Category: Food for Thought

Healthy school lunches don’t just provide fuel for the day. They give our kids what they need to succeed in the classroom and beyond. Research shows that eating balanced, nutritious school meals improves children’s health, mental and emotional well-being, and ability to perform in class. 

Since 1962, National School Lunch Week has uplifted the many benefits that healthy school lunches have for our young people. Those benefits are especially strong here in California, which is home to the nation’s largest school lunch program, serving nearly 550 million lunches in the 2022-23 school year alone. This week, we’re celebrating the impact that school lunches—and the School Food Professionals who make them—make on the health and futures of children throughout the state. 

So what goes into making a great school lunch?

Nutrition

All school meals must adhere to federal standards to ensure that they meet kids’ nutritional requirements. Putting that into practice takes the help of school districts’ school nutrition directors, nutritionists and other School Food Professionals who oversee the development of school menus to ensure students get the vitamins, minerals and other essential nutrients they need.

Creativity

Creating healthy meals that kids love takes inspiration, iteration, playfulness and the ability to listen. When creating recipes, School Food Professionals start by asking the experts on what kids like to eat — the kids themselves. By understanding the foods that their students like (and what they may not be as excited about), School Food Professionals can create recipes that meet kids’ nutritional needs and still burst with the flavors they love. 

Fresh Ingredients

Tasty, healthy meals begin with good ingredients. That means avoiding highly processed foods and using the freshest possible vegetables, fruits, proteins and other ingredients. Many schools and districts source directly from local producers through farm to school programs, ensuring their students get the highest-quality meals while strengthening their communities and local economies.  

Culinary Skill

Across California, School Food Professionals are stepping up their scratch-cooked game, making more meals using fresh, whole ingredients. They use their deep experience — from school kitchens, culinary schools, restaurants, catering, and other food service work – to make thousands of delicious, good-and-good-for-you meals every day.

Teamwork

Every school meal is a team effort. From district offices and production kitchens to school kitchens and cafeterias, School Food Professionals work together to provide the best possible meals for our kids. While they work many different jobs and possess a wide range of skills and backgrounds, they all have the same purpose — creating fantastic meals that help kids to do and be their best.

During Farm to School Month, we celebrate the many programs throughout the nation that are connecting kids with healthy, locally grown food, providing nutrition and agriculture education and strengthening communities by supporting local farmers. 

The positive impact of Farm to School programs on kids, farmers and communities is well established. Students whose schools have these types of programs eat more fruits and vegetables, engage in more physical activity and do better in class. Local farmers bring in more money that allows them to expand operations and create jobs. Research has found that every $1.00 invested by schools in local food creates $2.16 in additional economic activity for the state economy. 

It’s no surprise that California has been a driver of this movement from the very beginning. After all, more than a third of our nation’s vegetables and more than three quarters of our fruits and nuts are grown right here in the Golden State. And the State of California has invested more than $100 million in farm to school programs since 2020 through the California Farm to School Incubator Grant Program. California-grown farm to school programs have become models that are emulated around the country. 

This month, we’re spotlighting some of the innovative programs throughout the state that are making a difference in their communities and charting new paths forward for healthy, locally connected school food. 

Planting Seeds: The Edible Schoolyard Project (Berkeley)

Legendary California Chef Alice Waters founded the Edible Schoolyard Project in 1995. Working with students, educators, families, farmers, cooks and artists, the program transformed a vacant lot at Berkeley Unified School District’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School into a vibrant garden growing fresh, organic produce. The program nourishes students’ minds as well as their bodies, using the garden as a tool to teach about healthy food, cooking, agriculture and more. The Edible Schoolyard quickly became a model for healthy school lunch programs everywhere, and they now have a network of more than 5,800 school food programs around the world.      

Focusing on Fresh: Farmers’ Market Salad Bar (Santa Monica)

McKinley Elementary in Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District launched their Farmers’ Market Salad Bar in 1997, replacing the produce in their salad bars with seasonal, organic fruits and vegetables grown by local farmers and prepared from scratch on site. They took students on farmers’ market tours and taught them about where their food comes from and how it is grown. As a result, students’ use of the salad bar tripled. The program was such a success that the district quickly began expanding it to other schools, bringing Farmers’ Market Salad Bars to all 15 schools in just four years.

