By Sara Ballenger
 Photo by Monique Schoenfeld, Town Crier |
Hot lunches offer variety for kids, relief for moms and profits for schools
With no cafeterias to cater hot lunches for students in the Los Altos School District, volunteers from the Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA) at each of the six elementary and two junior high schools have stepped up to the plate - literally.
Thanks to the efforts of the PTAs, students have the option of a hot lunch several times a week. The program is run independently by each PTA, not the school district. Each PTA decides on its own menu items, which differ for each school.
“We haven’t had cafeterias since the 1960s or earlier. We don’t have the money to pay for cafeterias,” said Superintendent Marge Gratiot. “In the 1960s, it was expected that a child went home for lunch. In the mid-1970s, as a convenience to parents, the PTAs started to serve hot lunch one day a week.”
In the beginning, the PTA volunteers did most of the preparation of the food themselves, Gratiot said.
“When I was principal at Loyola School, Loyola parents would make tacos themselves,” Gratiot said. “That kind of thing happened at a lot of schools. Now lunch is more often prepared at the source.”
Working with vendors to have food prepared at restaurants has enabled PTA volunteers to offer the hot lunch program several times a week, with added variety.
“We’re actually just starting; we had hot lunch two days a week (last year) and this fall it will be three days a week,” said Holly Love, Almond PTA co-president.
The PTAs have chosen a variety of vendors, from international chains like McDonald’s and KFC to more local vendors like Chef Chu’s, a reputable Chinese restaurant in Los Altos.
“Each menu item is priced based on what it’s costing the PTAs and what the vendor is charging,” said Jeannie Bruins, Blach Intermediate School PTA co-president. “Vendors give us fairly reasonable prices.”
Many vendors see participating in the hot lunch programs as a public service.
“It’s important to me that for the hot lunch program, we give the best deal we can,” said Larry Chu, owner of Chef Chu’s. “It’s a good cause. It’s not a money-making thing. It’s a community service, and I enjoy doing it.”
Chef Chu’s is currently being served at Santa Rita and Bullis-Purissima elementary and Blach and Egan junior high schools.
Parents must prepay for the hot lunch to be served on a particular day.
“Originally the PTAs were only trying to break even,” said Gratiot, about the prepaid lunches. Now PTAs are seeing some revenues, she said.
“It’s designed to be a service to students and parents,” Bruins said. “But we do generate profits from it. It’s our No. 2 fund-raiser.”
Blach is not alone. Every PTA in the district sees some profit from the program according to the PTA presidents.
“The primary reason is with the school district’s $3 million budget deficit, we are looking at ways to help the district out with extra funds and to be helpful to families,” Love said.
While the hot lunch program generates revenue, it also allows parents to choose if they want to participate in the optional program.
“We try to put choices in the parents’ hands,” Bruins said. “For every menu item, we give the parents a description of what is in it. They can say, ‘that sounds reasonable, like making a sandwich at home,’ or decide they don’t want their child to have a certain item. It’s ultimately the parent who writes the check.”
The hot lunch programs are not part of any national or state programs, so the menu items do not have to follow any set nutritional guidelines, Gratiot said.
“I have heard and participated in many spirited discussions about what should be in lunches and what should be offered,” Gratiot said. “Being a principal, I have found that if you give a child a hamburger and a vegetable, they are going to eat the hamburger and throw the vegetable away.”
Gratiot stressed that the hot lunch program is just one option a student has for lunch.
“If parents don’t want their child to eat what the PTA is serving, they can pack a lunch,” she said. “If parents are unhappy with the PTA’s choices, they should get involved with the PTA.”
The PTAs are open to feedback about their hot lunch programs and have the ability to work with vendors in adapting their menu choices to better meet students’ nutritional needs.
“We work closely with vendors in terms of altering recipes,” said Bruins. “For example, if a pizza is overly greasy, we can cut back on cheeses or change the blend of cheese.”
According to the American Dietetic Association, 67 percent of kids ages 6-11 consume food away from home on a daily basis.
“That’s pretty common,” said Jodi Bjurman, a registered dietitian and nutrition educator at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View.
The key, Bjurman said, is moderation.
“By having pizza made with skim milk cheeses and other low fat substitutions, you are appealing to their (kids’) natural sense of wanting these kinds of foods,” she said. “But at the same time, you are keeping a sense of moderation.”
It is important to look at the child’s diet as a whole, Bjurman said.
“As a parent, you would want to offer a lower fat (evening) meal if you knew your child had eaten a higher fat lunch,” Bjurman said. “Beyond that, a more important thing would be offering a variety of foods as snacks that contribute to the food pyramid.”
Trends show the number of overweight children doubling in the last three decades, Bjurman said. Physical fitness is a key part in maintaining a healthy child, she said. Physical education is offered daily at each school.
“It’s very difficult to get a child to eat healthful by telling them they want to prevent heart disease, because they are just focusing on approaching the wonders of adulthood,” Bjurman said. “As parents, we have to act as gatekeepers to their nutrition.”
Aside from packing a lunch at home for their children, parents can encourage healthful eating habits through healthful snacking, Bjurman said.
“Snacking makes up 30 percent of their calories (children ages 6-11) and 20 percent of their nutrients,” Bjurman said. “Here’s where parents can really teach the lower fat things. Giving them pretzels instead of chips and juice instead of soda.”
As part of encouraging healthful food choices, it is important that parents have them available, Bjurman said.
“It’s a key time to be teaching key nutrition concepts,” she said. “What habits they have formed during adolescence will probably be maintained throughout their lives.”
Forming healthful eating habits depends on maintaining a consistent offering of healthful foods.
“Sometimes you have to let a child be exposed to those kinds of things (healthier foods) 20 times before he or she will think of it as a food on their own,” Bjurman said with a laugh.
Bjurman pointed out that the choices on the PTA menus can be used as a learning opportunity.
“It could be a great opportunity to teach the children in that school district that they are getting milk instead of soda because … . It could be great,” Bjurman said. “It could give a real balanced message. You can incorporate things that our lifestyle is requiring us to rely on sometimes and not be signing your death sentence.”
For more information about child nutrition and the Food Pyramid, logon to: www.eatright.org.
