District hopes to make school lunches healthier

BOULDER - Take a minute and imagine what lunch time was like for you when you were in elementary school. Chances are it's pretty similar to what it is like at Crestview Elementary in Boulder.

Tables full of hungry children, socializing while trying to scarf down the contents of their tray.

Then there is Bonny Garland, who makes sure over and over and over again that students eat their greens.

"Make sure you go to the salad bar," she said. "A lot of kids, they're not interested in fruits and vegetables."

The Boulder Valley School District wants more children to eat salad, as well as other healthy foods. It is looking at overhauling its lunch program, following the directions of a California-based consultant.

"Our goal is to increase participation in our program, we can't do that unless we improve the quality of the food in our district," said Leslie Stafford, the district's chief financial officer.

"Some of her suggestions aren't going to cost us anything, they're process issues, they're organizational issues. Some of the things they suggested are going to cost a lot of money. Moving to four regional kitchens, or trying to build a central food kitchen, that's probably money we're going to need to fundraise for," said Stafford.

Stafford says the proposal will cost the district millions of dollars and is two to four years away from being implemented.

"We'll probably have to increase our central staff in order to maintain a much larger production," Stafford said. "We'll be doing scratch cooking, rather than just reheating processed foods. So we'll be moving from say from 25 regional kitchens to four regional kitchens, where they'll actually be doing scratch cooking, with the goal of eventually doing a central food kitchen, which is the most efficient."

The new menu will also include a full salad bar instead of the "Harvest Bar" the schools offer now. Also, there will be no chocolate milk. Instead, regular milk served from large containers and eventually organic.

"Less processed foods, more whole foods," said Ann Cooper with Lunch Lessons LLC, the company that came up with the suggestions. "Nothing crazy. More rice (and) chicken, and less chicken nuggets."

The overall goal, according to Boulder Valley schools, is much bigger than just food.

"It's a social justice issue for us," said Stafford, "in a way that we think we can possibly start closing the achievement gap."