Harvesting Education & Well-being: Farm to School (Oxnard)

In rich soil, great things will grow. Oxnard Union High School District’s vibrant local agricultural community, engaged students, and passionate community partners created the perfect environment for a successful farm to school program. Since 2016, Oxnard Union’s Farm to School has focused on improving nutrition, expanding school gardens, promoting locally grown food and developing student leadership skills. The program won the California School Board Association’s Golden Bell Award in 2020, and the gardens at schools throughout the district grow food that is used in cafeteria meals, culinary programs, nutrition education and more. 

Healthy, Local & Sustainable: Plateful (Lincoln)

Plateful, the food and nutrition service at Western Placer County Unified School District, is committed to providing fresh, balanced, locally sourced meals that students love. Key to this approach is their farm to school program, which works with producers throughout the area to bring fresh, healthy and local ingredients to students’ plates. The district has instituted a wide range of programs, from “Harvest of the Month” programs featuring seasonal ingredients, to “Meet the Farmer” events and other educational opportunities that help kids learn where their food comes from while developing lifelong healthy habits. 

We’re proud to celebrate the amazing farm to school programs in every corner of California. When schools and agricultural producers work together, the result is more nutritious meals, healthier kids, and stronger communities.

When I was nine years old, one of my favorite shows was “Great American Chefs” on PBS. You’d have one person alone in a very quiet kitchen, making one fantastic dish. Watching it, I knew that was exactly what I wanted to do.

So when I started working in the culinary industry at 13, I thought that was how it was going to be. It turns out, nobody cooks like that. Anywhere. Ever. The kitchen was always incredibly busy, full of people cutting and cooking and managing chaos, and I fell in love with it right away. 

I spent 25 years working in restaurants and bakeries before I made the jump to school food. I’d been volunteering in my kids’ school, and it was clear this was a place I could really make a difference by pushing to cook more meals from scratch and cut down on plastic and single-use items. 

One thing you learn for sure in restaurants is that you have to know what your customers like. At West Contra Costa Unified School District, we see our students as partners in building the recipes we cook and serve. We want to know exactly what they think and what they like, even if it’s something simple, like spaghetti with bolognese sauce. 

When we made our old bolognese recipe, what we heard from students was that it was too watery. It was missing that flavor and character that you get from a really good quality tomato sauce. From a chef’s perspective, what that tells me is that we needed to fix the basic ingredients. So we came up with a new recipe that draws its flavor from delicious, healthy, locally grown foods.  

We start with Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes, which are organically grown in Northern California. The onions come from about 60 miles due east of here, in Turlock, while the garlic comes from a little ways south of us in Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world. Combine those with a little basil and some high-quality meat from Mindful Meats in Marin County, and you’ve got a great bolognese sauce. The response we’ve gotten back from the students has been fantastic. They don’t know it, but the ingredients we’re using are the same ones that are used in some of the best restaurants in Napa Valley. 

The people who work in our kitchens have a mix of backgrounds. Some come from catering or restaurants or things like that, while for others, this is their first food service job. But whatever their background, we make sure they get what they need to do the job. Everyone gets food safety training, of course, and I teach a lot of “culinary boot camps” to build the skills of our team. We start with basic knife skills, cooking basics, and we have opportunities to grow into advanced baking and things like that. If you want to learn, the sky’s the limit. 

But whatever route people take to get here, I feel like we all do this work because we love cooking for kids. It’s the most rewarding part of this job. When you work in a restaurant or a bakery, you’re serving faceless strangers who often don’t even know you’re there. Working in school food is a whole different ball game. You’re serving kids who are happy to be there, happy to have the food you’re serving. They’re glad to see us, and we’re happy to see them. It’s much more fulfilling than any other job.

I’m proud of what we’re doing here at West Contra Costa Unified School District. We’re cooking more meals from scratch, using more wholesome, local and organic ingredients and fewer heavily processed foods. And we’re not just doing that in one school. Our team cooks 15,000 meals for 56 sites, every single school day.

I talk to people all the time who tell me they wish their district could do what we’re doing here, I tell them to keep advocating for it, because there’s change coming. 

