Edmond School District Brings Chef Quality to Cafeteria

Students in Edmond head back to class Tuesday, and for some, the days of complaining about cafeteria food may be over.

Monday, August 17th 2009, 8:35 pm

By: News 9


By Kirsten McIntyre, NEWS 9

EDMOND, Oklahoma -- Students in Edmond head back to class Tuesday, and for some, the days of complaining about cafeteria food may be over.

The district is launching a pilot program that involves bringing chefs into the kitchen, which means processed foods are no longer on the menu.

The Edmond School District said because of complaints from parents wanting healthier meals, they're doing something about it.

The pilot program is starting in one elementary school, but there are hopes it can be district wide within four years.

Chef Dave Fouts is excited about the first day of school. He's already prepared a few items for Tuesday.

"Here's the corn and black bean salsa. This was made fresh today," Chef Fouts said.

Fouts is one of four people hired by the Edmond School District for its pilot program at Cross Timbers Elementary. This year, students here will only be eating meals made from scratch.

"Some of the new items are turkey tetrazzini, chicken cacciatore. We'll be doing a traditional roast beef," said Shelly Fox with the Edmond Public School District.

Shelly Fox said there's a trend nationally to get away from processed foods. In fact, the federal government will soon change its guidelines for sodium. This project is a way to prepare for those changes.

"We're hoping to have some recipes that we can incorporate on our menus throughout the district. We're hoping to be able to train staff at the other schools with the techniques it took to produce these recipes," Fox said.

Chef Fouts said the food budget at Cross Timbers is the same as other Edmond schools, and in some cases, it's cheaper to serve food made from scratch, but that's just one benefit.

"We're going to be looking at child behavior this year, testing scores, all that is going to encompass food and I really believe garbage in is garbage out. And we're going to make sure doesn't get that garbage. We're going to feeding them healthy meals," Chef Fouts said.

The project is a year long. Hopefully by next year other Edmond schools will begin to benefit from the non-processed foods. The Edmond School District is spending about $90,000 on the program.

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