Stephanie Noto: Fixing School Food / Beyond the Grab Bag & Mealy Apples
Fell Into Food Podcast
This episode features a deep dive into the operational and nutritional complexities of K-12 school meal programs with expert Stephanie Noto.
Key takeaways
- New nutrition regulations effective July 2024 target added sugars in items like cereal, flavored milk, and yogurt.
- The National School Lunch Program is currently navigating progressive tiers of sodium reduction.
Main topics
- School Nutrition Regulations
- NSLP and SBP Programs
Notable quotes
You're not going to have a profitable business by buying and serving cheap food and cutting costs.
Conclusion
The episode highlights that revitalizing school nutrition requires mov
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:00) Hospitalitychain.com, the world's first online hub designed for the hospitality, culinary, and catering industry. From leading food and beverage brands to professional food service equipment, hospitalitychain.com makes sourcing simple. Search, select, buy direct, and save, all in one global marketplace. Speaker 2 (0:27) Stephanie Noto is a registered dietitian, child nutrition program, and school food expert. In partnership with school districts, Stephanie evaluates and enhances school meal programs by integrating sound nutrition principles with operational and sustainable best practices. Her career in school nutrition spans 17 years. Self-employed as a consultant for the last eight, she brings experience as a former K-12 food service director, regional food production specialist, and national support resource for K-12 operators, which has given her firsthand view. of the opportunities and challenges school food service teams face today. Stephanie, welcome to the show. Speaker 1 (1:02) Thank you, Jeff. Thanks for having me. Speaker 2 (1:05) I, as we mentioned before we started recording, I excited because this was my bread and butter for so long. And I feel like I need to get a state of affairs of where we're at as my role in helping schools has been more on the recipe side. I know the compliancy and all those things, but people listening, I don't think they've gotten a good dose of what school nutrition really is. So let's start with what's been different, right? What's... What are some of the biggest differences you've seen since, again, I was in it three years ago? So from, let's say, three to five years ago to where we're at today. Maybe we'll hit on some of the big topics and then we'll dig into like what some of these acronyms mean, NSLP, SNA, all that. Speaker 1 (1:45) Yeah, sure. So three years ago, I can't say really a lot has changed. I think. Three years ago, we were still post-COVID. There was a new final rule that was implemented for nutrition standards effective July 1st, 2024, which put nutrition regulations on added sugars for specific items like cereal, flavored milk, and yogurt. And now this current school year, and they also after 2024, it's like a... you know how they do the progressive implementation. So it was first on those three items. Then added sugar, I believe now is a weekly nutrition standard that has to be met. And then also we did end up going to the second tier of sodium reduction. So yeah. Speaker 2 (2:45) Yeah. Let's talk about that. Okay. People are going to have no idea what you're talking about, sodium reduction. So let's first, let's define the term NSLP, National School Lunch Program, and kind of what that box is. And then let's touch on what this sodium reduction actually means. Speaker 1 (3:00) Yeah. So school meals. Majority of school meals fall under USDA programming, which is the National School Lunch Program, NSLP, and National School Breakfast Program, or abbreviated as SBP. I don't know why they don't have the N in front of that, but SBP. And that's your standard, typical breakfast and lunch programs. And with each program, there's a ton of regulations, nutrition, planning. Speaker 1 (3:29) implementation, anything and everything you can think of. Because when these districts are stewards of federal dollars, there's a lot that comes with it to make sure you're executing it the way that it's intended to be executed. So I guess going back to sodium tiers. Speaker 1 (3:48) The National School Lunch Program has been a thing, I think, since like the 1980s. I want to say like Reagan administration, maybe. I don't know. And it really, there wasn't, there weren't a ton of nutrition regulations attached to it at that until Michelle Obama came into office and basically re... Speaker 1 (4:08) programmed, reformulated all the guidelines of the programming to model the USDA dietary guidelines, which makes a lot of sense. You know, why should our school meals not match what the USDA is recommending as American dietary guidelines? So that's when all of these, the implementation, it, it Came out 2010, the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. 