Here in California, the whole state is moving toward better and scratch-cooked food. And it doesn’t stop there, either. The USDA is making sure that schools across the country are doing a better job of incorporating more scratch-cooked foods into their lunch menus.

It’s an exciting time. School food is getting better than it’s ever been, and we’re pushing to keep this momentum going.

Across California, school is in full swing. Kids and parents are getting back into the rhythm of schoolwork, homework and extracurricular activities. With so much packed into the day, it’s more crucial than ever that students get what they need to succeed.

Academic achievement begins long before kids sit down at their desks. Study after study shows that fresh, healthy meals are critical to doing well in school. Since students consume more than a third of their daily calories at school, school meals play a central role in supporting students’ physical health, mental health and classroom performance. 

Here are just a few of the ways that fresh and healthy school meals lead to better educational outcomes for California kids:

1. Energy, Concentration and Performance
   Starting the day with a nutritious, fresh breakfast allows kids to show up to school ready to learn, giving them better energy, concentration and memory. As a result, they show across-the-board improvements in reading, math, science, social studies and overall GPA. Students in schools that serve healthy lunches perform better academically and score higher on standardized tests. 
2. Good Food = Good Mood
   When kids feel good, they’re able to do and be their best. Youth with healthy diets have higher self esteem and better overall mental health. And eating fresh, healthy meals has been shown to improve classroom behavior and reduce the rates of school discipline and suspensions. 
3. Healthy Body, Healthy Mind
   Proper nutrition is crucial for brain development. Not getting enough protein, iodine, iron, folate, zinc, vitamin B12 or other key nutrients, can have a major impact on kids’ cognitive abilities. Healthy school meals also help kids stay physically healthy, so they miss fewer days of school. 

Every child deserves the opportunity to realize their potential. That’s why School Food Professionals throughout California are working hard to make sure that all kids have access to healthy meals that can help them thrive. 

At every step along the way, from sourcing ingredients to planning and cooking meals, School Food Professionals give students what they need to achieve. By incorporating farm-to-school programs, expanding scratch cooking and developing tasty new menus and recipes, they’re cooking up success for our kids in the classroom and beyond.    

If you’re eating lunch at an Azusa Unified School District cafeteria, and you think your orange tastes extra sweet, you’re not wrong. That’s a benefit of buying local oranges grown on trees that are more than a century old. “The older the tree, the sweeter the orange,” says Anna Nakamura-Knight, whose family has farmed citrus trees in Redlands, CA for five generations.

Anna’s farm does more than provide delicious fresh fruit to school districts like Azusa Unified. As a part of Old Grove Orange, they offer education and enrichment for students about food, agriculture, and the environment through a farm to school program. 

The result is a program that benefits everyone, creating healthier and stronger futures for kids, schools, farmers and communities. 

1. Helping Kids: School Food Professionals that operate farm to school programs can get their students to eat delicious, just-harvested produce while learning about where their food comes from. Research shows that kids who engage with farm to school programs  eat more fruits and vegetables, are more willing to try healthy foods, get more physical activity, and even do better in class. “Doing this gives us a unique opportunity to cultivate the palate of a child,” Anna says. “We get to create this healthy, wonderful, rich relationship with food where they know where an orange comes from, how it grows and what it really tastes like.”
2. Helping Schools: Schools that participate in farm to school see greater meal participation, healthier meal options, greater support from parents, and reduced food waste. Best of all, School Food Professionals get access to fresh, healthy ingredients which can form the basis of nutritious, scratch-cooked meals. “We work with all sorts of school programs, from  once-a-month, harvest-of-the-month features to weekly deliveries,” Anna says. “Our farmers even go into schools to teach students about healthy food choices and how produce is grown.” 
3. Helping Farmers: Farm to school purchases directly support farmers, keeping them in business and allowing them to keep producing fresh, local fruits and vegetables in their communities. The impact is huge, making up a sizable percentage of incomes for farmers participating in farm-to-school programs and pouring more than a billion dollars every year into these vital local businesses. “It makes such an economic difference for farmers. School purchases from our farm enabled my parents to pay for my and my brother’s college educations,” Anna says. “The food dollars schools spend support whole farming families, and those farms are in your community.” 
4. Helping Communities: When schools purchase food from local farmers, it keeps those dollars local, where they can stimulate the economy, create local jobs, strengthen families and generate more prosperity for everyone. “What’s magical is that, not only are you giving kids the most nutritious, delicious produce that they can get, but you’re supporting local families and building up the economy of your whole community.”

