Annette Marchbanks: Assistant School Food Service Director- Syracuse City School District
“Students need to be exposed to a variety of healthful foods to encourage them to try them and help them to realize that they like them. Hopefully, this will carry over to the home and students will request parents to start serving their favorite fruits and vegetables at home.”
“The Smarter Lunchroom conference helped us to decide in which direction we wanted to go to try and encourage students to be thoughtful about their diets and health and how the school nutrition program fits into that endeavor.”
“I have been asked several times if eating healthy food is more expensive that eating junk food. I think absolutely not! Frozen, bagged vegetables are always inexpensive and just as good as fresh. Currently pineapple costs $3.00 and yield several delicious and healthful servings. A bag of Doritos costs about the same and yields several servings of fat and sodium. If chicken can be purchased at $2.00 a pound; a 4-ounce servings costs a family only 50 cents. Families just have to take the time and effort to prepare nutritious meals.”
Susan Rodriquez, School Lunch Manager, Frazer Eagles Café, Syracuse City School District
“Students were so excited when we opened the doors to the new ‘Frazer Eagle Café’. The kids even wanted to try out the fruits and vegetables simply because we called them by a different name. I think that they wanted to try the vegetables even more because they played a role in what they were named, and while doing so also learned a bit about the nutritious benefits of the produce.”
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