Charter school breakfast and lunch menus

[Anonymous]

Do any of the charter schools offer consistently healthy, nutritious, whole food based meal options that are not overly processed and don't have too much sugar, but are quality and still taste good? Many of the lunch menu options don't sound that healthy or appetizing and the breakfast options seem to have a lot of sugary foods without much nutrition. I realize most of the schools probably have larger concerns and this might be a relatively low priority, but it's still important and I'm curious if any school does it well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do any of the charter schools offer consistently healthy, nutritious, whole food based meal options that are not overly processed and don't have too much sugar, but are quality and still taste good? Many of the lunch menu options don't sound that healthy or appetizing and the breakfast options seem to have a lot of sugary foods without much nutrition. I realize most of the schools probably have larger concerns and this might be a relatively low priority, but it's still important and I'm curious if any school does it well.

The schools which seem to do this well have in house kitchens. It's a big undertaking and can involve $500k+ in construction costs and equipment, so for many schools it is something they have decided not to do, that they can't afford it.

Most of the school meal vendors seem to be unable to meet all of these requirements at a reasonable cost. Schools receive nothing close to adequate funds to cover higher quality ingredients and food prep.

[Anonymous]

Stokes is the only one I can think of - and yes in house kitchen. They provide food for other schools (cmi? ssma?) so those schools have a good option too.

At least in DCPS is bad but only 2.00. In charters its bad but costs 5.00. And breakfast and snack is even worse than lunch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stokes is the only one I can think of - and yes in house kitchen. They provide food for other schools (cmi? ssma?) so those schools have a good option too.

At least in DCPS is bad but only 2.00. In charters its bad but costs 5.00. And breakfast and snack is even worse than lunch.

Wonder how the food quality is from the Stokes deliveries- have heard solid things about the Stokes food itself, but know nothing about those who get their food from Stokes. I do wonder in general how food suffers from the time and effects of delivery (cooling, reheating, etc), and that must be part of the reason why the bigger vendors struggle with combining tasty, healthy, and cost effective. Adding in time and delivery has to induce compromises, no?

[Anonymous]

How is the food at Mundo Verde and DC Bilingual? Don't they also have their own kitchens? For those who've seen or tried food from more than one of these schools, is the quality comparable to Stokes?

[Anonymous]

Even the bad food at our charter was better than the you-cannot-be-serious-with-this awful at our public. Better quality healthy food still gets beat up and dismissed as being a frivolous UMC concern.

[Anonymous]

MV food is great. We are leaving for other reasons but I’ll miss not having to pack school lunch!!!

[Anonymous]

Stokes no longer does food deliveries as far as I understand. We tried to get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How is the food at Mundo Verde and DC Bilingual? Don't they also have their own kitchens? For those who've seen or tried food from more than one of these schools, is the quality comparable to Stokes?

Mundo Verde and Stokes both have great kitchens and delicious, healthy, often local food. Don't know about the new MV campus and have not tried DCB. The good ones are more expensive than DCPS unless you qualify for a reduced price, but a million times better, so for my family it's worth it.

[Anonymous]

Former CMI Family here. My kids still talk about how delicious the food was at CMI. Now at DCPS and they hate the food.

[Anonymous]

I know ITS is basement is in the process renovation plans. I remember staff offices gym space and other options mentioned. I don't recall if a in house kitchen was one of the options on the table but maybe it should be. This would give them more options for school meals and events. I could see them using it as a resource for creating leanring opportunities especially during inter sessions.

[Anonymous]

DC Bilingual has good, in house-prepared food.

[Anonymous]

This thread is giving me a flashback to the Stokes milk controversy of a few years back (check the archives).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is the food at Mundo Verde and DC Bilingual? Don't they also have their own kitchens? For those who've seen or tried food from more than one of these schools, is the quality comparable to Stokes?

Mundo Verde and Stokes both have great kitchens and delicious, healthy, often local food. Don't know about the new MV campus and have not tried DCB. The good ones are more expensive than DCPS unless you qualify for a reduced price, but a million times better, so for my family it's worth it.

DCB built a kitchen when the school was renovated last summer and now all meals are in-house. We weren't there last year to know how the new options compare to the old options but I have been very impressed. (Our last charter used revolution foods which was truly repulsive and such a sad waste since so much ended up in the trash.)

Snacks at DCB are fruits and vegetables only -- so preschoolers might get strawberries and carrots with hummus or bananas and oranges on any given day. Breakfasts have a lot of yogurt and fresh fruit with granola or a muffin. Lunches tend to have a lot of beans and but there is some meat. The menu is online. Kids also get to taste things from the garden often and as they leave school there might be a kale chip to go etc.