Anna is excited to see how farm to school has grown throughout California. Schools across the state have made a greater commitment to working with small farmers in their communities, supported by state programs like the California Farm to School Incubator Grant Program, Local Food for Schools, and School Food Best Practices Funds. 

She sees the movement as the intersection of past and future, upholding the long tradition of local farms while making a tangible difference in the lives of kids. “I want children to benefit from fresh, healthy food and small farmers to be able to keep farming forever,” Anna said.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are good for the body and the mind, delivering much-needed vitamins and other nutrients that improve students’ ability to concentrate and do well in school. So why can it be so hard to get kids to try them?

Check out these four tricks of the trade from skilled professionals who know how to turn the foods kids need into the meals they love.

1. Kids Eat With Their Eyes: Getting students to eat healthy begins before they take the first bite. “For kids to like a meal, it’s got to look good and taste good,” said Azusa Unified School District Chef Carol Ramos. To get students to go for foods that are good and good for them, Carol and her team pull out all the stops so their meals jump off the tray. That means training up their knife skills so they can cut fruits and veggies in appealing ways and packing their meals with vibrant colors. “When we make salads here, we have cherry tomatoes, freshly cut cucumbers, and delicious sweet corn. The yellow, red, green colors really pop!”

2. Fresh is Best: To fall in love with fruits and vegetables, students need to taste them at their freshest. And the best way to do that is by sourcing ingredients right from local farmers. ”Not only are you supporting the farmers whose kids go to your schools and who live in your community, but you’re also giving kids the most nutritious, most delicious produce that they can get,” said Anna Nakamura  Knight, whose Old Grove Orange family farm provides farm-to-school produce and programming to schools in California’s Inland Empire. “We pick produce the morning before a delivery, pack it that afternoon, and then I drive it over a big box truck to the school or district kitchen. Those kids are eating fruits harvested at peak ripeness that are super fresh and taste amazing.”

3. Spice it Up: Healthy and tasty aren’t opposites. With the right herbs and spices, you can kick the flavor into overdrive even while minimizing salt and sugar. “We use things like lemon, garlic, jalapeno and cilantro,” said Celeste Gonzalez, a cafeteria worker in Tulare’s Oak Valley Union Elementary School District. “We don’t make things too spicy, but we give it just the right kick.” A little seasoning can make the difference between veggies that stay on the plate and those that leave kids wanting seconds. And when Celeste’s team needs something guaranteed to make her students’ mouths water, they reach for the Tajín, a classic Mexican spice blend combining chili powder and lime. “All the kids love it. They didn’t like garbanzos, so we served them Tajín. Now they love them. If you tell them it has Tajín on it, kids will eat anything. Even carrots.”  

4. Go With What They Know: If kids are afraid they won’t love healthy foods, just take the foods they love and make them healthy. Adding bell peppers to quesadillas, fresh broccoli to chicken alfredo or sugar snap peas to chow mein gives children something familiar while getting them to try new foods. And expanding their palates at a young age is key to setting them on a healthy path for the future. “The benefit is getting these kids to try something different,” said Oxnard Union High School District Cook Vou Suafoa. “If you want them to step outside the box, it’s better to start them now.”

Healthy eating doesn’t have to be a chore. Helping a kid get a taste for fresh, flavorful meals brimming with nutritious fruits and vegetables is a gift that keeps on giving well into adulthood. By using these tricks of the trade, California School Food Professionals are helping our kids build lifelong healthy habits. 

For Azusa Unified Chef Carol Ramos, that’s one of the most gratifying parts of her job. “We are bringing different ingredients that we weren’t lucky enough to have, often straight from the farm. I love getting to help make kids more interested and excited about what school food can be.”

In any good recipe, every ingredient has a role to play. School food works the same way. I may be the menu planner here at Azusa Unified School District, but the meals we serve reflect the contributions of every person who works on the Nutrition Services team – we encourage our team members to share the recipes they like to eat at home. 