2011 was the first year we started to see like the implementation of things. And that was supposed to be, it was very aggressive in the beginning, very. you know, a lot to do at once. And then some of the things dragged out over the next seven to 10 years. And the sodium reduction was one of those things that was with the implementation of Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act. There was a first year sodium reduction. Then I think five or seven years later, there was a tier two. It even went out to a tier three, but we haven't gotten there yet because when were you in school nutrition when we changed? Yes, we are. People were like up in arms about like the kids, you know, like this is too hard to execute. You know, there were a lot of comments, a lot of school food. And really, I think what it came down to was just a lot of growing pains. You know, people trying to understand what the regulations were and how to interpret them and what they needed to do from an execution standpoint. I think by at this point, a lot of that stuff has been worked out. Speaker 1 (5:46) If I say so myself, I think the regulations are written beautifully. I am all for more nutrition standards that we have. But yeah, they were relaxed for a little bit. People got whole grain waivers in the beginning because kids didn't like the brown pasta or the brown bread that had the whole grains in it. But manufacturers have come a long way in the last... 16 years or so, you know, making grain products that don't look brown, you know, they've gotten better at formulating products specifically for child nutrition. And so it's way easier to develop recipes and meet the guidelines and do all these things. So what happened in 2010, 2011, we're a lot further along today in the industry and the profession. And I think the changes ultimately ended up being a really good thing. Speaker 2 (6:41) Yeah, I'm torn, right? I have two kids now, right? And they go to a school that has the National School Lunch Program. And I guess for people listening, not every school, depends on state. State by state, some states are mandated to tell a school you have to be on the National School Lunch Program. Illinois is not one of those, and that's where I'm at. You can choose to be on the program or off program. And by being off program, basically, you have free reign. I know a lot of them try to kind of mimic the guidelines, but they have a lot more freedom. They don't have to whole grain everything. they can kind of do what they want. So with that being said, right, when my kids were in middle school, I just, I'm curious about things like... or what your honest opinions are of things like they have a thing called the grab bag. And that's for lunch, two cheese sticks, like a bag of graham crackers, and they get their milk fruit. I don't see that as a meal, even though it hits all the guidelines, right? Technically, the cheese is what's called a meat or meat alternative. The crackers equal your grains. Like, what are your thoughts on that? I feel like schools in today's age with the products we have available to us should be attempting to get more what I call speed scratch. Full scratch, I don't think is going to happen in kitchens. It's just too much work with the amount of kids that have to go through these lines. But I feel like speed scratch could be done. What are your thoughts on some of the cop-outs that these schools are doing? Speaker 1 (8:03) I think we are starting out with a bang with that question. Because because that is true. Like I when I am as far as I am concerned, you will never meet a person who is more of a proponent of school food than I am. But I have also spent a long time in this industry. And I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly. And unfortunately, there is a Still to this day, I think a pretty strong disconnect between the intention behind the language of the nutrition standards and then how they're interpreted and then executed. So to your point, you mentioned a grab bag, two string cheese, a bag of graham crackers, fruit, milk, juice, whatever. You know, technically that's a compliant meal. And I think our food service directors. aren't yet trained enough to be able to come up. It's almost like they're doing that because it's easy and a more complex meal or more complex menu planning just requires more training that they don't get, unfortunately. And I come across that a lot. And actually doing a graham cracker, hopefully it's a two ounce equivalent bag. I don't. It Speaker 2 (9:26) should be, yes. Speaker 1 (9:27) I don't know if they make those, but hopefully they do. And it's a two ounce equivalent bag of graham crackers, but also that's considered dessert grain. So at lunch, they're only supposed to be, if it is a lunch option, it's only supposed to be offered twice a week. You know, there's like a lot of nuance and a lot of technicality to the regulations that I think people get into school nutrition. Speaker 1 (9:52) for reasons like the hours are great. I can, you