California School Staff Meet To Strengthen Fresh, California Foods in Schools

California school lunch staff want to include more state-grown food into cafeteria meals. They met in Oakland yesterday to share ideas on how to make that happen.

The Center for Ecoliteracy helped bring together school lunch directors and chefs from Los Angeles to Sacramento. The advocacy group says that fresh, Californian food is good for kids’ health, and the state economy.

“Real kids need real food to learn and grow.”

Zenobia Barlow from the Center says the more than 100 food professionals that convened at the Oakland Museum are responsible for about a third of all school meals in California. She says they’re learning from each other and experts about preparing seasonal food kids like.

“One person might be an expert on how to do breakfast in the classroom, and another person may be an expert on recycling and waste, somebody else might be the garden expert.”

Barlow says some California schools are already ahead of the curve when it comes to healthy cafeteria food. She says they’ll go back to their districts with new ideas on how to prepare healthy food.