Articles in this issue:
A Note from Sandra
Thanksgiving
The year has turned its circle.
The seasons come and go.
The harvest all is gathered in
And chilly north winds blow.
Orchards shared their treasures,
The fields, their yellow grain,
So open wide the doorway ---
Thanksgiving comes again! -
Old Rhyme
Thanks to all who work to provide food and nutrition to the citizens of our state served by the USDA programs.
As of this writing, there has been no further progress with reauthorization of the child nutrition programs.
What will you do in November to help our children “Eat Smart/Play Hard”? There are many great activities on the USDA pages at
www.fns.usda.gov/tn/. Look on the left hand side for “Eat Smart. Play Hard” or else “My Pyramid for Kids”. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. Another site with great ideas is
www.letsmove.gov/.
Are you working toward getting menus and activities in line so you can apply for the HealthierUS School Challenge? You can read more on that at
www.fns.usda.gov/tn/. The CANS office also has a couple sets of the DVDs from the NFSMI presentation at the August SNASD Conference in Huron. Please contact Jean or Mary if you have questions.
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CRE Program Reviews
Schools and agencies that are on the 2010-2011 program review schedule were notified in the Combined Application memo dated June 30th. The Department of Public Safety inspectors have received their assigned program review packets for this year’s review cycle. CRE program reviews will begin happening in the month of November with a goal of all CRE reviews being completed by the end of March 2011. The inspector assigned to your school or agency will contact you approximately 2 weeks prior to their arrival to set up a review date and establish which month’s records will be reviewed on site. If your agency participates in school lunch, school breakfast, special milk, snack after school and/or the fresh fruit and vegetable program, all programs will be reviewed at the time of the CRE on-site review.
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November 10th is the deadline to submit the annual October Data Survey Report to CANS. Remember information MUST be broken out by elementary grades, middle school grades, and high school grades and should match the attendance centers you listed in Part 1, (F), Site Summary of your annual agreement. All schools and agencies must submit this annual report, no one is exempt from completing the October Data Survey.
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November 15th is the designated deadline to complete the annual verification process. Verification Packets were not mailed out. Refer to numbered memo NSLP 51.3 for specific instructions and the Summary Report form 742SD. The annual summary report is due in the CANS office by December 15th or sooner. Schools which had a 20% or greater error response rate have been notified. If you have a question regarding which method of verification you should use please contact Marlyce Micklos.
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The NCCIC Library collection contains over 20,000 summaries and availability information for published documents of interest to policymakers, administrators, practitioners, researchers and other members of the child care community. Links to full-text publications about child care and school-age issues are provided when available. If you go to their library search page you can search their library resources whenever you would like.
Click here to go to the NCCIC Library.
Mealtime Memo for Child Care
The 2010-09 issue of Mealtime Memo for Child Care, the monthly newsletter that includes menus, recipes, and activities related to child care, is now online. In this issue of Mealtime Memo you will you will learn ways to ensure quality of food served, tips to prevent nutrient loss, and proper storage of food to ensure quality. Recipe for Pasta Toss (D-14) is featured along with a week's worth of breakfast, lunch, and snack menus.
Fall Foods
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USDA and Let’s Move! holds School Lunch Recipe Contest
As a part of the First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Initiative, the USDA Recipes for Healthy Kids Challenge offers a chance for a school to form a team including chefs, students, food service professionals, registered dieticians, parents to create and suggest tasty, nutritious and kid-approved school meals.
“The Recipes for Healthy Kids Challenge is an important contribution to our overall efforts to combat childhood obesity,” the First Lady said in a USDA press release. “It’s vital that we provide our children with healthy and nutritious food in school and help them learn healthy eating habits that will last a lifetime.”
Recipes for Healthy Kids Challenge teams will have the opportunity to submit original recipes that meet nutritional requirements in three categories; whole grain foods, dark green and/or orange vegetables, and dry beans and peas. Recipes will be tasted by at least 30 students who participate in the School Lunch Program.
A national grand prize of $3,000. will be awarded, along with prizes of $1,000 to $1,500 for the top two recipes in each category. Winners are invited to prepare their winning meals alongside White House chefs. The top ten recipes in each category will be published in a Recipes for Healthy Kids Cookbook.
The deadline to submit recipes is Dec. 30, 2010. For more information visit the Recipes for Healthy Kids Challenge website.
