The food served in Palm Beach County school cafeterias may be healthier than you think.

Hormone-free milk. Corn on the cob and green beans fresh from a local farm. No fried food.

A documentary shown recently to a Boca Raton parent group had us wondering about what efforts the local schools are making to serve healthier food. Cafeteria Man tells the story of a Baltimore chef tasked with making over the school menus. He partnered with a local farm to supply fresh produce to the schools – for cheaper than some of the canned fruit and vegetables that were being shipped across the country. (Sadly, some of the kids had never even seen a real peach).

Farm-rich Palm Beach County seems a likely place for this idea to take root. And it has.

Jamie McCarthy, nutrition and wellness promotion specialist with the Palm Beach County School District, said its farm-to-table program has been bringing fresh green beans and mini corn on the cob to the school cafeterias since the 2008-09 school year. (See it on the menu for Fridays this month). The food comes from R.C. Hatton Farms near Belle Glade.

(The corn has been popular – except for kids with loose teeth; the green beans, not as much, McCarthy said).

This spring, the district is working to provide some fresh Florida strawberries.

And when bids go out again this year to produce providers, McCarthy hopes that local farms will be able to meet the district’s price for broccoli, yellow squash and zucchini. The district is working with Localeopia, a nonprofit that helps brings together businesses, producers and other organizations to support local product consumption.

Some other steps the district has taken over the past few years to make school meals healthier:

• Removed french fries and eliminated fried foods in the 2004-05 school year
• Began offering only low-fat and fat-free milk choices during the 2003-04 school year
• Transitioned from refined bread products to 100 percent whole wheat bread by the 2007-08 school year
• Reduced the amount of  high fructose corn syrup, saturated fat, trans fat, and food dyes

They use some frozen vegetables, but no canned. They use some canned fruits, in their own juices or light syrup.

Some parents dis the prepackaged peanut butter sandwiches that make up one of the daily vegetarian options. But McCarthy said those are used as a precaution to protect kids with peanut allergies. Making fresh PB&J’s in the cafeteria provides too great a risk for cross-contamination, which could be a serious health hazard to a student with a severe peanut allergy.

The district also eliminated salad bars in 2005 for health reasons.

“The main issue that we had with salad bars is safety and sanitation,” McCarthy said “They are breeding grounds for different germs.”

Instead they serve a variety of entree salads – mandarin chicken, chef’s salad, taco salad, etc., which have been popular in many schools, she said.

Most of the school food program changes required by new federal guidelines will be administrative for our schools. Some portion sizes may change for middle-schoolers. Kids will be required to take a fruit or vegetable with their lunch.

The district is also looking to make over its high school cafeterias. A pilot program at Atlantic High School  turned the lunch room into more of a food court, with six different choices at six counters. As a result, more kids are buying lunch, McCarthy said.

That program may be rolled out in other schools over the next few years.

Read more

Do you know you can not only pay for your child’s meals online, but you can also see what they are buying? Go to School Cash Online.

School lunch menus

The school district wellness program’s annual report

Cafeteria Man was shown as part of Sunflower Creative Art’s Share and Learn evenings. Read more about its programs for kids and parents at www.sunflowercreativearts.org.

Read all about Cafeteria Man

Do your kids eat in the cafeteria, or do you pack a lunch? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

- CHARLENE PACENTI

If your 4-year-old seems to have a sophisticated palate – say, a love of lobster and lamb – you may have a budding chef on your hands.

That’s how it started for Jeremy Salamon, a senior in West Boca Raton High School’s four-year Culinary Academy. He started taking cooking classes when he was 9. Now 17, Jeremy works at a restaurant, hosts a website about cooking, spends summers at a North Carolina cooking school, and has emceed events at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival with Food Network stars.

When we hear about kids like this – so focused and interested, we wonder: How did it happen?

In Jeremy’s case, his early interest in cooking goes back, of course, to his mother’s kitchen, where he watched her and his grandmothers prepare the family meals. He started helping with the little things.

“When I was 9, I found my calling,” he said. His parents, who believe in following your dreams, found a cooking class for kids. It was in Wellington, but they signed him up anyway.

“He was always really, really creative,” his father, Jeff, said, adding that the family traveled a lot and exposed their two sons – Jeremy’s brother is 20 – to new things. “That’s where it came from.”

When he was 13, Jeremy’s parents enrolled him in the C’est si Bon cooking school in North Carolina. Teens in the summer program visit organic farms, chocolate makers, artisan cheese makers, learn how to style food and more. Jeremy has since gone back, working as an intern.

This summer, he also worked at Brule Bistro in Delray Beach as a prep cook and a line cook, calling Chef Suzanne Perrotto is “an amazing teacher.” He recently hosted a cooking event for families at Whole Foods Market in Boca.

He has done internships at other restaurants and country clubs, peeling potatoes, scooping ice cream and other duties. And still, he sticks with it.

