Food Fight

Renegade Lunch Lady says school meals make kids sick but San Diego’s food chief finds that hard to swallow

Por Christy Scannell

Editor SDUN

If you saw Gary Petill walking the aisles of Whole Foods, you might assume he’s looking to buy healthy food for his kids.

And you’d be right – all 135,000 of them.

As food services director for the San Diego Unified School District, Petill oversees the 25 million meals the system serves every year at 365 facilities. In his seven years with the district, he’s won awards for his innovative approach to school lunches. And yes, he regularly combs stores like Whole Foods for healthy-food purveyors he might convince to do bulk packaging for the district.

“I figure that anything that’s at Whole Foods, even if it’s frozen like a pot pie, we can use in our schools because the ingredients tell me it’s healthy,” he said, explaining that a successful contract with Amy’s Kitchen to produce veggie burgers has boosted his efforts. “I eat really healthy, and that’s why I took this job – I thought if I could go in and try to make change in the way 135,000 kids eat during the day, it would make a difference (for the kids) at home as well.”

So when Chef Ann Cooper, the “Renegade Lunch Lady,” rolled into San Diego last month with her message – “The (school) food is so bad, it’s making our kids sick” – Petill said he was torn. On the one hand he agrees with Cooper’s movement to improve the meals kids are served at school, but on the other he is realistic about the limits he and his staff face.

“I really think what she’s saying is that the programs throughout the nation could be a lot better if the reimbursement rate was high so districts could put out a better product,” he determined.

San Diego schools receive $2.68 per meal from government funding and food commodities. Through her School Lunch Revolution campaign, Cooper is seeking an additional dollar per meal dedicated to fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains when Congress reauthorizes the Child Nutrition and WIC Act later this year. She also wants to require the USDA, which sets standards for the National School Lunch Program, to implement the Institute of Medicine guidelines, which call for more healthful calorie levels, reduced fat and increased fresh produce.

“The (current) guidelines are so low that chicken nuggets, tater tots, chocolate milk, high fructose corn syrup, trans-fats and corn dogs are fed to our kids on a regular basis,” Cooper said. “This is the socio-equity issue of our time. It ought to be a birthright in America that every child gets healthy, delicious food at school every day.”

Cooper – who heads up food service for Boulder, Colo., schools after three years at Berkeley schools, where she transformed the lunch program – cites Centers for Disease Control statistics for children born in 2000 that project 40 percent will develop diabetes and that the generation will be the first to die younger than their parents.

“All the math and science (education) in the world is going to do these kids no good if they’re losing their toes and appendages in their 20s because they’ve already had diabetes for 15 years,” Cooper said.

While Petill appreciates the attention Cooper is bringing to children’s health, he said the answer is more complex than just additional funding. The vigorous marketing of fast food and processed food to children has influenced what they will eat, he said, and the commodity entitlements the USDA provides schools are not always the healthiest options. But he’s not giving up.

“We have to take it upon ourselves to continue to improve even if things don’t get better,” he said. “Even if we don’t get much more money, even if we don’t get better commodity selections, how can we still make it better for the kids and healthier?”

Seeking to answer that question, Petill has completely overhauled the San Diego school lunch system. In 2003 he implemented Kids Choice Café for elementaries, placing salad bars in every school and offering three entrée choices. The effort won a Golden Bell award from the California School Board Association.

Last fall, Sandi Coast Café was introduced at the middle and high schools (including San Diego High School – see right), providing six types of themed food carts plus salad bars. Since that launch, the district has seen a 60 percent increase in students eating at school.

“Even with paid kids, not just kids who eat for free,” Petill points out.

Sixty percent of San Diego school students qualify for free or reduced meals. Of the 202 schools in the system, about 50 supply free meals to all students due to the high percentage of those who qualify in those schools.

In addition to lunch, many schools offer breakfast and snack service. San Diego’s Breakfast in the Classroom program – which won a Golden Bell in 2009 – feeds 29,000 children a day at low-income elementary schools. Additional breakfast and snack items are provided at other schools.

“We’ve certainly seen a major decrease in nurse visits because kids aren’t saying they’re not feeling well because they don’t have to wait ’til lunchtime anymore to eat their first meal of the day,” Petill said.

District dietician Kim Wright puts it more bluntly: “What we need are kids to be eating. That’s first.”

Now that children do indeed appear to be eating, Petill said it’s time to make the food more interesting as well as more healthful. He and his staff survey students on a monthly basis to assess likes and dislikes.

“We are looking at a company that does Indian cuisine, that makes sauces, different types of curry and a saffron rice that we can mix in,” he explains as an example. “And good vegetarian options – that’s been a growing interest for us, kids that are vegetarians.”

