Aware that students in Oregon’s largest school district faced danger from lead paint, radon and tainted drinking water this year, the Portland school board pressed pause this week on buying something else some parents say could harm children’s health.
Uncrustables.
Yes, the individually packaged peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from Smucker’s lack crusts. But other features have drawn reproach: They’re factory-made in Kentucky, contain dextrose and high fructose corn syrup, and are guaranteed to last nine months in the freezer.
Portland Public Schools plans to serve more than 600,000 of them in the coming year.
That’s rubbed some parents the wrong way, given the area’s fondness for healthy, locally sourced food. Sure, Uncrustables are served in cafeterias all over the country, including in Beaverton. But that doesn’t make them a good choice for Portland kids, those parents have fumed.
Craig Williams, a longtime PTA leader, turned to Facebook to pose his question about the plastic-encased entrée: “Can we find something more healthy and palatable than the product Smucker’s offers?”
“For me, it isn’t about eliminating the ready-to-eat sandwich, a menu item which I know a lot of students look forward to eating on a daily basis, but about making it a healthier option, one without so many ingredients (especially ones you can’t pronounce),” Williams wrote.
He clearly tapped a nerve, and dozens of other parents jumped in, adding their mostly anti-Uncrustables views. Never mind that Williams later confessed he had high-fructose-containing Smucker’s jam in his own refrigerator, along with a smaller jar of “natural” Smucker’s without the syrupy sweetener.
When the school board met just 24 hours later, on Tuesday evening, a proposed $350,000 contract to buy more than 600,000 of the sandwiches at 51 cents apiece had been pulled from the agenda.
Gitta Grether-Sweeney, Portland Public Schools’ nutrition director, explains why the pre-packaged pb&js are a good choice, if not a perfect one.
They meet school nutrition guidelines, by delivering the requisite amount of protein and whole grains without exceeding fat and calorie limits, she said. They’re also an entrée that a lot of students, particularly in kindergarten through second grade, love to eat.
And, she said, the pre-made, individually packaged sandwiches deliver two key factors that Portland Public Schools cafeterias absolutely need:
They help ensure peanut butter, to which some children are highly allergic, is segregated from other food and cooking surfaces and utensils.
And they’re available even when power is out, ingredients for fresh meals go bad or water is turned off (like it is now, in light of findings showing lead in schools’ water). Just pull them from the freezer, wait two hours and serve.
“They are a great back-up food for emergencies,” she said.
Absent an emergency, children are always offered at least three other entrée choices, Grether-Sweeney said.
Alternatives can include a locally sourced hamburger cooked in the school kitchen, a Southwest-style bean and rice bowl, a whole-breast chicken fillet or some lasagna hand-assembled using locally made marinara sauce and fresh basil.
Yet 12 percent of students, on average, pick the soft, sweet sandwich wrapped in plastic.
Despite defending the Kentucky-made lunch staple, Grether-Sweeney said she would love to serve a locally sourced pb&j instead.
The school district already buys “wonderful” bread and pizza crust made from locally and sustainably grown whole wheat, she said. And the Willamette Valley grows abundant and flavorful marion berries and strawberries for jam.
She met with the district’s bread vendor “a couple months ago” to see if they could help find someone to make individually packaged pb&js for Portland schools, she said. But no one has stepped up yet.
“If I can get these things made locally, that would be great,” she said.
Grether-Sweeney wishes the Uncrustables made with strawberry jam didn’t contain high-fructose corn syrup. The good news, she said, is that beginning this fall, the grape jelly version of the crust-free sandwich will contain none — in the jelly or the bread.
This year’s solicitation for sandwich bids did request no high-fructose syrup “to push the companies to make things the way we would like them,” she said. But ,she said, companies “are not always able to meet those” requests.
School board member Paul Anthony said he has heard for many months from a teacher who insists the sandwiches lack a nutritious punch for children and taste terrible. Anthony said he requested that the Smucker’s contract be delayed for further consideration – but fellow board member Mike Rosen beat him to it.
Anthony said he’s never tasted an Uncrustable made with whole grain flour and grape jelly or strawberry jam – the choice in Portland school cafeterias. And he acknowledged that the many reports he’s received of children eating a few bites and refusing to finish the sandwiches are purely anecdotal.
He was incredulous to learn that, more than 600,000 time a year, a Portland student considers other menu choices – and opts for an Uncrustable.
But it’s true, Grether-Sweeney said. “Kids do like them.”
[Source:- The OregonLife]
