LAUSD has, as of the 2011-2012 school year, made sweeping policy reforms towards its cafeterias to ensure that students are given a healthier diet to sustain them in school.
“The changes are a response to people [like] Jaime Oliver [a chef known mainly for his criticism of LAUSD’s cafeterias] and parents who want vegetarian dishes for their students,” Brett Sanders, cafeteria manager at LACES high school, said. LAUSD banned sugar-heavy and greasy food from the menu. “They’re taken out what kids think give their food flavor. They’re incorporated more vegetables to have kids consume more nutrients.”
“It’s a good decision,” Young Song, LACES junior, said. “We sort of do need this because we’re going to be in high school for four years. What we’re served at school does affect our diet and health. So I support this rise of awareness.”
To begin with, LAUSD has removed “greasy and oily” food from its menu, trading nachos and hotdogs for Farmer’s Market salads and vegan omeletes. After parents protested against the unnecessary sugar in flavored milk, LAUSD pulled strawberry milk and chocolate milk from the menu, and standardized low-fat and soy milk instead.
“It’s like how we took off soda and cookies from the menu almost eight years ago,” Sanders explained. “LAUSD got complaints so we had to take them off. We even served hot chocolate – but we can’t do that anymore because hot chocolate has too much sugar in it. If anything, we’ll have to serve warm milk in winter, when everyone’s cold and asking for something warmer than soy milk.”
LAUSD has won praise from others for setting a precedent in the nutritional quality of its lunches. LAUSD won the Golden Carrot Award in 2011 by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which acknowledged LAUSD’s work in improving nutritional standards and quality of its food.
“Some kids will prefer last year’s food, of course,” Song continued. “But stuff like this award shows us how important this is and how many people care about this issue.”
“LAUSD won [the Golden Carrot] because we’re ahead of the game,” Sanders said. Other school districts use LAUSD as a working model of how to improve food policies. In attempting to change its food policies, the district has stumbled on several new approaches to delivering food to students.
“In some schools at LAUSD, people are using a touch-pad to replace lunch tickets,” Sanders explained. “Students who usually lose their lunch tickets won’t have a problem anymore, if this is incorporated district-wide. Instead, kids use their phone numbers or another individualized code to get their lunches.” LAUSD plans to incorporate the touch-pads throughout schools in the district by the next school year.
LAUSD is regarded widely as a leading force in managing nutritional menus for children. From removing sodas and cookies from the menu years ago to now creating vegan options for children, other districts have come to look to LAUSD’s policies towards food to incorporate nutrition into lunches, an attempt that is often met with little cooperation or success from students.
“What’s happening is LAUSD is responding to media pressure,” Sanders concluded. “We’re more health conscious. We’re looking more into nutrition and how to keep our kids healthy for the four years they’ll be eating from LAUSD cafeterias.”
