Little by Little - El Monte is on the right track

Here's a great piece about El Monte School District - their school food program is shifting focus from prepackaged and processed to scratch made in the district. 

"We're saving costs from cooking from scratch the old-fashioned way," Lewis said. "Every other day, there's something we're cooking from scratch."


Last month the USDA adopted new school food regulations that will require school districts to serve fruit AND vegetables every day as well as begin to limit sodium and calorie levels by grade level. Here's a quick comparison chart and a link to the full regulations.


What you may not realize is how lax the current regulations are and how often Culver City Unified School District does no more than meet those minimum standards.


Here is a fully reimbursable meal served just a couple of weeks ago at the elementary schools.

Yes, that's pizza, tater tots and chocolate milk. This child stopped by the salad bar and chose some cut up lunch meat (visible just above the milk). Thank goodness for the  hardworking parents of the PTA who provided that wedge of tangerine as part of the Growing Great Harvest of the Month program.


El Marino participates in both the Nutritional and Garden Education program launched with the support of the Culver City Education Foundation so that same day this beige beige and brown meal was served in the cafeteria, my son's class harvested fresh lettuces and snap peas from the school garden.

They dressed the salad with a simple homemade dressing and were BEGGING for more peas, more lettuce until every last leaf was eaten. Our students WILL eat healthy food but we've got to make it easier and tastier.


Culver City parents, contact Healthy Schools Culver City to get involved with the efforts to improve our school meals and contact the district to voice your support for freshly made healthful meals.