La Conner School District Food Services
Mission Statement
The mission of La Conner School District Food Service is to serve a nutritious, delicious breakfast and lunch each day in a warm and friendly atmosphere for all students and staff, while at the same time providing nutritional education for lifelong healthful living.
Welcome to La Conner Schools Food Service! We'd like to give you a few details about our program and how it serves our students, parents and community. First, know that our school board and superintendent place a high priority on serving our students the most nutritious meals possible, with really adequate portions for growing brains and bodies. We follow Washington State and USDA regulations for our Child Nutrition Program and in many instances go beyond their minimum standards.
Over the last four years we have improved our meals by changing some of the ingredients we use and some of our practices. You might be interested to know that we make all of our salad dressings from scratch so we can control the amount of salt, amount and types of sugar, amount and type of oil. We do not use any processed cheese foods such as American cheese or Cheez Whiz. We use only naturally made real cheeses like cheddar, mozzarella, ricotta. We rarely serve what we affectionately call County Fair Foods, like corn dogs and chicken nuggets. We save these for play days and half-days. We use organic greens every day in the salad bar and use other organic produce when we can find it. Our weekly menu plan always includes a minimum of three fresh raw fruits and two fresh raw vegetables, not including what you might find on the salad bar. We keep canned fruits and vegetables servings to a minimum. We use only olive and canola oils, and unsalted butter in our recipes (no hydrogenated oils) and keep the percentages of fats in our recipes below the maximum allowed. We also make every attempt to serve the correct amount of calories to each student, considering their age and level of physical activity. These few changes reflect what we as a community currently understand about optimum good health.During fall and late spring months we are fortunate to be able to purchase carrots, beans, beets, corn, potatoes, squash, apples and berries from local growers. You can't get any fresher than that.
Our Food Services works closely with our high school Culinary Arts class, giving students a real life look at how a professional kitchen operates.
We have created some lessons and activities for fourth grade students that spark more critical thinking about their food choices. Occasionally they make up a meal plan for one of our school-wide lunches. Look for those famous banana splits!
From time to time the La Conner School District invites the community to lunch in the cafeteria along with high school students. Look for information regarding this in our local newspaper. We love mixing it up with our neighbors!
A vegetable, flower and herb garden was planted at the middle school in the spring of 2007 with the help of the La Conner Alliance for Youth and Families and a rural health community grant received from the Washington Health Foundation. We harvest culinary herbs and some veggies in the fall for cooking and the salad bar.
This is the first year (2011) we have purchased our own Black Angus Beef from Skagit Angus Farms up near Lyman. The farm lies along the Skagit River and is an idyllic place for raising beef in open pasture. We have the beef processed at a well respected packing company up in Lynden. The students are enjoying Lasagna, hamburgers, Spaghetti, stew and stir fry from the beef. Some notice the nice flavor and reduced fat. We feel great about knowing where the beef comes from, how it is handled. We can put a face to the owner......and the cow.
Please check out the next page which details the monthly menu and come back to this page from time to time as we update you on our latest projects and successes.
Warmly,
Your Food Services Staff
You can reach us at gjohnson@lcsd.wednet.edu
