When Springdale school cafeterias began implementing new federal nutrition standards for school menus two years ago, they shrank the sizes of rolls and served smaller slices of pizza.
Carol Godfrey, child nutrition supervisor for the Springdale School District, struggled to create lunch menus because of new rules regarding the range of calories for each meal and serving sizes of whole grains and meats. The U.S. Department of Agriculture set a calorie range for different age groups of students that was hard to hit becauseof the serving-size limits on meats and whole grains, which includes bread, rice and pasta.
Godfrey, who also is president of the Arkansas School Nutrition Association, was glad when the USDA a year ago announced that it temporarily would allow larger servings of lean meats and whole grains as long as meals stayed within the new calorie ranges.
This month, the department announced that the temporary change is now permanent.
“That is such a good thing,” Godfrey said. “It was very difficult to plan menus around those restrictions.After you got your menus planned based on the restrictions they gave you on the proteins and grains, you didn’t have enough calories.”
While Godfrey could add fruits and vegetables to menus to boost calories, lunches already included more fruits and vegetables that many children were throwing in the garbage, she said.
“We put pudding on the menu, potato chips, jello - things we could add that would add calories that they would eat - but they weren’t really nutritious items,” Godfrey said.
REGULATION LIMITS
Child nutrition directors in some other school districts say they have not made significant changes to lunch menus since the restrictions on grains and meats were relaxed because the calorie ranges haven’t changed.
They are transitioning to more stringent nutrition standards for school breakfasts and lunches because of the federal Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. The standards require lunches to fall within 550-650 calories for elementary children, 600-700 calories for children in the sixth through eighth grades, and 750-850 calories for students in ninth through 12th grades.
The new regulations required more fruits and vegetables every day, and for the first time, set a maximum number of calories per meal for different age groups. The regulations also set weekly minimums and maximums on grains, and meats and proteins, such as chicken or refried beans.
The act directed the secretary of Agriculture to update nutritional standards for school meals and provided an incentive of 6 cents per lunch served for school nutrition departments that complied. The USDA began enforcing the new federal regulations in the 2012-13 school year.
In Springdale, lunch menus offered the same types of entrees, like pizzaand popcorn chicken, but the serving sizes and nutritional contents changed to meet the standards, Godfrey said.
Whole-wheat rolls that Springdale cafeterias served went from 2 ounces to 1 ounce, and were nicknamed “baby rolls,” Godfrey said. The district’s bread company developed a 1.5-ounce bun for submarine sandwiches that looked more like a hotdog bun, so that the district wouldn’t exceed the regulations on bread servings,she said.
Cafeterias in the high schools and junior high schools in Springdale went from serving pizza slices that were one-sixth of a 16-inch pizza to slices that were oneeighth of a 14-inch pizza, Godfrey said.
“The kids quit eating pizza,” Godfrey said.
Children complained that they were hungry while filling trash cans with fruits and vegetables they refused to eat, Godfrey said.
Principals and teachers were concerned, she said.
When the USDA evaluates school lunchrooms for compliance, the analysis considers what the children take and eat, Godfrey said.
“We offered unlimited fruits and vegetables,” she said. “We couldn’t count any more than they actually took.” SOME LEEWAY
In December 2012, the USDA temporarily lifted restrictions on the amount of whole grains and lean protein that school cafeterias could serve as long as meals still fell within the calorie range.
The change allowed Springdale to increase the rolls to 2 ounces and pizza slices to a larger slice, oneeighth of a 16-inch pizza, she said.
“We’re just now starting to see them come back to where they were before on our sales of pizza,” Godfrey said.
Vegetables and fruits are full of nutrients and fiber, but unless they were fried, they didn’t add enough calories to menus, she said.
“Once that restriction was taken away, our students were happier,” Godfrey said.
In Clarksville, the new rules for lunches required some adjustment, but the added flexibility didn’t change menus all that much, said Toby Cook, the district’s superintendent who oversees food service.
“The kids are getting used to it,” Cook said. “They’re trying new things. Do all of them like it? No. … Would the kids rather have more meat and white bread? Sure.”
Since the new regulations on school lunches were implemented, Clarksville menu planners have found some new foods that students like, including egg rolls and Cajun chicken and rice, Cook said.
“Once we got over the initial shock of it, we’re fine and it seems to be going OK,” he said. “We realize the obesity problem in our kids, and we’re trying to get them to exercise more and eat right by offering them more fruits and vegetables. That’s what we need to do.”
In Prairie Grove, the added flexibility allowed Child Nutrition Director Belinda Burgess to offer cornbread with chili and a roll with macaroni and cheese, she said. At the high school, the changes allow for meat portions of 3 ounces instead of 2 ounces, which provides more protein for athletes.
“I’ve changed a little bit but not much,” she said.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 13 on 01/19/2014