Seeking Models

Hi All,
Parents from Healthy Schools Culver City spoke at the Culver City Unified School District board meeting in support of two requests:
1. publishing the nutritional information for the current menu items
2. creating a working group to explore options for improving the food service program
I drafted talking points which are attached for your information.

Julie Garcia, food service director, spoke defending her current program as "meeting the standards" and citing cost and contractual obligations to a multi-district buying cooperative as barriers to bringing in organic or farmers market produce - two options that parents discussed.

The board has asked district staff to prepare a report on the nutritional content of the current food service program and to meet with parents following the completion of this report. Board Member Kathy Paspalis said she felt that merely meeting the standards was not good enough and we should be aiming higher than that. I use the analogy that meeting the standards was like aiming for a C grade. We should be aiming for As because we are an A district in so many ways and we should have an A meal program as well.

I'm encouraged that the board was supportive of our request and I plan to follow-up with members and with Julie to ensure that the nutritional report is completed as soon as possible (we asked originally 9 months ago!) and to lay out some suggestions for next steps. I am beginning intensive out reach to Ann Cooper (Renegade Lunch Lady), Congresswoman Diane Watson, Compton and Santa Monica School Districts (who have organic produce components to their programs), local chefs and others to try to find local, cost-effective, kid-approved, successful models. I welcome any additional leads you have to offer. 

Useful Info

Hi All,
One thing I've been trying to get from the food services department at CCUSD is a listing of the nutritional information for as much of the food served as possible - even just the prepackaged stuff which should come with a label with all of this information already calculated. LAUSD provides this information on a handy-dandy downloadable pdf and I think all parents in our district should be able to see this information including: calories, fat, sodium, and selected vitamins and minerals for the food their kids are served. I have a little of this information that was provided to me in the spring but have been asking and waiting since then to see it for all the meals.
I'm going to be attending the CCUSD board meeting on December 14th to ask for support from the board to prioritize this request to the food services director so that she can spend the time necessary to compile this information. She states that more than 200 labor hours would be required to fulfill this request. Here's a bit of what was provided to me I'd like to share with you. If you think more nutritional information about the food served at the elementary school cafeterias would be helpful please let me, the school board (boardmembersATccusd.org) and Julie Garcia (garciajATdistrict.ccusd.k12.ca.us) know.
Thanks!
Maggie
maggie.hsccATgmail.com

Item	1% Milk	Chocolate NF Milk	Nonfat Milk	Soy Milk	Orange Juice	Apple Juice	Wildberry Juice
Serving Size	1 cup	1 cup	1 cup	1 cup	1/2 cup	1/2 cup	1/2 cup
Calories	120	120	90	120	55	55	60
Calories from Fat	20	20	0	20	0	0	0
Total Fat	2.5g	0	0	2g	0	0	0
Total Fat %DV	4%	0%	0%	3%	0%	0%	0%
Saturated Fat	1.5g	0	0	0	0	0	0
Sat. Fat %DV	8%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Trans Fat	0g	0	0	0	0	0	0
Trans Fat %DV	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Cholesterol	10g	5mg	<5mg	0	0	0	0
Chol %DV	3%	1%	2%	0%	0%	0%	0%
Sodium	150mg	150mg	120mg	160mg	14mg	15mg	15mg
Sodium %DV	6%	6%	4%	7%	1%	1%	1%
Total Carbohydrate	14g	22g	12g	12g	14g	15g	15g
Total Carb. %DV	5%	7%	4%	4%	5%	5%	5%
Dietary Fiber	0	0	0	2g	0	0g	0g
Fiber %DV	0%	0%	0%	7%	0%	0%	0%
Sugars	14	20g	12g	10g	14g	15g	15g
Sugars %DV	0%	not listed	0%	not listed	0%	0%	0%
Protein	10	8g	9g	8g	1g	0g	0g
Protein %DV	16%	not listed	17%	not listed	not listed	0%	0%
Vitamin A	10%	10%	10%	10%	2%	0%	0%
Calcium	35%	30%	30%	30%	1%	0%	0%
Vitamin D	25%	25%	25%	30%
Vitamin C	4%	3%	4%	0%	50%	50%	50%
Iron	0%	0%	0%	6%	0%	0%	0%