PORT ANGELES — Jefferson Elementary School tested a new healthy-food strategy on its students this week.
Several months of semi-weekly taste tests culminated with a chef for Sodexo Food Services cooking up fajitas in full view of the students as one of its five entree choices.
Other choices were corn dogs, hamburgers, chicken burgers and sandwiches.
Mixing bell peppers, onions and chicken, Dave Williams flipped the colorful ingredients around in a pan.
Sodexo Food Services Director John Koch said the company has long been working to get healthier food to students.
“The corn dogs you see are baked,” he said. “They are whole grain, turkey corn dogs that are baked.
“We haven’t had a deep fryer in the district for about nine years now.”
Students are offered five options every day for their meals.They include such meals as pizza, hamburgers, chicken burgers, sandwiches and tacos.
First demonstration
The cooking demonstration of making fajitas was the first of its kind in the district’s elementary schools.
“I would say on a regular basis, doing something like this every single day is maybe not feasible — just think about feeding 3,000 students with different tastes every single day,” Koch said.
“But we might be able to have something where we are cooking to order and cooking in front of the kids once a week, with someone going from school to school throughout the week.”
Koch and his staff have been conducting student taste-testing every Tuesday and Thursday for the past several months to see which dishes students are most open to — leading up to the fajitas served Tuesday.
The healthier fajitas — which included a whole- wheat tortilla — had mixed reviews.
“I didn’t like it because I don’t like all this stuff inside it,” said 7-year-old Molly Scofield, pointing at the onions and peppers.
Her tablemate Sierra Burkett, 6, disagreed.
“I think it is yummy,” she said.
Bonnie Owens, 9, said the size is what appealed to her.
“When I saw it, I tried it and I really loved it because it is really good and it really fills me up,” she said.
Students looked wide-eyed at the chef with one exclaiming in line: “This is the best day of my life,” Williams reported to Koch after the meal was over.
Koch said the mixed reviews were expected.
“When you do something like this the first time, the kids might take a little bit to get used to it,” he said.
“One might try it and then tell another that it is good so they’ll try it and so on.
“Generally it takes about three times before the kids get used to it.”
Pleased by healthy food
Beth Loveridge, who has frequented board meetings to encourage healthier meals in schools, said she was pleased to see the students trying out the fajitas and the food services workers adding more healthy food.
The contract with Sodexo is up at the end of this school year, and the district will ask for food service bids later this year.
Dozens of comments have flooded the district to encourage healthier food to be a requirement of those bidding on the contract.
Koch said that getting healthier food in the schools has been a work in progress for years.
“We have had only whole wheat [bread] in the schools for about three years now,” he said.
“And one thing is that we can put it on their plate, but it is up to the parents to teach their kids to eat it. We can’t make them do that.
“Even if we had only one healthy option for kids every day, there are some that would refuse to eat it — and those are maybe the ones that would need it most.
“Schools did not cause childhood obesity, and although we are making strides to try and reduce it, we can’t end it.
“That has to start at home.”
As he spoke, students were dumping their leftovers into trash cans. Frequently students would toss barely touched or not touched at all apples or salads, Koch pointed out.
He said he hoped to expand choices and healthier options to more schools in the near future.
“As the kids get older, they will become more accepting.
“Start feeding them this when they are small and as they get older they will be more and more accepting.”
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.