Will kids want pickle pops? Tuna?
School officials taste latest choices
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ARLINGTON -- Gone are the days of school lunch trays laden with mystery meat sidled up to piles of brown and greenish glop.
Healthy is the word now. With growing concerns about childhood obesity and juvenile diabetes, school food service directors are unanimous: The trend is to offer foods higher in fiber and lower in fat and sugar.
Representatives of more than 45 North Texas school districts -- from Abilene to Longview and Waco to Oklahoma -- met at the Arlington Convention Center on Wednesday to sample the latest in school lunch fare.
The convention featured the usual finger foods -- lots of wraps, burritos, pizzas and nuggets of almost anything and everything.
The difference now is that many contain whole wheat; low-fat cheeses and meats, mostly chicken and fish; and no trans fats.
Among the newest offerings are tuna or salmon in a cup, sparkling green tea and "Pickle Sickles" -- frozen pops made by liquefying dill pickles and freezing them. They have almost no calories, fat or sugar. However, each one has 245 milligrams of sodium.
"It's about half as much sodium as in a pickle," said John Howard, who makes the frozen treats at his Carrollton plant. He added that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has accepted them as a food appropriate for schools.
"It's better than a Popsicle with all that sugar in it," said Donna Fulton, superintendent of food services in Burleson.
The challenge is to find nutritious food that students will actually eat at a price parents can afford, said Mary Beth Golangco, nutrition director for the Hurst-Euless-Bedford school district.
The Arlington school district turns out 9.3 million meals a year and is always on the lookout for new and better items, said Jackie Anderson, the district's food services director.
Typically, new items are screened for taste and nutritional value, and then taste-tested by students and staff before they are added to menus.
These days, students are savvier about food and more accepting of healthier offerings, Anderson said.
Michael Rosenberger, her counterpart for the Irving school district, agreed. "They know what good food and service are," he said.
Rosenberger said the popularity of fresh salads has nearly doubled in his district in just a few years.