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Team Nutrition Mini Grants
Two new mini grants will be posted on the CANS home page under Team Nutrition in November. The mini grants are “Family Nutrition Adventure” and “Move and Crunch in Nutrition Month.”
Team Nutrition is offering up to a $500 mini grant for schools to host a Family Nutrition Adventure Event. Schools, child cares, out of school time programs that participate in a food nutrition program and are a Team Nutrition school are eligible to apply. The funds may be used to host an event for families that promotes healthy eating habit and physical activity. A Tool Kit is posted on line that gives information on setting up interactive stations that pair with core content standards for Language Arts, Science, and Math. The application and a Tool Kit designed to help plan your event is on
DOE/CANS/ Team Nutrition website.
To encourage nutrition awareness activities in March, Team Nutrition will sponsor a mini grant for up to $1,000 called “Move and Crunch in Nutrition Month” Challenge. Help combat Childhood obesity in your school by challenging students to develop healthy lifestyles. Principals, child care directors, out of school time program directors issue your challenge to students to eat more fruits and vegetables and increase physical activity. Let your imagination run wild in planning how to encourage healthy lifestyles for your students. The grants will be awarded in January 2011. You will be able to use funds until April 2011. Applicants will find materials online (“Move and Crunch in Nutrition Month”) that may be used in planning and writing your grant. Applications are on the new
DOE website under Child and Adult Nutrition Services, Team Nutrition.
Contact
Mary Kirk, Child & Adult Nutrition Services, for further information at 773-4718.
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Special Diet form
A revised special diet form will be posted on the CANS website in November. A committee from the Sioux Falls area worked this summer to make it useful to food service personnel and got input from a doctor on this to find out what would be most helpful from their standpoint. It is not mandatory that you use this form exactly, but you must have the information on your form that is on this form.
If the doctor states that this threatens a major life activity, what the activity is, and what the substitutions shall be, then the school is required to provide the alternative meal unless there are extraordinary costs. If it gets to this point, please contact the CANS office.
Watch for a Live meeting in the future on Special Diets.
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Standardized recipes play a key role in ensuring compliance with the regulations of the School Meals Initiative for Healthy Children (SMI). Regardless of the menu planning option chosen by the school district, standardized recipes must be developed and used for all menu items. A standardized recipe must be developed for any menu item with more than one ingredient.
Benefits of Standardized Recipes
A standardized recipe is one that has been tested and adapted for use by a given food service operation and found to produce the same good results and yield every time when the exact procedures are used with the same type of equipment and the same quantity and quality of ingredients. Standardized recipes:
• Provide clear direction of what to do, when and how
• Help staff save time and work by enabling anyone to take the recipe and prepare the food with little supervision
• Ensure a uniform, consistent food product and a specific number of servings every time
• Ensure the nutrient analysis of a recipe is accurate
• Satisfy customers by providing consistent quality of the food item every time
• Make menu planning more consistent, yield is predictable, costs and inventory are easier to control
• Create confident foodservice staff who can produce good results each time with less supervision
• Ensure successful completion of state/federal reviews for meeting the USDA nutrient standards
Menu Items Requiring a Standardized Recipe
All food items with more than one ingredient must have a standardized recipe on file. Even simple items such as a tossed salad or grilled cheese sandwich must have a recipe and include yield and serving size.
Components of a Standardized Recipe
The new USDA Recipes for Schools (April 2006) provide good examples of the appropriate format for a standardized recipe. When working to standardize the recipes in your school district, these recipes should be used as a guide. Any modifications to the USDA recipes need to be specifically indicated to document how the recipe is made at your school. A standardized recipe should contain the following information:
Name of recipe: The name must clearly identify the recipe being used. If there are several recipes with similar names, consider using a numbering system.
Recipe category: Recipe classification based on USDA categories such as main dish, grains/breads, fruit/vegetables, etc.
Ingredient list: Ingredients are the foods used to prepare a recipe. Ingredient lists should include the form (i.e. fresh, frozen, canned, peeled, sliced, chopped, etc), packaging medium (i.e. canned in juice or light syrup, frozen with added sugar or plain), and fat content (i.e. 20% fat ground beef, 10% fat ground turkey). Standardized recipes list ingredients in the order they are to be weighed or measured.
Weight and measure: Ingredients in a standardized recipe are listed in both weight (pounds and ounces) and measure (i.e. tablespoons, cups, gallons). For dry ingredients (such as flour, peanut butter & shortening), weighing is always more accurate than measuring. Measure (volume) is used for liquid ingredients and small amounts of ingredients, such as 2 tablespoons.
