Culinary Boot Camps: Designed to Foster a Healthier Next Generation

From USDA:

Posted by Chris Kelly, USDA Food and Nutrition Service, Mid-Atlantic Region, on January 15, 2015 at 1:00 PM

USDA Team Nutrition grants support initiatives designed to improve children’s lifelong eating habits.

The following guest blog is part of our Cafeteria Stories series, highlighting the efforts of hard working school nutrition professionals dedicated to making the healthy choice the easy choice at schools across the country.  We thank them for sharing their stories! To learn more about FNS nutrition assistance efforts, follow us on Twitter attwitter.com/usdanutrition

By Stewart Eidel, School and Community Nutrition Programs, Maryland State Department of Education

USDA Team Nutrition Grants support initiatives designed to improve children’s lifelong eating habits. Thanks to this funding, and by incorporating the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and with recipes from the Food and Nutrition Service Team Nutrition website, Maryland’s State Department of Education School and Community Nutrition Programs, where I work, developed new training for our school food service professionals called “Culinary Boot Camps.”

We started the Culinary Boot Camps in the summer of 2013, training more than 130 school food service staff at six locations throughout Maryland. This past summer we hosted 140 more at five locations for the week-long course. With the help of two certified chefs, our staff have improved their basic culinary skills, learning ways to skillfully slice vegetables and creatively prepare recipes to lure otherwise finicky children into tasting and enjoying nutritious foods.

And the feedback has been outstanding. Our school food service staff enjoys the opportunity to learn from expert chefs, and our kids are seeing fresher looking foods, food that is bright in appearance, clear and crisp in flavor. I think the kids accept that food just as readily as they accept the chicken patty. Now we know the chicken patty is not going away, so what we’re saying is let’s incorporate these new foods required by the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act into our school menus. If we can incorporate those in addition to the items they’re used to, then over time children will learn to accept them and engage in the process of consuming a healthier diet.

Our job is all about nutrition, following standardized recipes and making sure food is safe. But these Culinary Boot Camps allow our food service professionals to think about the flavor and the color and the texture and the appearance of food. It gives them a great background to go to their bosses and say: “Well, I learned these skills…now there are recipes that you can allow us to put on the menu and enhance the quality of the foods for the kids.”

We saw a need to enhance a wide range of skills required to prepare and serve nutritious, high-quality meals that appeal to students. We want our school food service directors to plan menus utilizing more whole grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes…more creative menus that take advantage of the healthier cooking methods and presentation skills honed at our Culinary Boot Camps.

See our school food service staff in action, transforming healthy foods into favorite foods at one of the camps we hosted in Worcester County, Md.

Where Do Kids Eat When School is out in Summer? FNS Partners with the Department of Education to Find Solutions

USDA Blog Post:

Posted by Audrey Rowe, Administrator, Food and Nutrition Service, USDA, on April 11, 2014 at 10:00 AM

Federal partnerships, like the one between USDA and the Department of Education, work to provide healthy summer meals solutions for our nation’s children.

As we approach the summer season, USDA is vigorously preparing to fill the nutrition gap faced by millions of kids across the country. While 21 million of our sons and daughters receive free and reduced-priced lunches during the school year, only a small percentage participate in the summer meals programs, leaving too many of our most vulnerable without a nutritious meal.

A new partnership between the USDA and the Department of Education seeks to transform these alarming rates of food insecurity for the better. Last week I had the pleasure of convening with Dr. Jonathan Brice, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education in the Department of Education. This meeting was the first of the current administration, solidifying the strong partnership in summer meals and placing an emphasis on school participation.

Dr. Brice explained that “the Department of Education believes that summer meals are critical to the success of millions of children across the country.” As a former administrator and teacher in public schools throughout Delaware and Maryland, Brice conveyed the effectiveness of the summer meals program for summer school students, athletically involved youth, and kids of all backgrounds. He emphasized that the Department of Education viewed summer meals as “a critical opportunity for communities to come together and show children how much they matter.”  I couldn’t agree more with his sentiments.

Our partnership is groundbreaking on many levels. To alleviate the burden of hunger in the summer, we need the support of principals, educators, food service professionals, and community members to promote a program that focuses on the nutritional wellbeing of kids in our communities. With program participation growing in schools nationwide, and now the official backing of the Department of Education, the future of increasing summer meals participants and decreasing food security in America looks more promising than ever.

Echoing the sentiments of Dr. Brice, our children need to be well-fed and provided with nutritious meals in order to become successful adults. The more we learn to cultivate unique and effective partnerships, the more effective we will be at ending child hunger in this country. Collaborating with the Department of Education is a step in the right direction to ensure more children have access to healthy foods when school is out.