Comments on: Tales from a D.C. School Kitchen

By: Shedvil

Shedvil — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 20:01:33 +0000

I am a former food service worker for DCPS and the food is not nutritional at all. Most of the time the workers are rude to the kids, they improvise all the time, and most of them are alliterate (basic reading, comprehension, and math skills). Now they use computers and knowing some of the workers they aren’t computer literate either (Outlook, Word and Excel). They would have to call the District Manager at Chartwells to find out step bt slow step what to do. These are the people feeding your kids, that’s one of the reasons I left the company. We had recipes to follow but it was “so hard” for some of them to catch on. I don’t like that company at all.

By: Ed Bruske

Ed Bruske — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 01:08:23 +0000

In fact, it’s not impossible, but it does take a lot of brains and skill. Read the series on Berkeley and on Boulder.

By: SA

SA — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:10:29 +0000

The problem with serving “fresh” or “real” food is that the majority of people arent willing to pay for it. You can have it cheap, or you can have it good, but you cant have both. It would be impossible at that scale of cooking.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 18:04:29 +0000

Yeesh, really not surprised at this, the first thing to go from a school budget besides the arts is nutrition

By: ReesieKitty

ReesieKitty — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 19:36:46 +0000

I think its really interesting how HOSTILE some people are when you point out ingredients that aren’t healthy. They really seem to take it personally that parents might want ALL the kids at school to have a fresh, healthy lunch prepared on-site and are determained to make it out as ‘impossible’ to do.

At my son’s old school, our elementary school and one other were part of a pilot ‘test’ program for healthier lunches. All our food was always prepared on-site at the local high school kitchen and then brought in by truck and reheated.

Fortunately for us parents, the school board and the head of food services at the high school were totally cooperative and wanted to work WITH us- a rarity. They forced our food service contractor to provide healthier, lo-fat, lo-sugar,lo-sodium products in place of less nutritious ones.

Our PTO raised money to buy a steam table and we were in business! Food made with fresh and healthier ingredients was still prepared at the high school- but instead of being brought in sealed trays, it was brought over and placed in the steam table. We had a vegetarian option every day as well.

We measured the success of the program by measuring food waste. At first, it was a little higher, then the same as before- and finally it was LESS than before, proving that kids WOULD eat the healthier meals and waste less food.
The program was a success and was adopted for all the elementary schools in the district.
Since then we’ve moved. My son’s new school is excellent in every way- except for the same old, bad lunches!!! For some reason this is the one issue no parents or administrators seem to care about changing.

By: RLM

RLM — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:36:27 +0000

If you reaaly want to see how bad it is go to Hearst, Mann, Orr, and Moten @Wilkenson by Feb 1. Chartwells is understaffed, poorly managed and does little more than put out fires. They are now transferring food all over town in trucks that are likely not properly refrigerated .

By: lostchef68

lostchef68 — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:27:54 +0000

I would have to say that you are very observant, articulate in your wants and totally cluless all at the same time!!! In what part of this country or any other do you think ingredients for food preperation are soley provided in your home state. They way you depict the situation is it would be ok if the chesse Sauce / Beef were packaged in DC/or VA. You also have a habit of redundantly mentioning that something was in a bag, can etc… Can I ask you a simply stupid question? Why is it a crime to use cheese sauce from a bag or steam noodles from a box in a school and ok when it is almost exactly what you served your PRECIOUS CHILD for dinner last night? Really go ahead and trash the lack of thought or dietary requirments in the meal but don’t be stuck up enough and act as if you or most other parents are providing so much better!! Ciao

By: jane4dc

jane4dc — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:00:08 +0000

I’d hoped the pizza was more benign but even that has a creepy list of ingredients. Thanks for this indepth reporting.

By: VegMom

VegMom — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:03:48 +0000

Thanks so much for sharing your experience! As a concerned parent, I look forward to reading your other posts. I want to point out an upcoming opportunity to help improve school lunches. Congress is revising the Child Nutrition Act, which currently makes no provision for vegetarian foods. We need to ask Congress to help schools serve more fruits, vegetables, vegetarian foods. You can get involved in a campaign that’s working to do just that: http://HealthySchoolLunches.org.

By: TheParisFoodBlague

TheParisFoodBlague — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 02:30:12 +0000

oh no, how depressing. it always shocks me, the difference between american school food and french school food.

do you remember in the 80s? when reagan wanted to consider ketchup a vegetable?