At our district’s central kitchen, where we cook and prepare meals for our elementary schools; we make 4,000 lunches and 2,000 breakfasts every day. Add the middle and high school, and that’s probably another 2,700 meals daily. Cooking that many meals and making them all healthy and tasty enough to get kids to try them isn’t the kind of job one can do alone. You need skilled people in different positions who all bring unique expertise to the table.

You need a registered dietitian to do the nutrient analysis. You need a planner to develop new ideas and create the menus. You also need a supervisor to ensure the team has the right ingredients and equipment for the dishes they’ll cook that day. You need a chef who understands and loves food. 

But that’s not all. You also need those home cooks who are passionate about cooking and supporting students. The cooks on our team have the skills, experience, and knowledge you need to make great meals, and they’re also parents who bring that home-cooking touch to the food that the kids love. 

Our secretary is vital, too. Not only does she oversee what happens in the office, but she also provides input. I’ll share the menu with her and ask her, “Do you think your kids will eat this?” She’s a mother who lives in this community too, so she understands what our students like to eat. 

Everybody on our team is essential to what we do. You can see our team’s contributions in every dish we put out to our students. On every tray, you can see the dietician’s healthy planning, the chef’s passion, the cooks’ homemade touches, and the secretary’s insights into what kids enjoy.

School food employees are some of the hardest-working employees in school districts. They start early in the morning, and it’s go, go, go from the moment they walk through the door. They have to make sure the meals are ready, at the right temperature, and that they look good. And no matter what, they must be ready to serve when the students arrive in the cafeteria. 

The first meal is breakfast before the bell at 7 a.m., followed by second-chance breakfast at 9:30 or 9:45. By the time that’s done, they’re already making lunch. After they finish serving, they have probably about an hour to wash up, clean up, and complete their production records and paperwork, and then it’s time to go home.

Everyone on our team gives 110%. They work hard and are incredibly caring, which is why students come into the cafeteria every day. 

Planning healthy and enticing meals for one child can be a challenge. So how do School Food Professionals plan good and good-for-you menus for hundreds of hungry students every school day? To Esther Huizar, cafeteria manager for Oak Valley Union Elementary School District in Tulare (Central California), it requires creativity, with a big helping of preparation and coordination. 

“I try to plan everything out ahead of time,” Esther said. “That way we have what we need to make home-style meals students can enjoy.”

Whether in large or small school districts, these tricks are used by School Food Professionals to plan mouthwatering menus that keep kids coming back for more.

1. Start From Scratch 

The best way to plan a healthy menu for your students is to start from scratch. Making meals from scratch using simple, healthy ingredients provides better nutrition, leading to healthier exercise and eating habits and stronger cognitive functioning. “That’s my biggest goal here at Oak Valley,” Esther said. “To cook more from scratch. More fresh fruits, more fresh vegetables. We’ve improved a lot.”

2. Choose the Foods Kids Love

If you want kids to eat healthy foods, you need to make healthy foods kids want to eat. That means adapting the foods kids love with fresh and healthy ingredients. Making pizza? Top it with healthy veggies, or even create your own farm-fresh kale pesto sauce. Making quesadillas? At Oak Valley, Esther and her team give this favorite a healthier spin by cooking with whole wheat tortillas, low-fat cheese and low-fat chicken. They even make their pico de gallo from scratch.

3. Fresh Marks the Spot

To give your students the most flavorful possible meals, go with what’s in season! Many schools use a Harvest of the Month program to highlight a particular ingredient in their menus. Not only does it keep ingredients at their freshest, but it provides a great opportunity to educate students about agriculture. “We have a little farm, and last week, we used fresh lettuce that our kindergarteners helped to grow,” Huizar said. “They brought it to the kitchen, and we made a salad with it. The kids were so excited.” 

4. Have a Plan. And a Plan B

Planning menus for entire school sites is a big job. So it’s important to look ahead and map out what you plan to cook over time. Many schools and districts use a six-week cycle for lunches, which allows for variety without having so many recipes that it’s difficult to keep staff trained on how to make them all. Getting all those ingredients sourced and in the right place on time is a delicate balance, even when everything goes right. And that’s not always the case.

