hello everyone welcome to this week's episode of community conversations i'm your host roger coulton are you a parent who has wondered how the schools make decisions about what to feed your kids every day today we're going to answer that question five days a week nine months a year not only do our kids go to school to be educated but they go to school to be fed lunch time and the quality of their food will affect not only their health but will affect how well they learn the public schools feed hundreds of dhamma kids lunch every day every year from the time they start school as little kids until the time they graduate as young adults accordingly for today's show i have invited dustin o'brien director of food service for the public schools to talk with us about precisely how they do that dust and welcome and thank you for taking time to come and talk with us today thank you for having me i'm excited for the opportunity dustin before we really get to start talking about how you plan menus and what you feed your kids i'd like to ask you some just basic questions about what goes on with the with the foods so i started out by talking about serving lunches the belmont schools or serve breakfast as well yes in some of our schools in belmont high school the wellington and the butler elementary we do offer breakfast we do have on deck and other school that we're exploring we're figuring out which is six now and trying to have that available for the start of the next school year and can pretty kids bring their own lunches to school yes absolutely there's no discouragement from kids being able to pack their own lunch and bring it in and can kids go home for lunch when i was a kid it was always a big deal to walk home for lunch and then be back for the afternoon right so that's an option only at belmont high school there is off campus opportunities for them so they can come and go as they please throughout the day and sometimes they do leave for lunch and do kids or do families pay for their lunches and breakfast so we've moved completely to a pos pos software for how we're taking payments now we do take some cash payments in the schools but what we've offered over the last few years is a website called my school box dot com where parents and students can log on upload fawns you know via via the web and all they need from the district is their local student i all school districts offer meals free or reduced pricing what has happened is there an application that goes out the beginning of the school year it's readily available online you can submit it any time but what it is is basically taking the family's financial situation into account based on how many household members and then we put it into a system and it will it will generate if they qualify for free reduced free reduced meals and my understanding is people can do that on line yes can make application for that on line now absolutely so starting this at the beginning of the school year we offer a service now that they can submit that application fill out fought everything online and takes you know forty five minutes to fill out if they have any questions they can cost but they can smid it right into our system we get it the next morning process and they're going to go for lunch that day and when you say call us is there a number to call sure so one thousand eight hundred help but not exactly so i got the idea if for asking you in after i watch the movie fed up and i thought it presented a fascinating question i could you talk generally for a minute how you plan menus the notion of feeding however many hundreds of kids for nine months a year is somewhat daunting right can you tell us generally st and then we'll drill down right so there is a great question there are a known there are a factors that go into it it's not super cut and dry but our st overall goal is to provide a nutritious and affordable option for all families right this is an option for students in school so the factors that go into that is the nutrition guidelines that have been laid out for us also that goes into that is student acceptance the cost the local product available the season all of those items are factors the the offerings we have from you know as as you may or may not be aware it's a it's a subsidized program right we get a lot of help and that's why we get to to present this meal at such an affordable rate so there's an offer sheet that comes out monthly that we can pick and choose from which is you know could be vegetables proteins fruits anything like that and we move forward basically mid month for the following month to plan weekly menus out and then we will send that out at the end of and of the month and of the month for the next month and the offer she comes out from whom so the offer she comes out from the u s d a and it's a number of different products and quantities to choose from and what we do is we try to gauge what we're going to use for the next month and plan accordingly we we place that order it gets delivered about three weeks after and it gets delivered to all of our schools directly so we do we do the best we can in forecasting and it actually works out really well for our ladies the the notion of planning for both  graders and high school seniors who seems somewhat daunting i'm going to use that we're in a lot i guess but how do you make the choices between what you feed st graders who i would think would be more choosy i would guess and how you feed high school kids right so where are where are we have variety at all levels is just a matter of to what extent we go the secondary schools we take a lot more risk in what we're offering you know the high school in general we have a salad bar we