Food services try to keep up with school menus

By Maria Calabrese

It isn’t just schools answering calls for healthier menus, with their food service providers trying to keep up with demand.

“It’s been a changing pattern. A lot of students nowadays are a lot more aware of what’s in food and what’s being served,” said Len Hummel, food service director in North Bay for Aramark Canada Ltd.

“Not only do we create the menus to be healthy, but we also have to back that up with nutritional information.”

Aramark operates food service at cafeterias in several high schools and at Nipissing University and Canadore College.

Students are asking for vegetarian foods, and since September Aramark in North Bay has been offering fair-trade coffee that is certified grown and produced in co-ops and bought at a fair price that does not exploit workers.

In October, students taking part in a survey by PETA — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — ranked the university among the top-40 vegetarian-friendly campuses in North America, namely for its mango chutney, mushroom curry and vegetarian lasagna.

And the diverse population at the campus, Hummel said, wants more ethnic recipes that tend to be more readily available in southern Ontario.

Aramark in North Bay has a dietitian on staff who has been working with the Near North District School Board to improve food quality at its schools, in advance of the province last week announcing it’s expanding its junk food ban in elementary schools to include trans-fats in high school cafeterias.

Trans-fats, often found in french fries and other fast foods, are liquid oils processed into solid forms such as shortening and hard margarine that raise levels of bad cholesterol in the blood and increase the risk of heart disease.

“Getting rid of the french fries was the big deal,” said Karin Podlatis-Brown, secondary program co-ordinator with the Near North board.

Her role to bring healthier foods started about two years ago when trustees came up with financial support following her presentation on active living and nutrition in schools.

“At the same time, our contract with our (food) service providers for the cafeteria came up and needed to be reviewed and new contracts struck,” she said, noting more water in vending machines, a switch to 100 per cent fruit juices, offering whole-wheat pastas and replacing fries with baked potato wedges.

With new menus comes training so cafeteria staff can prepare the foods, and the board is still working out the kinks in its vending machines to offer milk and yogurt.

“We’ve got to be able to find service providers that can bring refrigerated vending into the schools and are willing to service them and provide us with the product. That has become the difficult task,” Podlatis-Brown said.

Students are getting used to the new food with a push from school newsletters and some parent councils which support the changes.

“The big thing for us this year is to do more and continue to educate the kids and the parents about why we want the healthier options,” Podlatis-Brown said.

Menus have evolved at schools in each of the four school boards.

French fries, in some cases, are still sold, but cooked in trans-fat free oils.

“Students for the most part are making much more informed and much healthier decisions when it comes to that kind of a purchase,” said Ray Lessard, education director for conseil scolaire catholique Franco-Nord, noting water is a strong seller.

“We’ve been working progressively within our schools to always improve the quality of everything that’s served in cafeterias without having an absolute ban on junk food.”