All posts by anuruddha

Nutrition Softwares, School Lunch Software

California experiments with local school lunch program

School lunch nutrition affects many aspects of a community. It’s an incredibly important subject, as it relates to children’s health and habits for the long term. Now, a new program in California is seeking to incorporate more locally grown foods onto students’ plates, and it’s part of a larger state-wide push to promote healthy eating and local agriculture, Maya Escobar of NPR’s Marketplace reports.

Given the large number of school lunches California serves annually—560 million to be exact—how will districts pay for it?

California is a state that grows a lot of its food, so the program makes sense. So far, fifteen districts across the state have signed on as partners, including Los Angeles and San Diego. “Yet the large-scale change is starting small,” Escobar explains.

“What we like to call a bite-sized implementation strategy,” says Zenobia Barlow, co-founder of the Center for Ecoliteracy. “By institutional purchasing, we’re going to trigger demand that will result in greater production of sustainably grown and sustainably produced food.”

However, there are real budgetary challenges, particularly since school lunch must abide by federal requirements and adhere to a strict budget. For instance, entrees always need to include a serving of protein and a serving of grain.

Moreover, as Alexandra Emmott, Oakland Unified School District’s “farm-to-school supervisor” explains, each entree must not exceed a budget of 60 cents. Fruits or vegetables are allocated 20 cents each, and milk gets 25 cents.

Last year, the Oakland Unified School District’s (OUSD) Nutrition Services (OUSD) launched the “California Thursdays” school lunch program. Its success has set a model for other school districts across the country to follow, Viji Sundaram of New America Media explains.

The premise of the program is to have special meals on Thursdays. A California Thursdays dish costs more than the average meal, as the district pays 40 cents for a locally sourced and antibiotic-free chicken leg. There is another challenge: High-schoolers need two drumsticks to meet USDA protein requirements, in turn putting the entree over budget, Emmott tells Escobar of Marketplace.

Luckily, there are ways to offset that extra cost, such as replacing the second piece of meat with red beans and rice, for example. This allows the entree to meet, but not exceed the price point, Emmott says. It does involve some creativity, but it is doable, she affirms.

As Emmott explains, locally sourced food is a trend catching on in different regions of the country, including the Northeast and Midwest.

“I talked to folks in Maine who were sourcing local proteins up there, even fish,” Emmott says. “So there are districts all across the country who are starting to do this.”

The Midwest is also jumping on board the local food push. Last month, Minnesota Thursdays started its own local lunch program for students in the Twin Cities.

How have students responded? With student’s mark of approval, a program has a much greater chance of success.

Oakland 17-year-old student Ayana Edgerly says “the food is way better in the cafeteria on Thursdays.” During the summer, Edgerly was part of the peer taste-tests program run by the Center for Ecoliteracy. As part of the program, students were asked to try and rate dishes in terms of taste and appearance, and also asked whether they would get in a lunch line for the particular meal—the true test of whether a food will be successful.

As districts consider implementing programs such as these, it is critical that they have the cost calculation solutions to assist them. Cafeteria software and food cost calculation tools enable districts to serve their students healthy food and remain on budget.

Software for School Cafeteria

California school district rewrites menu for student lunches

GWEN IFILL: Finally tonight:  With the new school year now in full swing, one urban district in California is implementing an ambitious plan to transform their lunch program to provide healthier, locally sourced food.This report comes from Jake Schoneker and his student journalists at Media Enterprise Alliance, part of our Student Reporting Labs network that trains young people in public media journalism.

JAKE SCHONEKER: For many kids in low-income communities, the meals served at their schools are the best chance for them to eat food that will serve them up and keep them healthy.  But, as any high school student will tell you, school food often leaves a lot to be desired.

STUDENT: The pizza looks like you just pulled it out of the freezer and it’s just like — it tastes like cardboard.

STUDENT: I see a lot of my peers eating Cheetos, cookies, soda.  It’s not healthy enough for the students at school.

JAKE SCHONEKER: But here in Oakland, school officials are undertaking an ambitious plan to transform the school lunch menu.  They’re working to source food from local farms, instead of big companies, and provide California food for California kids.

JENNIFER LEBARRE, Director, Oakland Schools Director of Nutrition Services: One of the things that inspired us to do the farm-to-school movement is a class project that Cleveland Elementary School fifth graders did.