 “Sometimes a delivery doesn’t get here on time, so I have to have a plan A, B, and C.” Esther said. “You look around at what you have and start from there. Maybe we were going to have chicken tacos, but there’s no tortilla. So we put the chicken on some chips with cheese, and the kids love it.” 

Fresh, healthy meals make a huge difference in any child’s life. Creating menus that get them not just in the door but excited to dine is critical to making sure kids get what they need to succeed in the classroom and beyond. Pulling that off means working right at the intersection of planning, playfulness and passion. 

“That’s what’s so great about this job,” said Esther. “It’s all about food, about celebrating, and that’s what I do.”

You have to be quick on your feet if you want to grab a muffin at the Del Mar Elementary School cafeteria in Santa Cruz, California, because they go fast. The popular whole grain muffins are the special recipe of Prep Cook Nancy Gonzalez.

“I bake them at home, and my daughters would always tell me ‘You should make these at school, so all our friends can try them,’” Nancy said.

Nancy’s daughters were right—the muffins were a hit among students. Now they are one of the many delicious recipes served weekly to students in Live Oak School District.

 

Starting from Scratch

In Live Oak’s central kitchen at Del Mar Elementary, School Food Professionals are creating a new vision of what a school food program can be — one where fresh, locally grown ingredients, scratch-cooked meals and hands-on culinary education for students are the norm.

Live Oak’s innovative school food program features healthy scratch-cooked meals, packed with flavors kids love and provided to more than a thousand students every school day. Led by Kelsey Perusse, a registered dietitian and the Director of Child Nutrition Services, the district’s team of School Food Professionals are redefining what school food can be, bringing in good and good-for-you recipes, diverse perspectives and new approaches to preparing and cooking student meals.

“We’re trying to do incredible, innovative things,” Kelsey said. “Part of the way to do that is to have a strong, innovative team of School Food Professionals who are passionate about that work.”

 

Hands-on Experience and Opportunities for Learning

For students to build lifelong healthy eating habits, it’s important for them to understand where their food comes from and how to make their own delicious and nutritious meals.

At Live Oak, students get the chance to follow their food from seed to tray. In partnership with local nonprofit Life Lab, Live Oak runs an agriculture education program that gets students involved in the farming process — planting, growing and harvesting crops, and bringing them to the district’s central kitchen. Back in the central kitchen, Live Oak’s Food Lab program gives students hands-on experience, helping to transform that produce into fresh and tasty meals for their classmates.

One recipe that came from the garden-to-cafeteria partnership was a kale pesto. In March 2024, Live Oak had an abundance of kale in the gardens. So, students got creative and turned that harvest of kale into a flavorful pesto sauce that was then used to make two delicious lunch entrées: kale pesto pasta and freshly baked kale pizza.

“We encourage kids to find out about nutrition and develop their culinary skills at a young age,” said Yumery Salazar Rivas, who works in Live Oak’s Child Nutrition Services department. “They get to learn scratch cooking in a real kitchen, and they produce enough food for all our school sites.”

Enabling kids to learn how to cook and design new meals has been a great educational experience. And it has helped the district more successfully align their menu offerings with the tastes, preferences and cultural backgrounds of their students. After all, kids know their taste buds best! And by using local produce and minimally-processed ingredients as the foundation of school menus, School Food Professionals are helping students create healthy eating habits for life.

Seeing students take part in making meals that reflect who they are is one of the things that Yumery loves most about the program. “Kids are helping our School Food Professionals make scratch-cooked enchiladas and other great meals for their fellow students,” she said. “That’s something I definitely didn’t see on the menu when I was a kid.”

 

Fresh, Healthy and Local

Through committing to healthier meals, Live Oak’s team is also building a healthier community. By buying from local farms and producers, they’re able to get the freshest possible ingredients while supporting local Santa Cruz businesses.

Live Oak’s team prioritizes getting to know their farmers. Many of the farmers they buy from are supported by the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association, a local nonprofit that helps people create and run their own organic farms, and the district supports a wide range of other local producers.

