Including more fresh, whole foods in your program can influence nutritional value, budget, waste production and provide valuable learning opportunities for students. Even small changes can make a big difference!
Here are a few ideas to get you started…
Thinking about ways to be more cost effective? Try this…
- Talk to your CDC about using the Fresh Food Spreadsheet to calculate more cost-effective options.
- Recruit more volunteers to help with food preparation.
- Use grocery vouchers provided by your Community Development Coordinator.
- Organize a fundraiser such as a Dance-A-Thon, Fresh From Farm, apple grams, bagging grocery groceries etc.
- Use an app like Flipp to help find items on sale.
- Find ways to cut down on waste (ex. use up leftovers on Fridays, freeze overripe fruit to use in baking muffins).
Thinking about bumping up nutritional value? Try this…
- Use whole apples instead of applesauce.
- Serve trail mix rather than cereal bars.
- Choose blocks of cheese instead of cheese strings.
- Bake muffins from scratch rather than using a muffin mix.
Thinking about trying to include more Eco-Friendly options? Try this…
- Use whole fruits instead of pre-packaged slices.
- Use whole boxes of crackers with tongs, rather than making individual baggies.
- Cut and serve cheese in containers, rather than using cheese strings.
- Use a cereal dispensing container so students can pour portions into a bowl.
- Purchase large containers of yogurt rather than serving yogurt cups or tubes.
- Ask students to bring a spoon from home rather than supplying plastic spoons.
- Buy more food in bulk.
- Ask about composting strategies at your school.
Do you have other ideas? Share them with us so we can pass them along!