On Earth Day, they did the food miles for their particular lunch, and they found out that the asparagus that they served, that we served to them, had traveled 17,000 miles before they ate it.  And so this was a real shocker for me, because asparagus is grown 50 miles from here, maybe 100 at the most.

But what they found out is that the asparagus they ate on Earth Day was grown in South America, flown to China for processing, and then flown back to the Bay Area for us to eventually get it and serve it.  So, that just blew my mind.

JAKE SCHONEKER: On Earth Day this year, they launched a new program that is at the heart of the farm-to-school effort, California Thursday.  The goal of the farm-to-school initiative is to offer fresh locally grown food each week to every student in the Oakland public schools.

ADAM KESSELMAN, Rethinking School Lunch: That’s a big deal, procuring fresh food for 20,000 lunches a day.  That’s a lot of food.

ALEXANDRA EMMOTT, Farm to School Supervisor, Oakland Unified School District Nutrition Services: I just bought 4,600 pounds of chicken from Mary’s chicken in Sanger, California, so this is a really exciting thing for me.  This is the first time we have ever been able to buy local chicken, and this reflects a big procurement change.

JAKE SCHONEKER: In order to provide students with desirable food, the Center for Ecoliteracy was on hand to perform taste tests designed to ensure diversity for future menu choices.

STUDENT: Tasty.  I like how it looks.

JAKE SCHONEKER: After students enjoyed their lunch, Oakland school leaders, interim superintendent Gary Yee and school board member Jumoke Hinton Hodge, stopped by the school to taste the California Thursday school lunch menu for themselves.

JUMOKE HINTON HODGE, School Board Director, Oakland Unified School District: I’m very excited that Oakland Unified School District has really taken the lead nationally around looking at food lunches, partnering with folks like the Ecoliteracy Center, partnering with families and parents, right, who said like, hey, we want healthier lunches for our young people.  And I think it’s a very bold thing.

JAKE SCHONEKER: The California Thursdays program is only the beginning of the OUSD’s efforts to improve school lunch.  In 2012, Oakland voters approved the construction of a brand-new central kitchen in West Oakland where students will be able to grow their own food and the district will be able to provide fresher meals to every school.

JENNIFER LEBARRE: The central kitchen is going to be so much more than just a kitchen.  We’re planning on having an educational center there that students, community and also our employees will be able to benefit from.  It is also going to have a 1.5-acre district farm that really will be used for an instructional farm for students.

JAKE SCHONEKER: The proposed district farm is said to improve students’ education and also help the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions contributed by industrialized food processing.  In a country where school lunch usually means frozen pizzas wrapped in plastic, Oakland is trying to provide better options for its students, locally grown food that is good for your health and tastes good, too.

PBS NewsHour education coverage is part of American Graduate: Let’s Make it Happen, a public media initiative made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Software for School Cafeteria

The food intake recording software system is valid among fourth-grade children.

Baranowski T1, Islam N, Baranowski J, Cullen KW, Myres D, Marsh T, de MC.

Author information

Abstract

OBJECTIVES:

To assess the validity of the Food Intake Recording Software System (FIRSSt) against observation of school lunch and a 24-hour dietary recall (24hDR); and to test the effects of sequencing, observation and a hair sample as a bogus pipeline on accuracy of dietary report.

DESIGN:

Six-group design systematically varying sequence of self-report (FIRSSt vs 24hDR), observation of school lunch and hair sample as a bogus pipeline manipulation, with random assignment of participants.

SUBJECTS/SETTING:

138 fourth-grade students in 2 elementary schools.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:

Accuracy of reported food consumption was measured in terms of matches, intrusions, and omissions among the FIRSSt, 24hDR, and as observed at school lunch. Students also completed self-report of performance with FIRSSt.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS PERFORMED:

t tests, Pearson correlations, analysis of variance, factor analysis.

RESULTS:

When compared with school lunch observation for one meal, FIRSSt attained 46% match, 24% intrusion and 30% omission rates, while a dietitian-conducted 24hDR obtained 59% match, 17% intrusion, and 24% omission rates. FIRSSt attained 60% match, 15% intrusion, and 24% omission rates against 24hDR for all meals in the previous day. There was no evidence of sequence of assessment affecting accuracy indicators, but there was a weak effect of school lunch observation on percent intrusions. Obtaining a hair sample reduced the omission rate for FIRSSt vs 24hDR and increased the match rate for 24hDR vs observation, thereby enhancing this as a bogus pipeline procedure. Children generally enjoyed completing FIRSSt. Hispanic children were more likely to report problems using FIRSSt.