have a deli bar we have a grab and go station we have two hot entree lines and we try to get those kids through and and have enough time to you know get their nourishment and go to their next class of the secondary it's very similar when we do talk about the elementary we do have to be a little bit more cautious because kids are picky eaters we often you know i've been in the in the cafeteria where we've had kids upset that a certain item is touching another item on the plate so you know we'd have to go back and were very cognizant of of what demographic we're dealing with or what age group we're dealing  with talking about that for a minute to go off on a little bit of a tangent do you actually you actually go into the cafeterias to see what kids are eating and what they're throwing away we i am in the schools generally in every single building weekly i'll go in and i'll talk with our staff i'll chat with the students see what's working what's not working our staff has great relationships at all levels it's impressive to see how many of our staff know the kids by names when they're seeing hundreds that to you know anywhere from one hundred to four hundred kids a day it's really impressive so we rely heavily on on our ladies to develop those relationships  and learn they definitely will will let me know you know this item and this menu options are working ok well you know we gave it a shot and will learn from that in the future do you make decisions between things such as white bread versus wheat bread there are white rice versus brown rice the things that my doctor tells me that i should be paying attention to right so so when we're talking about i'm going to i'm going to drive this into  whole grains right so over the last five years there was a major shift in what we could and couldn't offer and basically with whole grains out of all the grains you're offering your baked goods you know your bagels things like that out of what you're offering fifty one percent of those have to be whole grain so we make those decisions you would still you still will find you know white rice in some of our our menu options but you also see that we're balancing it with a lot of grains as well and you serve desserts or healthy desserts is there such a thing as a healthy dessert so as far as desserts are concerned we do focus on desserts really much at all it might be once a month and it might be surrounding you know a special day valentine's day we'll have a whole grain heart shaped cookie things like that out but as far as desserts it's not a focus of ours now my daughter's been out of the schools for a few years now but i remember allison had a friend who ate nothing at home nothing but baked potato how do you deal with that with choosy eaters like that it seems like you could put food in you can give food to kids but you can't make them eat it right i mean that's that's definitely part of the challenge we try to  go back to this point where we try to offer a variety we tried to hit every palate and we do the best we can with that we work individually with families on what their preferences are  and i am in direct contact with one family in particular where we're kind of guiding their meals every every single week so it's definitely tough but we do the best to keep it fresh changing changing it up and try to hit every one that we can and you deal with again this i mean if you put this as a comment that it's really a question you need to deal with vegetarians and are there students who are vegans there are there's definitely more requests at the high school level than any other any other level and we've we do a really good job of listening to them and offering vegetarian  options you know they have their daily options where they can pick and choose out of the salad bar and the deli bar and make their own their own items mean entree days are generally protein focus as the nutrition guidelines or protein protein focus they have to be part of those those components but we do have a vegetarian a vegan options and gluten free options available in all the schools and you've mentioned the nutrition guidelines a couple of times it is it is that something that can be easily summarized easily summarizing the nutrition guidelines is certain nutrition groups are analyze on a weekly basis so we plan our menus accordingly the easiest way to i'll take the vegetable component just that's the easiest one to understand as far as on a weekly basis we have to make sure we're offering the rainbow of colors right so leafy greens  you know orange vegetables are sweet potatoes any sort of red options red heifer strips things like that so we have to hit all of those every single week and might not necessarily be featured with the main entree but it's featured on some sort of bar that they can pick and choose from and it's a good thing to change the colors of vegetables right calm correct yes absolutely it's you know there's a there's a heavy focus on eating the rainbow right even on a daily basis we try to weave our outline to try to handle it on a weekly basis but we're doing more more and above that due to the kids have explanations provided to them about what's being fed fed to them or east simply prepare the food see in the kids take what they  did did that make sense so would you explain eating the rainbow to to the kids we have a certain there's a there's a week in october that we work heavily with the school nurses it's called pack week in it's path and it's basically packet color a day where the and it's emphasized that they're bringing something from home of a certain color and how that's how that's pushed pushed ahead in the actual buildings as they're supposed to wear