Wheres the beef? At your local school, thats where.
Area students will be able to eat locally raised beef as part of this years Colorado Proud School Meal Day.
Kim Lindgren, community food coordinator for Livewell Montezuma, helped coordinate this years event.
She notes that this is the first year that beef from Montezuma County ranches is available for local students. This is the third year local schools will be participating.
Local rancher Al Heaton has been rounding up other ranchers for inclusion in this years event, Lindgren said.
She complimented food service directors from Cortez, Dolores and Mancos school districts for taking time in the summer to tour five area farms and Sunnyside, a beef processing plant in Durango.
Its kind of hard and scary to produce these things when you dont know who the growers are, what they produce and when it comes in (season), she said. Their willingness (to find out more) has been amazing.
Cortez and Mancos schools will celebrate the day tomorrow, Wednesday, Sept. 12, while Dolores schools will participate today.
Cortez students will eat tacos with the beef, lettuce and tomatoes, all locally grown. Cantaloupe from McElmo Canyon will also be part of the fare, courtesy of Tom and Leta Hughes.
Students at Manaugh, Kemper and Mesa elementaries will be able to sample local watermelon as well.
The menu at Mancos will be hamburger and potatoes. There will also be tasting tables set aside for students to sample Kale chips and Kohlrabi (vegetable) dip.
Dolores students will get to eat taco salad.
Sandi Vanhoutean, food service director at the Montezuma-Cortez School District Re-1, said the school district recently joined with Durango, Bayfield, Ignacio and Mancos school districts on a one-year contract with local food producers. The contract lasts until the growing season is over. This is separate from Colorado Proud Day. The contract will result in Cortez students eating mixed lettuce and sunflower sprouts from Four Seasons Nursery, for example.
Vanhoutean visited every farm she contracted with and the farms had to submit a food safety plan in order to be awarded a contract, Lindgren said via email. Food safety plans have to do with safe harvest and post-harvest handling including worker and farm sanitation. Food safety plans also describe water sources and testing as well as other farm practices such as the safe application of animal manures.
Participating in Colorado Proud Day and other local-food days requires more hands-on food preparation in the cafeterias and more sourcing and legwork for the food service directors, Lindgren said. Believe me, it would be much easier for them to have nothing to do with local food. They should be given a lot of credit for their efforts to serve more fresh and local foods. Food service employees in the schools have a very important job that comes with a lot of limitations and constraints. Their willingness to move into the local food market says that they want to serve the kids the most nutritious food that can be had. Folks should remember to give these important school workers credit for going the extra mile!
Colorado Proud School Meal Day is a joint effort of the Colorado Department of Agriculture and Department of Education. The day is meant to celebrate Colorado agriculture and to educate children about healthy eating.
Following Colorado Proud Day, students will get to eat more locally produced food on six subsequent Tasty Tuesdays.
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