APPLICATIONS/CONCLUSIONS:

FIRSSt is somewhat less accurate than a dietitian-conducted 24hDR. However, this lower-cost procedure provides a promising method for assessing diet among children. Observation of consumption at school lunch may be reactive and artificially increase agreement. Obtaining a hair sample as a bogus pipeline may be a valuable technique for enhancing the accuracy of dietary assessment among children.

Customer Satisfaction, Nutrition Softwares, Software for Cafeteria

Kids’ lunch money lost less often in cashless cafeteria lines

More school districts converting to cashless cafeterias nationwide

By Steve Holt

The days of sending children to school with their lunch money neatly wrapped in handkerchiefs or inside their shoe or pocket is quickly giving way to a new cashless lunch payment system.

Kids' lunch money lost less often
Cash no more: Students at Fairfield High School in Texas check out of the lunch line with biometric fingerprint scanners. Their lunch accounts are automatically debited and track their purchases.

Photo by Caitlin Neal, Eagle Publications

Following a national trend toward credit card-based cashless transactions for everything from taxicabs to bail, more school districts across the country are adopting automated school lunch payment systems. Instead of fumbling through their pockets for dollar bills or change to pay for lunch, elementary, middle and high school students are increasingly breezing through the lunch line — some swiping or waving bar-coded student ID cards or punching PIN numbers on a keypad and others scanning their fingerprints on biometric readers.

Keeping track
“It tracks who bought what, when,” says Crystal Thill, food service director for the Fairfield Independent School District, located southeast of Dallas. Almost all of the district’s 1,800 students use a Web-based account system that allows parents to use credit cards or debit cards to replenish lunchroom accounts and monitor their children’s meal plans.

“Parents enjoy being able to go online to check students’ balances and monitor what the students are eating. It’s a great way to keep track of everything,” Thill says.

Lost their lunch money? A bully took it? Those familiar complaints of old are fading. Schools that have launched automated payment systems often still have traditional cash registers on hand to accept cash. School lunchroom administrators say dumping those old-style cash registers helps speed the lunchroom lines in a country where, according to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 5.2 billion school lunches were served every school day in 2008.

A June 2009 survey of more than 1,200 nutrition directors from school districts across the country found that 69.5 percent were currently using some form of automated lunch payments, up from 62 percent in May 2007. Another 6 percent indicated they would implement a system within 12 months, up from 4.4 percent in 2007. Also, 8.5 percent said they were considering converting to an automated payment system, according to the survey conducted by the School Nutrition Association, an Alexandria, Va.-based nonprofit group representing more than 55,000 school lunch providers nationwide.

Automated lunch payments
The survey noted the greatest change in payment methods was more school districts accepting credit cards and debit cards via the Internet. The number of respondents reporting this type of automated payment rose from 16.4 percent in 2005 to 35.8 percent in 2007 to 63.8 percent in 2009.

“As more and more business processes are conducted via the ‘Net through electronic transactions, this will certainly grow,” says Mitch Johns, president and CEO of Food Service Solutions Inc. (FoodServe.com), the Altoona, Pa., company that develops the software used in the Fairfield, Texas, lunchrooms. Story continues below.

May 2007 June 2009
Type of automated payment System currently in use (%) System planned in next 12 months (%) System currently in use (%) System planned in next 12 months (%)
Cash or check mailed or taken to school 91.9 67.3 86.1 53.4
Credit card or debit card via Internet 35.8 59.6 63.8 74.0
Automated payment from checking account 12.3 15.4 19.0 17.8
Credit or debit card via mail, phone or fax 7.7 11.5 8.7 6.8
Credit card or debit card at point of sale 3.4 7.7 4.7 9.6
Other payment 0.7 0 0.8 0
Source: School Nutrition Association, June 2009 survey of school district nutrition directors. The data is limited to districts that have an automated payment system currently in use or those that have plans to implement in the upcoming 12 months.


