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The Recipe for a Healthy School Lunch Program

by Organic Spa Magazine

A healthy school lunch program creates a recipe for success with fresh, local, organic, non-GMO ingredients, and a zero-waste mantra
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Justin Everett, executive chef at the luxurious Cavallo Point Lodge in Sausalito, CA, was introduced to Judi Shils, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Teens Turning Green, by a mutual friend when Shils set out to organize “Eco Top Chef Challenge Marin” for schools in Marin County.
The goal? “What if we could transition this school lunch program to be the best it could be?,” she says.
Shils sought to pair Bay Area chefs with middle-school students, to see if they could develop healthy lunch menus—a main dish, side, dessert and beverage—for under $2, the California state allotment for school lunch. Lunch had to be nutritious, organic and GMO-free. And it had to taste good enough for finicky preteens.
“I’m used to cooking $40 entrees,” says Everett, a father of three. “I knew this would be a challenge.” He began to work with a group of students from Bayside Martin Luther King Jr. Academy, grades K-8, in Marin City, where 95 percent qualify for free and reduced lunch meals. “They wanted mac & cheese and pizza,” Everett says. “But the goal was to teach them you could make fresh food. You don’t have to eat mac & cheese out of a box.”
Everett guided them toward healthier menu alternatives like quinoa pasta and flatbread pizza with vegetables. But when they costed it out, it came to $8. To knock it down, they created partnerships with local farmers and esteemed area chefs, shopped at the farmers’ market, grew food in an organic garden built on school grounds, hosted benefit dinners like the Conscious Kitchen Co-Chef Dinners, where a high-profile chef cooks for 40 guests with wine pairings for $225 per person.
And they found the recipe for success. The kids now show up to school on time because they want breakfast, and disciplinary cases went down 67 percent in a year.
Most important? “The kids are thinking about what they’re eating,” Everett says. “They have a palate for fresh food. At first they wanted soda and a big pile of French fries,” he continues. “Now they want salads and quinoa, and whole-grain bread and granola for breakfast.”
“The school system is the largest restaurant in the country,” says Shils. “If we want to change our supply chain, we can.” theconscious.kitchen
 

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