The Evolution of School Lunches 

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Yunmi Park and Echo He

School lunches, good or bad, are something that is offered across the U.S. However, it has not always been like this.

Before the 20th century, serving standard school lunches to school children in the United States was not a nationwide event, it only took place in the private organizations that were interested in child welfare in individual states and cities. An example of it is the Boston Latin School. The first school lunch program was initiated by Ellen Swallow Richards, a nutrition and home economics pioneer 

 In 1894, the first school lunch program took place at Boston Latin School, the oldest public school in the country by Ellen Swallow Richards, a nutrition and home economics pioneer. Richards began serving hot lunch at the school daily with the mission of providing the poor and immigrant communities with nutritious and affordable meals. The meals at schools were free to students, some items include fish chowder and bread with butter, etc.

At the turn of the 20th century, there is raising concerns over malnutrition in children inspired the philanthropic groups to provide balanced meals to students during the lunch hour. In January 1910, Home Economics classes in Boston started to serve early lunches to elementary school students three days a week, on the off days, a simple meal of milk and sandwiches was served. Other major cities also followed a similar fashion throughout the early part of the 20th century.

In the 1930s, the Great Depression hits, food was scarce and work was even scarcer. The president at that time, Franklin. D. Roosevelt bought up surplus food from the farmers and hired thousands of women to cook and serve lunches to hungry public school students as a part of his New Deal policy. he program was really successful. By 1941, every state had a lunch program in place for schools. The typical school lunch at that time includes veggie soup, peanut butter sandwiches, and the occasional piece of fresh fruits.

In 1946, President Truman signed the National School Lunch Act as a result of the realization of the importance of students’ welfare. The act provides low or no-cost school lunches to children who need them, which is known as the Free and Reduced lunch program nowadays. In general situations, the students can be determined eligible for free and reduced meals through certain Federal Assistance Programs, or based on their household income, and family size. Amie Garcia, the food service supervisor at Issaquah School District gives a further explanation for the program. 

“The Free and Reduced Lunch program is just another resource for the family who needs  extra support on lunches to make sure that everybody can have the resources to access food,” Garcia said. “In addition, it also helps students with paying sports fees and ASB fees and other school activities.”

As the school lunches evolve, there is some unique food offered in the time period that has been no longer offered on the menu anymore. 

Skyline kitchen manager, Rachel Carlson, reflects on her memory of her favorite school lunch growing up.

“It was these roles that had cheese in them, it was in elementary school and I still remember them to this day. Carlson said, “I loved them so much.”

Amy Garcia also has the same memory, especially the scratch baking in ISD in the early 2000 time period.

“I actually graduated from Issaquah High School, lunch is much different back then,” Carcia said, “But one thing I really like is our scratched baking, we can get the fresh rolls, fresh cornbread, fresh-baked cookies, what I’m excited for is to get more scratched cookies into the kitchen.”

In the 1970s, the nutritional quality of school lunches significantly went down. According to a government report, the meals “fell far short of providing minimum nutritional standards.” These findings came as schools began serving dishes like hamburgers, chili dogs, fried chicken, etc.

The nutritional quality became better until 2010 when the Healthy Hunger-free kids Act passed. This Act from Michelle Obama gives free lunch and breakfast to every kid in school, which ensures that all children, including those who might not be food-insecure but don’t always have access to high-quality meals, are fed.

Nowadays, the school lunches offerings are still based on strict regulations and requirements. Amy Garcia explains the basic requirements for the school lunches by USDA.

“The requirements basically set out that there needs to be certain component to complete, or the healthy well-balanced meal, a meat alternate, a green, vegetable, a fruit and milk that are offer to the student, so these components are what we have to make sure that they are available for each student to take for a meal.”

The Pandemic Impact on the school lunches at ISD 

As students in the Issaquah School District (ISD) are approaching the end of 2021-2022, free school lunches for everyone are planned to end as well. 

Before the school year 2021- 2022 started, the U. S Department of Agriculture continued reimbursing schools and childcare centers for free meals to all students regardless of their income. As the global pandemic caused numerous unemployment and other economic issues to most households in America, this policy at least guaranteed the basic food need.

The Biden administration had urged lawmakers to extend an initiative first enacted in 2020, which gave the Agriculture Department the authority to issue nationwide child nutrition waivers. These waivers have allowed school nutrition programs, local government agencies, and nonprofit organizations to keep feeding children despite numerous challenges.

Lisa Davis, a senior vice president of the national child hunger organization Share Our Strength explains the importance of giving free school lunches nationwide. “ At a time when millions of families continue to face a financial strain, hunger, and hardship, these waivers allow schools to reach more kids with the food they need,” Davis said, “ With them, schools are able to cut through red tape and allow kids to eat for free.”

The ISD food Services director Brian Olson also expressed how the lunch waivers helped with the food services in ISD specifically, so that students can get lunches more easily.

“During the pandemic, waivers approved by the USDA made lunches free for everyone, and  they assisted school districts to get food out there for students who needed it,” Olson said. “It really simplified the process for us and made meals more accessible to students who may not usually participate in the program.”

The free school lunches policy significantly changed the previous model of school lunches at ISD and have an impact on different aspects.

Skyline High School Kitchen manager Rachel Carlson witnessed how the free lunches resulted in the increasing busy workload for the kitchen compared to the normal school years. 

“The workload increased significantly for us,” Carlson said. “The majority of the kitchen staff got their hours increased with the number of orders we were making.” 