The company serves 300 school districts nationwide through its online account management system, MySchoolAccount.com. Parents sign up on a website to view their children’s lunch account. Information on what students bought for lunch, how much it cost and when their balances drop below certain levels is available 24 hours a day. Parents can reload the accounts credit cards or debit cards linked to their checking accounts.

Alternatives to cash
As an alternative to sending little Johnny or Suzy to school with cash to pay for lunch, many school districts allow parents to send paper checks, but this doesn’t eliminate the possibility of children losing checks en route to school. A lunchroom account manager collects the checks (although sometimes homeroom teachers are charged with gathering up lunch money and checks from students in lower grades). Paper checks may take several days to be credited to the student’s lunch account.

Johns, the Food Service Solutions CEO, school districts pay $5,000 plus $1,000 per cafeteria in software fees to install his company’s automated system and another $1,800 to $3,000 per cash register for hardware. Additionally, parents pay a transaction fee of between 3 percent and 6 percent to add funds to an account using a credit card, and a flat rate of $1.50 for all ACH debit transfers, regardless of the amount.

According to Galen Reigh, MySchoolAccount.com’s system administrator and lead developer, each school district decides how it will allow parents to pay for lunches. “Some school districts do what we call ACH payments, and some school districts do credit card payments and some do both,” Reigh says.

Another automated lunch payment provider — New Jersey-based PayPAMS.com — allows parents to use its website to pay for more than just meals. School activities such as community education classes, after-school care, athletic events, donations, summer school and transportation are among the student payments that can be processed online.

Four to five years from now, the majority of the parents will pay online not only for school lunch, but for all school activities.
— Dov Abramson,
PayPAMS operations manager

“More and more parents have access to high speed Internet access and are getting familiar with online payments,” says Dov Abramson, operations manager at PayPAMS (Payment Account Management System). The company contracts with school districts in 23 states, including Miami-Dade County, Fla., San Diego and Prince George’s County, Md . “Four to five years from now, the majority of the parents will pay online not only for school lunch, but for all school activities.”

Parents like convenience
Parents say they like the peace of mind that cashless lunch payment brings because they know exactly how their money is being spent.

“It is certainly better than giving the children money to buy lunch,” says Tom Miller, who enrolled a middle schooler in the PayPAMS program in Miami-Dade County schools, the nation’s fourth largest school district.

More privacy
Proponents of the payment systems point to another advantage of cashless cafeterias. How much each student pays for lunch is kept private. In districts where students from low-income families receive reduced priced or free lunches, they are scanned through checkout like all other students. Classmates in line behind them do not know these students are receiving reduced priced meals — a potential source of embarrassment for some students and families.

Automated payments are not perfect, however. Students can still lose their ID cards or reveal their PIN to others who can fraudulently debit their accounts. The fingerprint scans help reduce the likelihood of these things happening.

Both PayPAMS and Food Service Solutions say parents are spreading the word about their services and asking school districts to set up online lunch payment accounts.

Says Reigh, the MySchoolAccount.com developer: “We’re getting more and more calls from school districts that want to get in the system and as parents learn about it, they say, ‘Hey, we want to do that too.'”

Nutrition Softwares, School Lunch Software

Child Nutrition Database Release 20

(Revised MS Access version posted May 3, 2016)

The Child Nutrition Database (CN-D) is required to be part of the nutrient analysis software approved by USDA for use in the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program.

Data is collected on the following 16 nutrients: calories, total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrate, dietary fiber, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron, ash, sugars, and moisture.

USDA Child Nutrition (CN) Database Online Web Tool for Submitting Nutrient Data

The online tool is open to collect data for the Child Nutrition Database, Release 21 (CN21). Any data entered after December 5, 2015 will be incorporated into CN21. The tool will no longer be closed in the transition period between releases, but will remain open for data entry.
Food Manufacturers: Click here to add nutrient data to the CN Database for foods sold in the school market. You now need a Level 2 USDA eAuthentication account to access the Online Web Tool for Submitting Nutrient Data. You will find more information about how to obtain your Level 2 eAuthentication account when you click on the link provided here.

Comments and Notes for CN20 ReleaseCN20 Release: A record with a date after 01/18/2015 in the “date_added” field is a new record in the CN20 release. A record with a date after 01/18/2015 in the “last_modified” field and different from the date in the “date_added” field contains a revised value in one or more of its fields with the CN20 release.

