Orange County Public School (OCPS) Food & Nutrition Services (FNS) hosted its Fifth Annual Food Festival, the largest student food sampling event of its kind in the state of Florida.
More than 300 elementary and secondary students attended with 30 food vendors offering an array of 140 menu items for students to taste and vote for. In addition, Commissioner Adam Putnam of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, with Robin Safley, director of the Division of Food, Nutrition and Wellness came to see and taste for themselves what OCPS students were considering for their school menu.
Some of the possible menu items were: carne guisada, turkey pot roast, béchamel served as corn chowder, lemon grass chicken, rainbow trout treasure and pretzel chicken sticks with honey mustard sauce. Non-meat menu items were also featured and included: spicy black bean empanadas, Mexican brown rice with vegetables, baked sweet plantains, arepa sandwich (gluten free), whole grain mini sweet potato pancakes, veggie chicken nuggets, soy nut butter cups and potato pierogies.
“Eighty-five percent of the district’s new menu items for the upcoming school year are identified at the food festival. The goal of Food and Nutrition Services is for all students to eat the nutritional menu items we serve, while mirroring what is offered in the retail environment. The food festival offers students the opportunity to taste and vote for menu items that they would not regularly find in a school cafeteria,” said Lora Gilbert, senior director Food and Nutrition Services OCPS.
All food and beverage items presented at the festival were required to be whole grain, low-fat, no-trans fats, contain low sodium levels and/or have less than 10 grams of sugar per serving.
The student recommendations will be applied to the 2012/2013 school menu. OCPS FNS serves more than 26 million meals and snacks each year. That is approximately 143,000 breakfast and lunch meals daily.
