Taste trends change in school lunch lines

For 36 years, Muzzie Barton has fed students at Bergan Catholic Schools and during that time, she's seen plenty of taste trends come and go on those cafeteria trays.

Nobody asks for "Tater Tot Surprise" these days.

"We used to make a lot of stuff from scratch," said Barton, who serves as Bergan's food service manager. "Now, kids won't eat that. They want everything on a bun."

Barton said children today don't eat as many home-cooked meals as they did in the late 1960s, favoring instead the convenience foods working parents often provide.

The manager tries to accommodate the students' tastes.

"They love spaghetti and garlic bread," she says, and "crispitos," a type of crisp chicken enchilada.

For the past two years, prompted by a suggestion from Principal Don Cunningham, Barton has offered students a salad bar.

Along with the traditional salad fixings, there are reduced-calorie salad dressings, fruit and cottage cheese, as well as lunch meat and cheese for sandwiches.

Two kinds of tacos are offered each day, and every other Wednesday an area pizzeria delivers that popular entrée to the Bergan cafeteria.

"Pizza day is the most popular," says Barton, even though lunchroom attendance doesn't really fluctuate much from day to day. Bergan seniors have open-campus lunch privileges, but everyone else eats at school.

Once a year, Barton arranges for one-time employee and still kitchen volunteer Faye Haney to come in and bake cinnamon rolls for the students and staff.

Applesauce and Barton's "chili-mac" casserole round out the meal, which draws students by the score.

"They eat the chili-mac," says Barton, "just to get to the cinnamon rolls."

Meeting federal dietary guidelines is important, Barton says, because "for a lot of these students, this is their main meal of the day."

Each month, she studies the commodity grocery list provided by the federal government and tries to select items her charges will eat.

Sure bets are the peanut butter and jelly or grilled cheese sandwiches — which come frozen from the warehouse — beef and cheese burritos, breaded pork patties and the breaded catfish strips and individual cheese pizzas which are especially popular during Lent.

"I think the kids have the best here," Barton said. "They have more choices now than they used to."

But she's still waiting for someone to ask for Tater Tot Surprise.

Bruce Kroeger knows what Barton's up against.

Now serving his 23rd year as food service director for Fremont Public Schools, Kroeger estimates his staff feeds at least 1,500 students in the seven elementary schools alone.

To reach guidelines of serving a fruit, vegetable, dairy product and protein each day, Kroeger knows he can always count on "things in tortilla shells," and pizza, which appears on the school menu almost every week.

Still, he isn't afraid to slip in the occasional chicken noodle casserole.

"I don't want to fall into the trap of serving the same five things every week," he says.

Still, the director has found throughout the years some foods just don't cut it with kids.

"I gave up on coleslaw," he says.

Occasionally, fresh fruits are offered to the students.

"But a whole apple is way more than a (younger elementary) student can eat, especially in 12 minutes," Kroeger says.

In a perfect world, the director says he would extend lunch periods so students could relax, converse and enjoy their meals.

Like Barton, he fills out a federal grocery list each month. What's available there also has changed throughout the years.

"The government has cut down on fat," Kroeger says. "It does not buy butter anymore to give to schools."

A huge surplus of cheese existed just a few years ago, the director said, "and, by golly, it's gone, too."

The old days of offering students whole milk are over, as well.

"Now, it's 1 or 2 percent, says Kroeger. "It's up to us to find out what the kids will accept."

What high school students seem to have especially accepted is the use of ranch-style salad dressing — on green beans, pizza and especially French fries.

Kroeger tries to control the amount students consume by offering packaged portions. But he can't handle the teens' eating habits when they're away from school, noting "sizing up" — choosing to pay a little more for extra fast food — is causing students to size up as well

"I think kids are heavier," he says. "But what we're giving them is only one-third of their dietary needs for the day."