7764 food item (FDES) records, 7749 weights (WGHT) records, and 124286 nutrient value (NUTVAL) records marked “d” in CN19 were removed from CN20.

1016 new source code 1 food items have been added to CN20 from SR28.

All modified data from SR28, including food descriptions, weights, and nutrient values has been applied to CN20.

The nutrient data for food items corresponding to the USDA Recipes for Schools (source code 2 data) have been marked “d” in CN20 in anticipation of the release of the newly updated recipes throughout 2016. The data for the food items corresponding to the Recipes for Healthy Kids recipe set is still marked “a”. Nutrient and measure data for the new recipes will be provided in CN21 when the “d” data for the USDA Recipes for Schools is removed.

443 new source code 3 (food industry) food items from eight food companies have been added to CN20.

Minor edits were made to the source code 4 data.

System Components and File Formats (documentation)
(MS Word) (plain text)

Child Nutrition Database in Access Format (Revised MS Access version posted May 3, 2016)
Access Database
(right click and choose “Save Target As” or “Save Link As”)
This file includes all the components listed below under the Comma Delimited Format

Child Nutrition Database in Plain Text Format

Please submit any issues or concerns regarding the Child Nutrition (CN) Database to:

Child Nutrition Database
Nutrition and Technical Assistance Branch
Child Nutrition Programs
Food and Nutrition Service, USDA
3101 Park Center Drive
Alexandria, VA 22302
Contact via E-Mail (link sends e-mail)
Software for School Cafeteria

Menu Planning Tools Approved for Certification for Six Cent Reimbursement

The following tools are approved by USDA for use in certification of compliance with the National School Lunch Program meal pattern requirements. This site is the official list of the only tools authorized to certify schools as eligible for the six cent reimbursement under the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act.

This list includes the USDA-developed Certification Worksheets and Prototype Attestation Statement, which school districts may use for both breakfast and lunch. Commercially available certification tools (software) will be listed here as they are approved by USDA for school lunch certification purposes.

Commercially available certification tools (software) will not be evaluated or approved for the breakfast meal pattern. State agencies may authorize the use of the breakfast functionality of software currently approved for certification of compliance with the National School Lunch Program meal pattern requirements.

For the nutrient analysis portion of the 1) six cent certification for lunch under Option 1 and 2) six cent certification for breakfast, the USDA-approved nutrient analysis software listed at this link may be used. Many of the software approved for use with certification of compliance are also approved for nutrient analysis.

USDA Developed Tools

Authorized USDA Certification Worksheets and Prototype Attestation Statement (link is external) USDA. Food and Nutrition Service.

Commercially Available Alternatives to the USDA Certification Worksheets

Health-e Meal Planner
Water Walkers, Inc. dba Health-e Pro
P.O. Box 124
Anacortes, WA 98221
Phone:(800)838-4856 x5
Fax: (877)355-6405
E-mail: info@healthepro.com (link sends e-mail)
Web site: www.healthepro.com (link is external)

inTEAM Menu Compliance Tool+, Web enabled Version 1.0
Address: PO BOX 2410, Santa Monica, CA 90407
Sales Contact: Leslie Bert
Phone: 1-866-457-4705
Fax: 310-656-6845
Email: info@e-inteam.com (link sends e-mail)
Web site: www.e-inteam.com/BI/ (link is external)

Meals Plus Menus
Education Management Systems, Inc.
4110 Shipyard Blvd
Wilmington, NC 28403
Phone: (800) 541-8999
Fax: (910) 799-5427
E-mail: sales@mealsplus.com (link sends e-mail)
Web site: www.mealsplus.com (link is external)

MCS Edison Menus & Inventory
Heartland School Solutions
787 Elmgrove Rd., Bldg. 1
Rochester, NY 14624
Contact: Sales & Marketing
Phone: (888) 287-6416
Fax:(800) 227-8594
E-mail: Sales@heartlandschoolsolutions.com (link sends e-mail)
Web site: www.heartlandpaymentsystems.com/School-Solutions/School-Nutrition-Solutions/MCS-Software

