glen Burnie, MD, the other to be served meals made on site from scratch by D.C. Central Kitchen's catering arm.

Another recent innovation, also mandated under "Healthy Schools," is breakfast service in classrooms instead of in the cafeteria. Some parents have raised concerns that feeding children breakfast in the classroom will cut into valuable instruction time. The president of Bancroft Elementary Schools' PTA last night said that disadvantaged children stand to be especially harmed by any loss of lesson time. But Tata replied that the breakfast program has been designed to take place before classes begin.

A school principal who attended the meeting said from what she has seen so far, breakfast in the classroom has been a resounding success, creating a "family style" atmosphere in which kids bond with each other and with their teachers, are more likely to eat and less likely to be tardy or act out. In other school districts, classroom breakfast programs also have proved to be a great funding source for school meal programs, since participation is nearly 100 percent and a high percentage of the meals qualify for subsidy payments from the federal government. In D.C., breakfast is offered free to all students.

Other parents were concerned that schools are not doing enough to teach children about nutrition and healthy food choices. Curiously, Tata last night described this as a "zero-sum game," pitting nutrition education against core subjects such as math, reading and science. Diana Bruce, wellness director for D.C. schools, said nutrition is taught in health and physical education classes, and that teachers have latitude to teach nutrition lessons through their core subjects. But at the moment, food does not rate its own education platform in D.C. schools.