Salad bar at St. Patrick School
The students at St. Patrick School in Miami Beach kicked off the school year with a new, healthier lunch program. Gone are the fried, processed foods. In are healthier meals prepared from scratch using grass-fed meats, hormone and antibiotic free milk and eggs, fresh fruit and vegetables, and local products where possible. Last Friday, I stopped by the school to eat lunch with the students.
The new program is run by Green Rocks Foods, a company formed by Mercy Capote and chef Adri Garcia. Because Mercy has children who attend the school, she knew first hand what they were being served — think tater tots and hot dogs — and she wanted to change it. They approached the school about it and now they’re heading the kitchen.
Lunch at St. Patrick
I lined up with the kids and picked up my lunch of sloppy joes (made with grass-fed meat), peas and carrots, broccoli and cheese soup, half a plum and bottled water. I also stopped by the salad bar and made myself a salad of greens, chickpeas and carrots with a balsamic vinaigrette made in-house. I must say for a school lunch, the food was good and so much better than what I’ve seen gets served at some U.S. schools. The girls at my table seemed to like their new lunches too. Better than before, they said.
It was good to see the program at St. Patrick as an example of what can be done to change how children eat in schools. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder how easy it would be to do this at other schools. I spoke to chef Ann Cooper, a crusader for healthier school lunches and a source of ideas for Adri and Mercy. She summed up the main challenges schools face when adopting these programs into food, finance, facilities, HR and marketing. Basically, where do you get your food, do you have a kitchen where you can cook it (many schools don’t), is the cafeteria staff trained to cook, how do you promote the lunch program and, of course, how do you fund it.
“There’s a lot that can be done with existing budgets but we need to throw more money at this,” she said. “We’re going to pay now or pay later because kids are getting sick because of what we feed them.”
To help schools, Cooper recently launched The Lunch Box, a free web portal that includes menus, recipes, budget sheets and other tools to develop healthy lunch programs. A lot of attention is also being directed to school lunch programs nationwide because the Child Nutrition Act, the federal law that governs the National School Lunch Program, is up for reauthorization this month. Several groups, including Slow Food USA, are pushing for changes in the law that would allocate more money to school lunches and create guidelines to provide children with healthier meals, hopefully making it easier for more schools to create programs similar to the one at St. Patrick.
To help out, you can sign the petition for better food in schools, participate in a Florida eat-in on Labor Day or donate money for The Lunch Box at your local Whole Foods store (through September).
Great post! I remember eating the worst crap when I was in elementary school.
I agree with Victor – great post! I hope more schools start serving healthy lunches.
Brilliant idea to have moms take over cooking at their kids’ school! This should be adopted nationwide IMMEDIATELY. My concern is going from one extreme (calorie laden, processed foods) to expensive organic/grass fed meats. Nearly everday, school lunches are cut because they couldn’t afford organic any more, so back to the old stuff? Isn’t it better to take a middle road and offer simple, fresh foods that are delicious, colorful and with texture but doesn’t have to be organic?
Eleanor – I agree. Here, Adri told me they had to compromise and not everything is organic but they do look for fresh and local ingredients. In any event, I think having real fruit and vegetables and nutritious food cooked on premises – even if non-organic – beats the pre-packaged chicken nuggest and other processed foods.
Thanks Paula for stopping by…..It was a pleasure to serve you!
Chef Adri
Greenrocks Foods, LLC
Way to go, now if only all the other schools would serve this kind of food also!
It’s Time for Lunch!!!! Hooray for Adri and Mercy at St. Patricks who are serving delicious healthy local and seasonal foods for lunch. No more mystery meat or prepackaged foods. I joined the Time for Lunch group on the first day of school and loved watching the children clean their plates. We are planting a school garden right next to the cafeteria so there is fresh ingredients for the salad bar. I think when it comes to choosing healthy food for children, we should pay a little more. You would be surprised what you get for it. Support the new Childhood Nutrition Act this fall!!!!
Really, do we want pesticides and hormones in food or should we leave them out? When it comes to what we feed our children, why not pay a little more?
Paula, Thank You very much for your visit. I’m thrilled that you enjoyed our menu that day. Perhaps you can join us for lunch on another day.
Mercy Guitian Capote
‘Seasoned Foodie’
Green Rocks Foods, LLC
[...] *Read more about this school’s revamped lunch program here. [...]