MCS WinFSIM Menus & Inventory
Heartland School Solutions
787 Elmgrove Rd., Bldg. 1
Rochester, NY 14624
Phone: (800) 724-9853
Fax: (800) 227-8594
E-mail: Sales@heartlandschoolsolutions.com (link sends e-mail)
Web site: www.heartlandpaymentsystems.com (link is external)

Mosaic Menu Planning
Heartland School Solutions
787 Elmgrove Rd., Bldg. 1
Rochester, NY 14624
Phone: (800) 724-9853
Fax:(800) 227-8594
E-mail: Sales@heartlandschoolsolutions.com (link sends e-mail)
Web site: www.heartlandpaymentsystems.com/School-Solutions/Home/ (link is external)

NUTRIKIDS: Menu Planning & Nutritional Analysis
Heartland School Solutions
787 Elmgrove Rd., Bldg. 1
Rochester, NY 14624
Phone: (800) 724-9853
Fax: (800) 227-8594
E-mail: Sales@heartlandschoolsolutions.com (link sends e-mail)
Web site: www.heartlandpaymentsystems.com/Schools-Solutions/Home (link is external)

OneSource- Menu Planning and Nutrient Analysis
Horizon Software International
2915 Premiere Parkway, Suite 300
Duluth, GA 30097
Contact: Amy Huff
Phone: (800) 741-7100
Fax: (770) 554-6331
E-mail: ahuff@horizonsoftware.com (link sends e-mail)
Web site: www.horizonsoftware.com/k-12-school-nutrition/ (link is external)

PrimeroEdge
Cybersoft Technologies, Inc.
4422 FM 1960 West, Suite 300
Houston, Texas 77068
Contact: Ray Barger
Phone: (281) 453-8510
Fax: (281) 895-9555
E-mail: sales@cybersoft.net (link sends e-mail)
Web site: www.primeroedge.com (link is external)

TrakNOW – Nutrition & Inventory
(part of PCS-NOW, Nutrition On the Web Suite)
PCS Revenue Control Systems, Inc.
560 Sylvan Avenue
Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632
Sales and Marketing
(800) 247-3061; (201) 568-8300
Fax: (800) 854-3387; (201) 568-8381
E-mail: info@pcs-now.com (link sends e-mail)
Web site: www.pcsrcs.com/pcs-solutions/nutrition-inventory/ (link is external)

Webtrition
(Approved for use only by school food service programs managed by Chartwells and is not available for purchase)
Chartwells K12
105 S. York St.
Elmhurst, IL 60126
Phone: (877) 586-9631
E-mail: ChartwellsK12@compass-usa.com (link sends e-mail)
Web site: www.chartwellsk12.com (link is external)

Food Service Software, Nutrition Softwares, School Lunch Software

The School Breakfast Program is one of the most important and unique programs run by Foodbank WA.

The School Breakfast Program (SBP) is one of the most important and unique programs run by Foodbank WA. The program commenced in 2001, with 17 schools registering in response to a growing awareness that students were going to school most days without eating breakfast. Over 430 schools across the state are now involved in the Program, stretching from Kalumburu and Kununurra in the north to Esperance and Albany in the south, to remote schools along the South Australia/Northern Territory borders. The Program directly reaches over 17,000 children, serving over 55,700 breakfasts and 22,800 ’emergency’ meals per week.

Foodbank WA supplies quality School Breakfast Program food products to registered schools free of charge, to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to receive a wholesome, nutritious breakfast on a regular basis. Non-perishable SBP product include canned fruit in natural juice, wheat biscuits, oats, Vegemite, canned spaghetti, canned baked beans and UHT milk.. Where possible (subject to availability) schools are able to access fresh produce, including bread, fresh fruit and vegetables and yoghurt.

The School Breakfast Program would not be possible without the generous support of Foodbank WA’s government, corporate and philanthropic sponsors. These organisations provide funding so that Foodbank is able to purchase the breakfast food items and pay for the freight to deliver the breakfast product to outlying regional schools.