Jeremy attended the Donna Klein Jewish Academy, then North Broward Preparatory School in Coconut Creek before enrolling in the Culinary Academy at West Boca High.

The program preps students for a food industry career – either a job right after high school, or enrollment in a culinary school.

“I owe a lot of my foundation knowledge to them,” Jeremy says of the school, which covered lessons like sanitation and food history.

Now, his idea of a fun weekend is to invite a dozen friends over for a dinner party in which they all help cook. His mother, Robin, is OK with that, Jeremy says, as long as he cleans up afterward.

Jeremy favors comfort food, but he likes to spice it up a bit. In one of the “cookisodes” on his website, JeremyCooks.com, he is making a mozzarella and basil grilled cheese sandwich. He likes blue cheese on his burgers.

After graduating high school, he hopes to attend the Culinary Institute of America in New York. He would like to study abroad at some point.

Jeremy has also discovered a love for writing about food – and maybe he’ll pursue that as a career.

He is moved, he says, by cooking as a way to communicate, food’s “power to bring people together.”

FOLLOW JEREMY

Visit his website, JeremyCooks.com, and like his Facebook page.

Follow him on Twitter @JeremyCooks.

- CHARLENE PACENTI

Boca Helping Hands has sent out an urgent request for canned goods. Can you help? Please spread the word to your local groups. Here is the email the organization sent out Friday:

BOCA HELPING HANDS NEEDS FOOD AND YOU CAN HELP!

I ask that you take a few moments and read this message in its entirety.  In it, I try to explain the food distribution system…and more importantly why your assistance will be critical during these next two months.

As we enter the “slow” summer months, our schedules may have slowed down…and certainly the numbers of canned food drives that sustain our inventory have slowed down…but the demand for our services continues to rise.  Over the past year, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of Pantry Bags we distribute each month.  One year ago, we were distributing an average of 500 Pantry Bags each month.  Today, we are passing out nearly 1,400 bags of perishable and non-perishable groceries each month.  With each bag weighing an average of 25 pounds, this means we need some 35,000 pounds of canned goods each and every month.

While the weekly shipment we receive from the U.S.D.A. (via Feeding South Florida) certainly helps, it simply isn’t enough.  In fact, the USDA system is designed to provide only 30% of each agency’s needs.  The remaining 70% is to be supplied by each soup kitchen or pantry.  When we drive to the warehouse of Feeding South Florida every Thursday for our USDA pick up, we have no idea what “products” we will be receiving.  Some weeks, we receive canned vegetables, canned fruit, canned meats and juice. And some weeks, we receive 71 cases of pitted prunes!  The process is very simple:  Whatever surplus commodities the federal government is buying up…is then re-distributed to soup kitchens and food pantries.  We can only get what they are giving!  And some weeks, like this one…there is no USDA pick up.  For a variety of reasons, on occasion, the USDA trucks don’t complete their trips to South Florida, and hence, agencies are unable to pick up their weekly allotment of government subsidized food.  There might be fires in Chicago…floods in Nebraska or a work stoppage in Tuscaloosa…if the trucks can’t get through…they can’t get through!

The weekly pick up from the USDA is usually filled with canned vegetable products.  As we assemble those 1400 Pantry Bags each month, we add from the items that are donated directly to Boca Helping Hands from local businesses, schools and individuals.

As a result, we have an ongoing need for:

Soup

Tomato Products

Rice

Dried Pasta

Meat Products
(Ravioli, Tuna, Chicken, Spam, et al)

Canned Fruit

(Please donate regular sizes, no glass containers or opened or expired items)

(Pick up items next time you are at the store…buy one, get one free, and donate to BHH!)

My dear colleagues…this summer, we have a critical need for the above named food items.  Right now, we have little to put into the pantry bags but canned corn and oatmeal…and whatever other items we cobble together.  We are therefore reaching out to you for your assistance.  On your next trip to BHH…bring a canned food item from the list.  You need not make a special trip to Costco to buy a case.  As you do your weekly shopping, pick up another can of soup…or ravioli…or an extra bag of pasta.  Get the word out to the groups in which you move…P.T.A., Church or Synagogue groups, Neighborhood Associations, etc.  Are you having friends over for a summer B.B.Q.?  Charge them “admission” by having them bring canned food items (from the list above).  Have a “pasta” party…or a “Canned Soup” party…and have all your guests bring that particular item.  Serve it as a meal and have a discussion about hunger and poverty in Boca Raton.  Have some fun with it…and simultaneously spread the word about the incredible need we are meeting on a daily basis here at Boca Helping Hands.

Drop off times Monday-Friday 9:00 am-4:00 pm; Saturdays 9:00 am – 12:00 pm

(Closed on Holidays)

Boca Helping Hands, 1500 NW 1^st Court, Boca Raton, FL 33432

If you have a large food drive and need assistance, please contact Suzan Javizian
at 561-417-0913 x 204 or Suzan@bocahelpinghands.org

With respect,
James S. Gavrilos:  Executive Director

Boca Helping Hands