MIAMI-DADE PUBLIC SCHOOLS PILOTING HEALTHY VENDING MACHINE SELECTIONS


August 28, 2003

Miami-Dade County Public Schools will continue its emphasis on healthy foods during the new school year with its own vending machines offering nutritious alternatives to sodas and candy.

Being piloted in selected middle and senior high schools, vending machines operated by the school district's Department of Food and Nutrition will contain selections such as sugar-free juices, mineral water, and low-fat, baked potato chips instead of the common high saturated-fat variety.

Along with fresh fruit and vegetables, school cafeterias will be offering a wider selection of salad entrees. The latter include grilled chicken and chicken caesar salads, a Cobb salad and a Mexican-flavored "southwestern" salad with black beans and kernels of corn. Sandwiches will include turkey breast and turkey cold cuts with low-fat mayonnaise.

"Combating obesity and decreasing risk factors for chronic diseases begins with making good nutritional choices and doing regular physical activities at school and home," said Penny Parham, administrative director of the Department of Food and Nutrition.

"Learning to make healthful choices is an integral part of education, and offering healthy meals in the cafeteria provides the classroom-cafeteria connection, as the cafeteria serves as the learning laboratory for making these food choices."

To satisfy the tastes of the district's multiethnic students and staff, cafeterias also will serve new dishes such as Caribbean grilled chicken and spicy Jamaican-style "jerk" chicken sandwiches, and Extreme burritos, oversize burritos with a choice of either cheddar cheese and red beans or beans, cheese and ground lean beef.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools runs the largest restaurant operation in the Southeast, serving about 60,000 breakfasts and 200,000 lunches daily. The Physicans' Committee for Responsible Medicine recently ranked it second among school districts in the nation in terms of healthy foods.

Cafeteria lunch prices will be the same as last year's: $1.25 in elementary schools and $1.50 in middle and senior high schools. For more information, contact Carol Chong at 786-275-0446 or via e-mail at cchong@sbab.dade.k12.fl.us.

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Assignment Editors: The school district's healthy-choice vending machines are in American and Krop senior high schools in the northern part of the county; Hialeah Senior, Hialeah Middle and Goleman senior high schools in the west-central area; Nautilus Middle School on Miami Beach; and Hammocks Middle and Braddock Senior High School in the south.

03-MV/025/BD

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