School Breakfast Program Impact

With respect to educational factors, School Breakfast Programs were perceived to contribute positively to:

  • Student punctuality by 81% of schools
  • Student attendance by 83% of schools
  • Student behaviour by 90% of schools
  • Student academic outcomes by 76% of schools
  • Student concentration by 95% of schools
  • Students’ social skills by 89% of schools
  • Student engagement with class activities by 81% of schools

With respect to wellbeing factors, School Breakfast Programs were perceived to contribute positively to:

  • Students’ physical health by 97% of schools
  • Students’ mental health by 91% of schools

With respect to nutrition factors, School Breakfast Programs were perceived to contribute positively to:

  • Students’ awareness of healthy eating by 90% of schools
  • Student food selection and food preparation skills by 75% of schools
  • Student eating behaviours generally by 86% of schools

With respect to social and environmental factors, School Breakfast Programs were perceived to contribute positively to:

  • The health promoting environment of the school by 93% of schools
  • Social relations between students and school staff by 91% of schools
  • Social relations between students and community members by 74% of schools

To view the 2014 School Breakfast Program Survey Report in full, please visit the Research & Evaluation tab.

Food Service Software, School Lunch Software, Software for Cafeteria

A taste of school lunches around world

A taste of school lunches around world

Assorted lunch plates are arranged at a table for students at the Bahria Foundation school in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Tuesday, May 6, 2014. Most of the kids seen there have home cooked food for lunch. Principal Syeda Arifa Mohsin says the school tries to dissuade parents from fixing junk food for their children. “If we discover that a child has junk food, we ask his or her parents to please make a little effort for their child’s health,” Mohsin says. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

SEATTLE (AP) — First lady Michelle Obama is on a mission to make American school lunches healthier by replacing greasy pizza and french fries with whole grains, low fat protein, fresh fruit and vegetables.

The Associated Press helps you compare her efforts in the United States with what kids are eating around the globe by sending photographers to see what kids in Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America ate for lunch this week.

The new American standards are giving kids in the United States a taste of the good life already experienced by school children around the world. Most countries put a premium on feeding school children a healthy meal at lunchtime.

Many kids go home to eat lunch with their families or bring a lunch cooked by their parents.

Although few schools sell lunch, snacks are available around the world. In many places those snacks are as unhealthy as treats in the United States: fried doughnuts in Mali and Pakistan, candy in the West Bank, fried chicken nuggets in France.

American children are more likely to eat a lunch made in a school cafeteria, although other countries are starting to adopt this practice as more mothers go to work outside the home.

In France, lunch is an art form: hot, multi-course and involving vegetables. While their mothers were at work Tuesday, children in Lambersart in northern France were served ratatouille, salmon, rice, a chunk of baguette and an orange.

Healthy lunches are offered in public school cafeterias in the United Arab Emirates but the children of foreigners attending private schools get fancier, multi-cultural offerings like American barbecue, Indian curries and Asian noodles.

Cuba provides all students with free school lunches, typically featuring rice, beans, another source of protein like a hard-boiled egg, a vegetable such as a sliced tomato and arroz con leche for dessert. Many parents send their children off to school with extra vegetables or a piece of fish or chicken to complement the free lunch.

Fresh food is also on the menu at the DEL-Care Edu Center in downtown Singapore, where students are fed breakfast, lunch and even dinner if their parents work late. Typical lunches include spaghetti marinara, fish slices, chicken casserole or lotus root soup.

Kids usually bring a home-cooked meal to school in Pakistan, where school leaders check lunch boxes for junk food and admonish parents to keep things healthy. A typical sack lunch at The Bahria Foundation school in Rawalpindi, adjacent to the capital, Islamabad, includes eggs, chicken nuggets, bread, rice or noodles. Some also include leftovers such as minced mutton and vegetables cooked the night before.

Ecuadorean children bring sack lunches to school, typically a sandwich, juice, yogurt, cookies and piece of fruit.

In Federal Way, Washington, schools have embraced the first lady’s lunch campaign for the approximately 16,000 children who get a school-made lunch each day.

At Mirror Lake Elementary, about 20 miles south of Seattle, students ate grilled cheese sandwiches, corn salad, fresh carrots, apple sauce and low-fat milk on Monday. The bread was whole grain, the cheese low fat and low sodium, the carrots fresh and fruit the only dessert.

Fried food, white bread, sugar-laden desserts and overcooked vegetables have all but disappeared from the American school menu.

Anything kids can pick up with their fingers is popular in the younger grades. High school students enjoy some spicy and exotic choices, especially Asian flavors, says Federal Way chef and dietitian Adam Pazder.