a collar that is associated with whatever vegetable or fruit subgroup that they brought for the day so there is a bit of marketing are we marketing and educating solely out of our office and no i would not say i'd say our focus is offering you know a nutritious meal so one thing that is going on in belmont today over the years or over time but there is in increasing asian population in belmont do you have to take in to account cultural differences in in serving foods sure so we even have a very diverse team of staff in the food service department we don't focus on a specific  you know cuisine we feature we featured indian we featured mexican italian chinese in the spring p h s we work with a local sushi provider sushi sushi in cambridge and he will drop off for a sheaf of sushi rolls a few times a week on the springtime i would like to remind our listeners that we are speaking today with dustin o'brien dustin is the director of food service for the public schools dustin handles the food service for k through twelve justin i would like to ask  last thing about the nature of food and that has to do with drinks do you we've been talking about food but it seems like whether one serves orange juice or milk or water makes a big difference to how do you address drinks i think there is i think there's a few different ways you can you can look at that eleven with certain items with milk products with with with fruit juices i think a lot of those decisions start at the home right it's what what is the best decision for my child water is not considered to be part of a reimbursable meal as there is no nutritional value but does that mean you're not drinking water every day no i think it's a i think it's a heavy i think it's a it's a heavy portion of what your daily consumption could be when you're choosing between fruit juice and milk we only offer one hundred percent fruit juice in a four ounce container and it's classified as covering a half cup of fruit does that mean it's better than milk i'm not the one to to make that decision i think it's i think a lot of what we offer the decisions have to start in the home when think about fruit juice is i'm a diabetic and drinking fruit juice isn't a good thing for me because it sugary how do you avoid the sugary or let me finish one thought how do you avoid the the sugary nature fruit juices or is that a gross generalization so that's a tough that's a tough question to answer as we as i've stated previously work even an outline as to what we can offer in these one hundred percent fruit juices or are part of it so we can't completely you know go away go away from them we still want students you know being able to consume something right rather  than you know we want them to be we want them to be able to consume something and get through their day and you know if fruit juice is an option for them and we're outlined that way we're going to serve it because the kids do enjoy it as well and it i soda available no sodas not available in any school to any students including then in machines are there any machines there are vending machines in some of the schools with students have access to seltzer and snacks that are considered to be part of a list now the a list again are snacks that have been approved by the u s d a for service in schools those have changed drastically over the last five to six years you're not you're not seeing super high fought fat content snacks you're not seeing soda available for the schools you're not you're just not seeing it anymore it's  pushed in a totally different direction is there a major concern that you hear from parents about what gets you consistently hear from parents about what gets fed to their kids not consistently we actually get a lot of praise for what we serve in the breakfast and lunch program there's definitely suggestions and were open to taking suggestions at all times as far as the vending machines and why they're available we have students that are getting to that school you know anywhere from seven dollars to seven thirty am and are not going home until seven at night so there has to be an option for them during when you know when we stop serving lunch to that whole entire window if they're not going off site for anything they need to have all have access to something having just gone to see chicago last weekend at the high school desk those chicago kids must've spent a lot of time at the school and needed something and after lunch before going home right right some some some of our students do not have the option to go home after school if they're taking part  or curricular activities so there has to be something on site for them moving away from what foods get served can we talk for a minute about the mechanics kids a day that's mainly lunch numbers so and that's overall six school that's overall six buildings right so we have the highest population at the high school and the chain or a and how we plan for that is basically off past we've been watching enrollment and student participant participation increase over the last few years so we've adapted to that but it's our head cooks are we rely heavily on them for their forecasting for the future they know their schools i'm not making the ordering decisions for those schools i'm giving them the groundwork and they're giving me the feedback in the numbers so as far as the mechanics are concerned everything's prepared in house with the exception of public geos that gets delivered once a week to all the buildings they're doing all the prep work all the ordering all the forecasting the fruit production are out records all in house so each school has its own kitchen correct and that from my preparation for today my