Preparation and serving directions: The recipe should include clear concise step-by-step directions for combining and cooking the ingredients. Each step in the recipe is directly across from the ingredients to which it applies. Directions should include information on all equipment required to prepare, cook and serve the food, i.e. size of pan and type of portioning tools. Information on cooking times and temperatures should also be specified.
Yield: “Yield” is the amount of product at the completion of production that is available for service. For example, 400 1 cup servings.
Portion size information: The recipe needs to specify how big each serving will be. For example, 1/2 cup, 1 piece of a 5x10 cut cake, 2 ounces, etc.
Meal component contributions for food based menu planning: Identify the component (meat/meat alternate, fruit/vegetable, and/or grains/bread) the recipe contributes. To determine component contributions refer to recipe analysis worksheet in the SD numbered memo NSLP 80.
Where to Begin
Standardizing recipes can be a big job, especially if many recipes currently used are not in a standardized format. You may want to use the SD state prototype form from the SD numbered memo NSLP 80. Keep in mind that a new standardized recipe must also be developed for any recipe in which ingredients or preparation steps have been modified. To simplify the process as much as possible consider following these steps:
1. Consider using an existing resource of standardized recipes, such as the USDA Recipes for Schools before standardizing all school recipes from scratch. There may be recipes with similar ingredients and results that are already standardized.
2. Determine how many recipes are not standardized. Review each recipe for acceptability and frequency of use, and discard those that are no longer needed.
3. Try to consolidate similar recipes with slight variations. For example, if each of a district’s three schools has its own recipe for spaghetti & meat sauce, three recipes need to be standardized. To decrease the amount of work, try to agree on one or two basic recipes. Keep in mind that recipes can be flexible as far as spices and seasonings are concerned, as they will not significantly impact the nutrient content with the exception of salt or seasonings that contain sodium, such as garlic salt.
4. Start by choosing the recipes that are used most frequently and in the most schools. This allows for greater impact as each recipe is completed.
5. Make a goal of completing a certain number of standardized recipes each week or month, instead of trying to do them all at once so it isn’t so overwhelming.
6. If possible, divide up the work by assigning a certain number of recipes to each kitchen manager or kitchen.
For more specific details on the process for standardizing recipes, refer to some recent USDA resources Measuring Success with Standardized Recipes, the Menu Planner for Healthy School Meals, and USDA Recipes for Schools. SD numbered memo NSLP 80 Standardizing Recipes and Calculating Component Contributions has detailed information and state prototoype forms for recording your recipes as well as the recipe analysis worksheet for determining component contributions in the recipe.
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Four new memos have been posted to the USDA policy website. As noted previously, these are not listed again on the CANS website; rather you are referred to the USDA page. Go to
www.fns.usda.gov/fns/regulations.htm. Choose the program that you are interested in under policies. One memo is posted to two programs.
SP 04-2011 and CACFP 01-2011 Eligibility of Expanded Learning Time Programs for Afterschool Snack Service in NSLP and CACFP.
This memo clarifies requirements for afterschool programs for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). In particular, it addresses expanded day learning programs as eligible for afterschool snack service.
SP 03-2011 is for state agency use regarding an annual report.
SP 02-2011 Salad Bars in the National School Lunch Program - This memorandum is to provide information on how salad bars can effectively be used in the service of reimbursable meals. It includes information on portion size, point of service, nutrient analysis, and food safety for school meals.
SP 01-2011: Reaffirming the Requirement that School Food Authorities Comply with Federal Regulations Affecting Rebates, Discounts, and Other Applicable Credits in All Cost Reimbursable Contracts - This memorandum is a reminder of the importance of ensuring compliance with the procurement requirements established in regulations affecting the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, and Special Milk Program which became effective on November 30, 2007
FD-110 (applies to NSLP, CACFP and SFSP) Further Clarification in Crediting for, and Use of, Donated Foods in Contracts with Food Service Management Companies. This policy memorandum clarifies requirements in crediting for, and use of, USDA donated foods in contracts with food service management companies (FSMCs), and to provide guidance to ensure compliance with such requirements in the first and final years of such contracts. Although the policy applies to recipient agencies in the three programs, this memorandum focuses on NSLP, as the vast majority of donated foods is provided in that program.
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