The impact of the free school lunches policy on sales is conspicuous. Before the pandemic, the kitchen staff would be really excited if they sold a hundred lunches. However, the free school lunches make the number of sales five times more than the original, and the highest number of lunches was 596 a day this year.

The Food Service Department in ISD is overwhelmed and stressed about a large demand for free lunches because of the pandemic’s impact on the supply chain. When there were supply chain issues, the kitchen in schools sometimes would only get half of the orders.

Amy Garcia, the food service supervisor in ISD found that the biggest obstacle to providing free meals is the shortage of all kinds of food. The increased participation in school lunches means the food service department has to get more products that are hard to secure. 

“When the shortages are coming in, we get the substituted different items that may not be our first choice of item, Garcia said. “But in order to feed the kids and get the lunch out, we have to do these quick adjustments, so sometimes the menu is not exactly as its available.”

Despite having the supply chain issue, free school lunches benefit students and families in a lot of ways.

Based on the students’ feedback, free school lunches have made them less stigmatized for kids that are on the free and reduced lunch program.

“Before, only students in the free and reduced lunch program can get the menu lunch as their free lunch,” Carlson said. “ The free school lunches helped kids not feel as stigmatized for having free lunch.”

Additionally, free school lunches not only help the family with reducing pressure about preparing lunch for kids every day with the pandemic effect of job losses and reduction on salaries but more importantly it makes the parents no need to worry about if kids have no food to eat during lunch. 

“As a mom and a working mom, it’s nice also for me to be able to not have to worry about my kids because no matter what they will be able to get lunch, Garcia said, “we are not going to worry if they have money for that to happen as well.”

Lastly, the number of sales and other statistics show that having free meals for every student increased the amount of participation significantly. Although the high demand for the school lunch stressed the food service department for getting enough supplies in the pandemic where food shortage happens every day, the positive effect is always over the supply issue in terms of students themselves.

“It’s really beneficial for all students to have free lunches so that we will not worry about whether they will be able to eat and what they are going to eat, because we don’t always know their situation at home, ” Garcia continued, “And also I think it’s a great opportunity for students just get introduced to what is in the school lunches and maybe come back next year to get lunches.”

However, the extension of the free school lunches waiver did not pass, with the attempt to clamp down on government spending and get schools back to normal. This means that the schools in the entire US will not have free school lunches anymore in the school year 2022-2023.

With the two years of experience with free school lunches, the food service director Brian Olson thinks that it’s still essential to extend the free school lunches waiver. 

“I think the industry as a whole, the child nutrition program all over the country, needs it,” Olson said. “The supply chain is not getting any better, and we will probably struggle through the next school year, I know the financial impact of the pandemic needs additional support to help the less unfortunate school get back on track.”

Development of ISD’s Scratch-based Program

It’s lunchtime, and the smell of homemade tomato basil soup fills up the cafeteria. Plump red tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, and bottles of cream are gathered to make another batch. While bowls of the soup are ladled to each student, fresh cheese sandwiches are continuously grilled in the back kitchen. 

This could be the future of our lunches.

In the 1980’s, American school lunches shifted towards prepackaged and pre-made focused  foods shipped from large factories. Now, the use of stoves and cutting tables are rare, as most menu items are simply reheated in the oven. 

Frozen burger patties, fries, and vegetables stock up the freezer, and the culinary experience of many cafeteria staff is wasted. With the compromise of nutritional value and taste that come with pre-made foods, the ISD is on a mission to change that.

While some foods such as the burger patties and chicken tenders at Skyline are frozen, some menu items utilize a technique called speed-scratch cooking. 

“Speed scratch is where we’d buy the ingredients that are pre-cooked and put it together. Like the lasagna on our menu would be an example of that. The pre-cooked meat is put together with the other ingredients to make the item” said Brian Olson, the ISD Food Services Director

Although speed-scratch items are a step from frozen or prepackaged foods, Olson and other ISD employees are striving for more. 

Before the pandemic, Olson started developing the scratch-based program. Scratch cooking means preparing food from raw ingredients and does not use any canned, pre-cut, or pre-cooked items. 

The ISD food department developed seven different menu items made completely from scratch, with plans to test them in the primary school levels. However, plans were paused once the pandemic hit. 

“We were working on chicken tenders we breaded ourselves, a tomato basil soup from scratch, chicken yakisoba, scratch barbeque sauce for a barbecue pulled chicken sandwich, a turkey gravy from scratch, chicken quesadillas, and chicken fajitas” said Olson. 

In the past, Olson has had experience creating diverse recipes for different school districts, but it has been difficult for them to succeed.

“With my culinary background, I worked hard to create a couple recipes for the school menu. One was a Thai peanut curry chicken over rice noodles, but nobody ate it when I introduced it” said Olson. “This was at the middle schools in the Tukwila school district.” 

Olson suspected a variety of factors for the lack of engagement in the new menu items. There could have been a lack of advertisement or the hesitancy for students to try something new. 

However, Olson has hope for the Issaquah School Direct in introducing scratch foods that reflect the student body.

“Once we set the groundworks for scratch cooking, with our diverse district I think it would be really cool to start pulling the popular dishes from different cuisines. We could get Indian, Mediterranean, and additional asian cuisines. That would be an awesome goal.”

The start date of the scratch-based program is still undetermined due to the current state of the pandemic, but it is sure to make the meals at Skyline tastier, healthier, and representative of ISD’s diverse district.