No More "Offer Versus Serve"

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Some weeks ago the kitchen manager at my daughter's elementary school informed us that daughter would no longer be allowed to decline the milk at mealtime even though she is lactose intolerant. Consequently, she would just throw the milk in the trash.

Up to that point D.C. Public Schools had practiced something called "offer versus serve." Under USDA rules [PDF], schools must give high school students the option of declining one of the four items offered for breakfast, or two of the five items offered for lunch. Offer versus serve is optional in elementary schools, but most school districts--including D.C.--use it.

Until recently, that is. It really bothered me to watch my daughter and other kids routinely toss perfectly good food like unopened cartons of milk or uneaten pieces of fruit directly into the trash. But despite weeks of pestering the food services personnel, I could not get anyone to tell me why the policy had been changed.

Then I got the word through a back channel: offer versus serve had been eliminated in D.C. elementary schools to speed up the food lines.

Apparently, some school officials complained that allowing small children to choose which foods they wanted--or didn't want--on their trays took too long. At my daughter's school, for instance, 30 minutes is allotted for lunch. Usually, the last kids through the line have about 15 minutes to eat. But the lines in other schools are longer, meaning the kids only have a few minutes to actually eat their food after waiting to be served.

So that's the situation here in the District of Columbia: the trash cans fill up with good food so that children will have more time to eat their meals.

In my daughter's case, it means getting a phone call from a dietitian at Chartwells, the district's food service management company, telling us that lactose-free milk--at extra cost--has been ordered specially for her so that anytime she takes a school meal she will get a carton of that to throw away instead.

Turns out daughter just doesn't like milk--period--unless it's to pour over cereal.

Two Girls, Multiple Food Issues

By Caryn Ernst

I hate making lunches for my kids to take to school. I get too hung up on trying to find something that’s moderately healthy, balanced, easy to pack AND likely to be eaten. Instead, my husband makes the lunches, as he’s happy to use any variety of items that are likely to be consumed and he’s not overly concerned with the rest of it.

We have the added challenge that Leah (7) and Ada (5) are both lactose intolerant and Ada is also gluten sensitive (and a picky eater). Every week we read the menu for the school lunches, cross off the ones they can’t eat and let them choose which of the remaining they’re willing to eat. That usually leaves Ada with one school lunch per week, and Leah two or three.

I know the school lunches are highly processed. I assume they have lots of preservatives. And I doubt they’d be my personal top choice for lunch. But I really appreciate having a hot lunch program at school. I know how challenging it is to come up with healthy, satisfying meals for just my two kids with their preferences and food limitations. I can only imagine how challenging it is to come up with a menu for an entire school district that also meets those requirements, at a cost that most families can afford.

I grew up in a family with six kids. We ate hot lunches at school every day, out of necessity. I remember our school cafeteria with an actual kitchen and a staff of people who cooked the foods that day. I’m sure there are tremendous cost savings in having centralized purchasing and food preparation. And in a school district with such a large percentage of free and reduced lunches, this savings is critical.

But the high level of centralization and the inability to do any food preparation at the schools leaves us with few options to make school food healthier and fresher, and no options for linking food and nutrition with school gardens and other school-based initiatives. It also means that the school lunch staff are disconnected from the food and can’t answer basic questions about what’s in the food.

Last week, Ada went to school planning on having the beef and bean chili, which meets her dietary requirements. When she saw that grilled cheese sandwiches were being served, she asked the staff if there was gluten in the sandwich, explaining that she can’t eat anything with gluten. The staff assured her that the sandwich was safe for her to eat. Of course, a white bread sandwich is loaded with gluten. I had to explain to Ada that she can’t count on the lunch staff to know what’s in the food they’re serving and to help her pick foods that are safe for her. She needs to do that based on her own knowledge – a tough requirement for a 5 year old.

Preparing and serving food to 30,000 to 40,000 kids with widely disparate food requirements and preferences, while keeping the costs affordable, is no small task. But I think we have to find ways to have more of that food prepared at the school to make it fresher, healthier and more connected to the school, its staff and its students.