(Le Mars) — Monday through Friday, Le Mars Community Schools Director of Food Services, Judy Lubben can be seen planning and serving nearly 1500 daily meals for the school district’s students and faculty. However, this coming weekend, Lubben will be traveling to our nation’s capital with the purpose of lobbying our elected officials and government bureaucrats to modify the dietary provisions of school lunches. Lubben serves as the President of the School Nutrition Association of Iowa. She says she will share a position paper with government officials about the changes that are needed for school lunches.
During the Obama Administration school lunches saw a change with the addition of more fruits and vegetables to be served, and a reduction of calorie intake and calorie count to help fight child obesity. Lubben says since those changes were made, children have adapted well to the new meal plan.
The plan, which was headed up by former First Lady Michelle Obama, was to reduce the nation’s childhood obesity problem. But what about those students that are from a low income household, and the school’s lunch maybe their best balanced meal, or even sometimes the only meal of the day. Lubben says she’s not overly concerned about reducing the calorie intake for children.
Lubben says one goal of the School Nutrition Association is to have a 50-50 split on whole grains. She explains why…
Food allergies are becoming even a larger concern for school lunch programs. Lubben says the Le Mars Community School District does not ever feature foods with peanuts or peanut butter. She says her staff works with parents of students with food allergies to better plan for an acceptable substitute meal.