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AP reporters Ali Akbar Dareini in Tehran, Iran, Baba Ahmed in Bamako, Mali, Zeina Karam in Beirut, Lebanon, Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Israel, Sameer Yacoub in Baghdad, Iraq, Nasser Nasser in Ramallah, West Bank, Adam Schreck in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Angela Charlton in Paris and Anjum Naveed in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Delores Ochoa from Ecuador, and photographers Wong Maye-E in Singapore and Franklin Reyes in Havana, Cuba, contributed to this story.

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Software for School Cafeteria

Brown Bag or Cafeteria Tray, Kids Don’t Eat Healthy School Lunch

Megan Scudellari
November 25, 2014 — 2:30 AM IST

Schoolchildren aren’t exactly gobbling up the healthy lunches they were meant to eat under a national nutrition program, two new studies suggest.

Students purchasing school lunch only select a fruit or vegetable about half the time, and even then, the majority of them don’t eat even a single bite, according to research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Kids who bring lunch from home aren’t faring any better. Those brown bags are packed with significantly fewer fruits and vegetables, plus more salt and sugar, than school-provided lunches, according to a team from Baylor College of Medicine.

The studies highlight the gaps in the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, a reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, passed by Congress in 2010 with new provisions to raise government-subsidized lunches to higher nutrition standards. Notable changes in schools across the country include new minimum and maximum calorie counts and increased servings of fruits, veggies and whole grains.

“So many children in our country may eat as many as two of their meals a day in the schools,” said Susan Gross, a nutritionist and dietitian at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore who led the first study. “And if that’s two-thirds of their consumption, we should make it as healthy as possible.”

The National School Lunch Program, or NSLP, served 5.1 billion midday meals last year, while the School Breakfast Program delivered 2.2 billion meals. The U.S. Department of Agriculture administers the lunch program with the participation of more than 100,000 public and nonprofit private schools, along with child-care institutions. In exchange for serving meals that meet government requirements, the schools get subsidies and food from the USDA.

Single Bite?

“There’s been a lot of emphasis on menus and what kind of food is being offered to the kids,” Gross said. There hasn’t been as much attention on whether children are eating those foods or what foods are brought from home, she said.

The Hopkins study, presented last week at the American Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting, observed 274 6- to 8-year-olds in New York City public schools as they selected what to eat in the lunchroom. Only 58 percent chose a fruit and 59 percent chose a vegetable, and just 24 percent of those who opted for vegetables ate even a single bite.
Eating Environment

The researchers also found a major influence on how much healthy food children ate: the cafeteria environment. Children were more likely to eat healthy foods when it was quieter in the cafeteria; when the food was cut up into smaller pieces like apple slices; when lunch periods were longer; and when teachers were eating lunch in the same cafeteria.

“We saw a big jump in consumption if these factors were controlled, and they aren’t expensive things to control for,” Gross said.

Additionally, parents can encourage their children to pick and eat healthy options by reviewing school menus ahead of time, Gross said.

Regulations from the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act are making a big difference in government-funded meals, but they don’t address lunches brought from home.

“This component of the school food environment is basically avoided by public health policy and rarely addressed by investigators,” said Virginia Stallings, a nutrition pediatrician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, in an editorial.
Home-Lunch Study

The Baylor study, published online yesterday by JAMA Pediatrics, examined lunches of 337 students, kindergarten through eighth grade, in a Houston area school district. Lunches brought from home contained almost double the amount of sodium as government meal program lunches, 40 percent less fruit and 88 percent fewer vegetables. Additionally, 90 percent of packed lunches included desserts, chips or sweetened beverages — not permitted in school lunch program meals — and students almost always entirely consumed them.

Parents can improve packed lunches by planning and making lunch with their children.

“It’s an opportune time for parents to talk about what’s healthy and what kinds of food you should be eating, not just putting in foods they want to have,” said Karen Cullen, a professor of pediatrics and nutrition at Baylor who led the study.

Of course, it can be difficult to convince children to eat healthy options, all three researchers said. For healthy meal and snack ideas, Cullen recommends the USDA’s Choose My Plate website.

“One of the most important things for kids is exposure. We know it takes 10 to 20 times for a child to adapt to the taste of a new food,” Stallings said in an interview. “Parents have to not give up.”
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