“We get squash, kale and peppers from Brisa Ranch in Pescadero and apples from Billy Bob Orchard in Watsonville,” said Kelsey. “And our beef comes from Richard’s Regenerative Ranch up in Lafayette.”

 

Cooking Up Something Special

The kitchens at Live Oak School District are making more than just great meals. Their team of School Food Professionals is creating a model for a new kind of school food program while cultivating healthier futures for kids and communities. And it’s a team they’re proud to be a part of.

Nancy has been offered other positions in the school, but she always turns them down. Being in the school kitchen, cooking delicious meals for students, is where she wants to be. The students agree.

“They’re always calling for me, ‘Nancy! Nancy!,’” she said. “They always say ‘I know you cooked this, because it’s so delicious.’”

To learn more about how Live Oak School District is cooking up healthy meals and futures for their students, follow them on Instagram @LiveOakSDNutrition.

The switch flipped for me when I was in college, studying to become a registered dietitian. Part of our program included visiting large-scale food operations, and so I got to learn about the world of school food by going to Long Beach Unified School District and seeing the amazing work that they were doing. That’s when I knew I wanted to be a School Food Professional. I wanted to change school food by cooking great food for kids.

Since then, I’ve been able to live my dream as a School Food Professional at Western Placer Unified School District in Lincoln. My team and I are responsible for preparing, cooking and serving about 1,200 breakfasts and 4,200 lunches to students every school day. 

Our goal is to prepare scratch-cooked meals that are made with high-quality, locally sourced ingredients that our students absolutely love. A lot goes into making that happen, and it can take months to bring a recipe from an idea to the cafeteria tray. 

We start by surveying kids and parents, finding out what they like, what’s working and what could be better. Next, we need to source enough fresh, quality ingredients to make thousands of meals — and we prioritize working with local farms in California that can provide us with fruits, vegetables and other items.

Once we’ve got a recipe we like, we taste-test it with students to make sure they like it. Flavor is everything. Yes, it needs to be healthy. Yes, it needs to meet our various program requirements. But our job is to make food that does all that while tasting great. One of our latest student-approved, taste-tested recipes is cornbread, which we made from scratch with local flour and cornmeal. When  offered this recipe at a recent school-wide event, a site administrator shared that it converted them from a lifetime of disliking cornbread into its newest fan!  

After receiving student feedback, our team moves to the next step: recipe standardization. Not all of our cafeteria kitchens have the same equipment or facilities, so recipes have to be adapted to meet the needs of all our school sites. This means our chef develops recipes with various preparation methods to achieve the same results consistently throughout the district. It’s an intensive process, but the result is a win-win for everyone. 

Most importantly, none of this could happen without our incredible team. They have embraced our scratch-cooking journey, challenging themselves to grow while cooking amazing meals for our kids. They work hard together, even completing supplemental trainings through organizations like the Culinary Institute of America Copia Campus, Brigaid and the Institute of Child Nutrition to develop and expand their culinary skill sets, all because they’re excited to cook better food for students. They’re also participating in other professional development opportunities like Chef Ann Foundation’s Healthy School Food Pathway Pre-Apprentice and Apprentice program. 

I get really excited when I think about what is happening in school food now and the potential of school food. In addition to supporting the health of students by cooking great meals that help them thrive in and out of school, School Food Professionals are a vehicle for changing local food systems and supporting their communities. We’re supporting our community by making fresh, delicious meals that our kids really enjoy. 

So many districts across California — Vacaville Unified, Madera Unified, Mount Diablo Unified, and Marysville Joint Unified, just to name a few — are making fantastic, flavorful, locally sourced meals, like fresh-made sushi or local halibut for fish tacos. Madera Unified is even roasting turkeys — not only for Thanksgiving, but also their daily sub sandwiches! 

My dream for school food is for it to be truly student driven and culinary focused. That means menus that are student approved, filled with menu items that taste great that students want to eat. I want to make sure we use high-quality ingredients from local producers. I want that to be the norm for students. And it can’t happen without School Food Professionals and the skill, creativity and care they put into these menus. 

I love being a School Food Professional. This is the most exciting time to be in school food. More and more districts across California are sourcing local produce, hiring chefs, developing delicious recipes, and cooking high-quality meals for their students. I can’t wait to see where school food is going to go.