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This school year our Nutrition Service Department is following the nutrition guidelines established by Alliance for a Healthier Generation for beverages, snacks, and side items. These guidelines were chosen because in addition to fat and nutrient guidelines, the ages of students are taken into account. All schools follow the beverage guidelines which define portion size and type of beverage allowed. Sides and snacks are defined with the guidelines of 35% of total calories from fat, 10% or less of calories from saturated fat, and 35% or less sugar by weight. Other foods can have calorie limits (no more than 150 calories for elementary schools, no more than 180 calories for middle school, no more than 200 calories for high school) if they contain 2g or more of fiber, 5g or more of protein, or 10% or more of one of the major nutrients. In addition, we offer vegetarian options daily, French fries are offered at the secondary school only once per week, and follow the guidelines for any food and beverage ordered from our department for meetings and special events. Fresh fruit cups are offered daily at all schools. Sectionizers with different blades were purchased for all schools to facilitate this new daily offering of cut up fresh fruit. The support of the Nutrition Services staff made these changes possible with their upbeat and positive attitude in their approach to the changes. The obstacle we faced was the uncertainty of student acceptance. At this time, only 2 weeks into the school year, the students have been very accepting of the changes. The reimbursable meal counts have been somewhat lower this year than last year, but we are hopeful that they will return to the normal counts as the year progresses. We attribute the decrease of about 25 meals a day to the non-daily offering of fries. The cost per meal has risen by approximately 10% due to the additional cost of fresh fruit offerings (will hopefully not rise significantly more once the fruit goes "out of season"), but we have no raised the price per meal to the students. We have had all positive feedback from parents, and plan to continue our efforts. *UPDATE: As of the beginning of October, the meal counts were back up to normal again.
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