But even for those who aren’t, Petill wants to see more fresh produce available. Part of Cooper’s message is schools should partner with local farmers – “Food doesn’t always taste good when it travels 10,000 miles,” she said – and that’s an option Petill is exploring.

“We do need to be able to purchase from local farmers but it’s going to take time (to arrange it). We use a distributor now. We can’t slice and dice everything ourselves,” he said. (There are 19 prep kitchens for the San Diego system, but the majority of schools have only refrigerators and ovens, and no stovetops or other kitchen equipment.)

Some schools only need to look in their backyards to find healthy eating. At the Albert Einstein Academy, a K-8 charter school in South Park, for example, students can take advantage of a garden on the school grounds.

“So many kids today don’t really know how produce comes to land on their plate,” said Jeanette Vaughn, Einstein’s elementary principal. “With our garden, they plant, watch, harvest and eat what they grow.”

When vegetables are ripe, she said, the students pick and eat them – sometimes with comical results.

“They get so excited that they just pull it from the ground and chomp away, which is hilarious to watch depending on what it is and their reaction,” Vaughn said.

It was this passion for healthy eating that won Einstein students a visit from Cooper. A group of third-grade students and parents created a video called “Where Did All the Good Food Go?” (to the tune of Jack Johnson’s “Good People”) for Whole Foods’ Lunch Room Makeover contest. When Einstein officials found out they had won, they not only planned for Cooper but they created a two-day “Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids Expo” Feb. 18-19, which featured seminars, food samples and an open forum.

“It took the district, the school, parents and a whole team of people to make it happen,” Vaughn said.

Whole Foods also declared a “5% Day” on Feb. 10, donating that percentage of sales to Einstein and to Florence Elementary in Hillcrest, resulting in about $2500 for each school.

“That probably wouldn’t have happened” without the national award and expo, Vaughn said. Her school will use the gift for teacher development and new curriculum in health and nutrition.

While Cooper said San Diego schools’ food “wasn’t as good as it could be,” she acknowledges she has seen progress here and in other districts she visits.

“We’re starting to see people start to make the change that we need them to make,” she said.

Petill has made some of those changes, but he said he is nowhere near finished.

“I still am frustrated,” he said. “I have this personal goal of always trying to make it better. We’re never going to sit around and say we’re satisfied with where we are. That’s why we’ve done many things that other districts haven’t taken on.”

SIDEBAR

San Diego High School’s 3000 students eat lunch during the same 30-minute period every school day. When the bell rings, a previously serene courtyard suddenly fills with teenagers who choose from one of 10 Sandi Coast Café carts to pick up a free lunch.

As part of the Café changeover last fall, SDHS was declared an all-free school due to the high percentage of students eligible for free and reduced lunches. Previously, students receiving subsidized meals had to wait in dedicated lines at a dark, partially underground serving stand.

“There’s no stigma now,” said Kirk Ankeney, principal of SDHS’ School of International Studies about the lack of division. “Nobody is too cool not to eat.”

SDHS has no cafeteria – the students eat outside on benches, picnic tables and stairways. The Café carts are placed throughout the ample quad area. A four-cart salad bar is temporarily located inside a classroom but is slated to be moved to better quarters soon.

Every SDHS student is eating within 15 minutes after arriving for lunch. The district’s food services has the operation down to such a science that they estimate there is less than 5 percent waste overall in uneaten food.

“Honestly I think it was such a drastic change when we put carts out with the beautiful signage,” Gary Petill said, “that they thought maybe the people who were serving food the last year had gone away and a new company had come in. That was OK – the image we wanted to give them was a change.”

Each cart has a thematic name – “Wok n’Bowl,” “Riga Tony’s,” “Baja Beach” – and students know from menus they can access online what to expect at each cart. The entrées change daily but range from grilled-onsite turkey burgers and chicken fajitas to tamales to beef and broccoli with rice. A piece of fruit and a carton of milk are included.

“I never used to eat here but now my parents joke they’re going to come to school and eat lunch with me because it’s so good,” said Alyssa Salter, a SDHS senior.

Her friend Margot Bothwell, also a senior, is a fan, too. “Before, there was no variety and it was gross and greasy,” she said. “Now I actually enjoy eating instead of freaking out in the morning if I didn’t have time to make my lunch.”

SDHS students can also take advantage of free breakfast from carts before school and a mid-morning “nutrition break” such as a muffin and milk.

“It tells you something when kids are hungry for breakfast, the nutrition break and lunch,” Ankeney said. “I really wouldn’t be surprised if our (standardized) test scores go up this spring. We had kids here before who weren’t eating all day. Who could concentrate like that?”