I would like to respond to the articles printed in the Desert News (Oct. 25 and Nov. 1) regarding school lunch programs. In both those articles as well as recent TV coverage, school lunch programs were "blasted" for providing "artery-clogging" meals.
Well, I have great news. Utah is in the forefront nationally in making an effort to provide low-fat, low-sodium, higher-fiber meals to schoolchildren. The Healthy Foods Healthy Kids program was established to provide incentives for school food service to provide low-fat, low-sugar and higher-fiber meals.The coalition includes representatives from School Food Services, the Department of Health, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, Utah School Nurses Association, as well the Dietetic Association and many others. School food service personnel are documenting the efforts they have made towards lowering the fat and sugar in the meals as well as increasing fiber. The program provides guidelines for fat and sugar reduction in menus and recipes to the food service personnel. For each level of achievement, the school food service receives a beautiful plaque with a silver fork. The 1992-93 school year was the first year this program was implemented, and 2,593 school food service personnel received training. Two hundred and twenty-four schools were awarded the Healthy Foods Healthy Kids "Silver Fork" award. One hundred nine received level one awards, 86 schools level two and 29 received level three. The coalition feels that for the first year, this was a tremendous success. This year we are hoping that even more schools will apply and receive the Healthy Foods Healthy Kids Award.
Tahmina Martelly, RD, CD
Chairperson, Healthy Food Healthy Kids