The movement to make school food better, Part 3

Photos courtesy Denver Public Schools

School food change gives rural areas new hope.

By Greg Bowman
(Posted May 12, 2010)

Denver Public School students are learning about food choices and Colorado crops thanks to a drive to put better from the state on the menu. From left: spinach from Leadville (the “Two-Mile-High City” with virtually pest-free growing conditions) in a fresh salad; black bean brownies (recipe here) are a student favorite, even with reduced sugar, fat and sodium; and corn salad from a recipe that began as a student project, and is a favorite of Leo Lesh, director of nutritional services.( Photos courtesy Denver Public Schools.)

Denver school official Leo Lesh has a big appetite for changing school food. He wants his cooks’ creative menus to have impact beyond the cafeteria to the rest of school year as he works to connect students to food, health, gardening and good nutrition.

“We only feed them 180 days a year. I want to make a good impression with our fresh spinach and other healthy foods to influence what they want to eat the other 185 days, too” he said.

As director or food and nutrition services for Denver Public Schools (DPS), Lesh is happy to report that: 

• All the system’s milk comes from within Colorado
• He gets insecticide-free spinach from high-elevation fields in the Rockies
• Students are eating in-state peaches, watermelons, potatoes and Rocky Ford cantaloupes
• His favorite cafeteria item—spicy corn salad—originated as a student classroom project and uses several regional foods.

And yes, he insisted, the popular gourmet black-bean brownies really are healthy, with less of the things students don’t need, compared with your average brownie.

When they succeed together in growing healthy food at their own school gardens—produce that their school cooks will share with their classmates—students have a dynamic story to share with local media.

This year, he’s invited 40 DPS school gardens to raise five basic crops that he will use on their school’s menu to highlight the schoolyard-to-tray possibilities in ways students can see, touch and taste.

The gardens are supported by a broad array of groups, many of them also supporting Lesh in his School Food FOCUS-backed quest to further localize and upgrade food quality on the low budget allotted. This is a new level of cooperation and energy at work. Denver dietitian Mary Lee Chin has children who attended Denver public schools and has spent her career working on child-nutrition issues. "There has been a dramatic shift — for the first time different factions are finally coming together to improve what kids eat," she said. She’s quoted in a Denver Post story on school gardening and a coordinated food education campaign to help students understand more about food, nutrition and the impact of their food choices.

Eagerness on the range

Corn, wheat and pinto bean farmers in Yuma County, Colorado, (bordering Nebraska and Kansas), are looking for alternatives which use less water.  Here farmers join others in examining field trials of fresh-market, high-value, dry land food crops that schools could add to their menus to increase farm viability, even if they began converting only a few acres. (Photo courtesy Yuma County Conservation District, Pathways 2 Markets program.)

To offset the state’s short growing season and limited production of vegetables and fruit, she works to find possible processing locations in rural areas that can be part of a “value chain” connecting producers with schools. One former vegetable processing plant in southeastern Colorado is now only partially used for making burritos. The owner is delighted to explore the feasibility of putting more the plant to work processing fresh vegetables from the area, and possibly beef, into high-quality food for schools.

“I take real pleasure in seeing older farmers and ranchers come to the awareness that there is a huge opportunity here that can keep smaller operators alive,” Mikkelson said. “This is something they can invest in that might give the younger generation good reasons to come back, after being told for so long that there is nothing for them any more in our rural communities.”

“Buying from local farmers is a community connection that’s better for the environment, takes less energy and adds an educational piece to our food,” said Denver’s Lesh. That’s how better school food can add value even in cash-strapped schools and to the region’s farmers ready to send their food to school.

Greg Bowman is the communications manager for Rodale Institute.

Editor's note: In the first two parts of this series, we’ve explored how schools are succeeding at improving food quality and local sourcing even under financial pressure, then sharing their stories to help other schools. Examples included a small rural school freezing local organic produce (Part 1) and buying 1 million pounds of regional apples for Chicago Public Schools (Part 2). 

Resources
See Part 1 of this story, with lists of campaigns and supporting groups, at “Changing what America’s students eat, school by school”

To improve student health and create farmer-school connections around nutrition and ecological innovation Demand Organic