Wheat groups helping to include more grain in school meals

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Prairie Grains is the
official publication of
the Minnesota
Association of
Wheat Growers,
North Dakota Grain Growers Association,
South Dakota Wheat,
Inc., and the
Minnesota Barley
Growers Association

By the 1996-97 school year, the 92,000 school meal programs nationwide are required to meet federal nutrition guidelines reflected in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Guide Pyramid. School food service directors must now plan meals that derive less than 30 percent of calories from fat, based on a weekly average.

The dietary guidelines are not only healthier, they’re good news for grain farmers. Grains form the base of the USDA’s Food Pyramid, with 6 to 11 servings recommended daily, and will assume a more prominent role in school lunch programs nationwide. Grain foods consumption in schools could jump by as much as 80 percent, according to some projections, for an annual increase of 15 million bushels of wheat.

State wheat groups across the country, including the Minnesota Wheat Council, the North Dakota Wheat Commission, and the South Dakota Wheat Commission, are distributing information to school lunch planners on how to serve increased amounts of grain food servings, and still meet their bottom line for food costs and student acceptance.

To demonstrate grain-based menus in seminars for school lunch planners, state wheat groups have enlisted the help of Sharon Davis, a nutritional expert and consultant with the Wheat Foods Council.

Participants of Davis’ educational seminars sample and receive new standardized recipes which meet federal nutrition requirements. The menus are kid-approved; the standardized recipes were tested for student acceptance by a sample group of Massachusetts schools before being distributed nationally, says Mary Ellen Wagner with the SDWC.

New ideas that students may now see at the school lunch counter include vegetable chili with bulgur (precooked cracked wheat), focaccia (pizza bread), three-grain pilaf, vegetables and chicken quesadillas, and apple muffin squares. More grains in school meals will be as subtle as larger pasta portions, pearled barley in soups, granola with yogurt, and adding cereals, breadsticks and animal crackers as side items.

Parents now have a dietary angle to add to their repertoire of "when I was your age, I walked to school in the winter uphill both ways" tales of yesterday. Indeed, students nowadays can look forward to better nutrition and taste, and more variety in their school meals than ever before.

"Meeting the federal dietary guidelines doesn’t need to be difficult; it just means starting at the base of the Food Guide Pyramid—the bread and grain foods group—and building from there," says Aase Hamnes, who volunteers her time to promote wheat foods on behalf of the MWC. "Grain foods are a win-win-win solution, since they will allow school food directors to meet nutritional requirements and live within a budget; kids will get more of a food they love, and farmers will benefit through a boost in domestic wheat consumption."

December 1995