understanding is that's a good thing that's a great thing i've so i've been with belmont for three and a half years and i came from public schools and before that smithfield or island in smithfield public schools in rhode island and we did have satellite schools there where there was a main central kitchen in and i didn't we're getting shipped out to lower schools on a daily basis that's a way bigger animal to try to try to contain i absolutely love that we have the capability to to build these meals in our own kitchens and in having your own kitchens in essence what you're doing is running a gigantic restaurant right and in doing that unite only have to decide this is my reaction to some of what you're saying tell me if i'm right or wrong but you know we have to decide what to feed people but you have to worry about things such as inventory control and that that doesn't seem like it marches forward but it does i mean it's logical you you have to worry about inventory control and what you throw away right right so it to parallel how most  school districts struggle with its space right so we don't really have a ton of space to work with so as far as keeping an eye on on our kitchens in our inventory control it's rather easy to do because there's no or really for a for it to go  i could go into any kitchen or head cooks know what is what is where i don't see on what we call the back of the house a lot of waste when you talk about the head coach can you talk for a moment  that your staff that does the preparation i assume that there are more people in the kitchen at the high school than at the elementary school simply because they're serving more kids right so we have a number of in belmont high school and in the generally middle school they're offering a fair amount more than but the elementary with the elementary schools are and they are given tasks on a daily basis for what the menu option could be and there th responsible for keeping fruit you know slicing vegetables any anything like that and we rely heavily on everybody on our on our team to get it done and that's all done on site correct can you talk for a moment about how if at all well let me ask the question do you have as a priority a or as a consideration the purchase of food from local growers  belmont's got its own farm purchase from mike's far we have worked with mike in the past we're all working with him currently as far as the school year and the new england growing season of course in the spring and the fall and we do our best to get what we can from our local vendors so we have a relationship with a few we've worked with mike at belmont acres in the past we  have we've partnered with bread we've been working with them for about three years i think everyone knows that they're based in cambridge and provide an excellent product our most recent addition is proteins right not a lot of schools public schools are serving local proteins we've teamed up with walden local meat based out of pearlington and they provide us grass fed beef and pork products twice a month for our secondary schools so we've been featuring that s february and it is been going over great with the kids as far as other local providers we just teamed up with a company called what's good and they basically will poll a number of farms to let us know what product they have available and then we're able to pick and choose from that so that would be an absolute collaborative of of a number of local providers and you have a relationship with the farmer's market  specifically with the belmont farmer's market but we do try to work as much as we can with the local growers that's that's fascinating if i were to ask you if there's in this may be an unfair question but if there is is there any misconception that you believe that is generally how things get out in the public and people say oh the belmont public schools do a b or c and you're sitting back saying no we really don't i think a big misconception is what is served as far as in the vending machines the vending machines get a really bad rap and it's items that we try to have available for those students that are there on long days it's available on our website at the belmont public school's website and go down to the  food service link you can get all the information we have available on the on that link it will break down all the nutritionals of products that we do provide we do not provide on our menus specific nutritionals for the day as menu options you know we are also dealing with a number of vendors trying to give us the products and sometimes it doesn't show up so we try not to be overly informative on what the nutritionals are for the day but we can always provided on a weekly basis that's great dustin it's been great fun today that the clock is ticking down on us so we need to wrap this up but i really do appreciate you taking time out of a morning no less you have coming up here in a couple hours i appreciate your you're taking time to be here roger thank you for having me it was great we've been talking today with dustin o'brien dustin is director of food service for the belmont public schools and we've been talking about how dustin and therefore the belmont public schools make decisions about how they feed our kids every day i would like to thank dustin again for joining us and i would like to thank you the listeners for tuning in you can listen to our community conversations podcast by accessing it online at the b m c podcast network at belmont media dot org and you can also download us from i tunes by searching for the b m c podcast network i'm your host roger coulton thank you for community conversations and i will talk to you again in two weeks