Yorktown Schools Focus On Local Food Choices, Healthy Options

YORKTOWN, NY — With the arrival of spring, the attention of many students and staff has turned to freshly grown produce, good food and healthy options.

Activities and tastings in the Yorktown Central School District brought students together for discussions and samples at all five schools.

From locally raised beef for meatballs and crunchy kale chips to grapes and honey peach nectar cupcakes, there were plenty of new food combinations to consider, according to a district spokeswoman.

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The idea, said Laura Tolosi, the district’s director of Wellness Programs, “is to encourage our students to think about where their food comes from, how it is produced and what to consider to make good choices.”

Though the projects weren’t planned to coincide, it was clear that wherever one looked in the district recently there was a food-related conversation and some intriguing scents.

Here is the rundown provided by the school district:

In the Yorktown High School cafeteria, the Aramark Team along with Yorktown’s Wellness Director, Mrs. Tolosi, made Italian-style meatballs from naturally raised hormone-free, pastured ground beef. The meatballs are featured monthly in the YHS menu. The NeighborHerd, which works with school districts and their food service providers to replace ground beef with beef from naturally and locally grazed herd, is now an official Aramark vendor for Yorktown School District. Aramark’s management team and the NeighborHerd worked during the past three years to have this partnership come to fruition, and will use the NeighborHerd’s ground beef in the meatball entrees at the high school.

This is the first time the school is offering meatballs utilizing the NeighborHerd’s ground beef at Yorktown, explained Mary Jo Hernandez, General Manager at Aramark.

“We are pleased to have this new menu item for the High School students,” she said.

“It’s really good,” ninth grader Lindsay Boyle said as she tried a sample.

“It does taste better. And it is good know it is local and healthy,” her friend Julia Santini said.

Another healthy choice, the popular vegetable Kale, showed up at Crompond School in a tasting activity coordinated by school nurse Elaine Goodwin, Tolosi and the Parent Teacher Association. Chrissy DePole, chef/parent, prepared kale in a variety of ways, including kale ice cream and kale chips. The tasting was a part of CES Mindful March, where a variety of activities took place to have the students focus on being in the present, and focusing on the now.

And don’t forget Crompond’s flourishing garden which is filled with wonderful vegetables and herbs this springtime.

Both Mohansic and Brookside elementary schools took part in Cornell Cooperative Extensions - New York Agricultural Literacy week. Betsy Stuart, from Stuart's Fruit Farm in Granite Springs, visited Mohansic students, and Mimi Edelman, from I & Me Farm in Bedford, visited Brookside students. Both read The Grapes Grow Sweet by Lynne Tuft, a story about growing grapes and did a short taste-testing activity. The program, New York Ag in the Classroom mission, is intended to foster an awareness, understanding, and appreciation of how we produce food, fiber and natural resources by engaging educators and students with agriculture and food systems. Both schools have been participating many years in this program.

At Mildred E. Strang Middle School the seventh graders in Bernadette Gannon’s Home and Career class held their own Iron Chef Competition. Student groups created a dish around the ingredient honey, with an eye towards making it healthy and tasty. Judges from throughout the district including Superintendent Dr. Ralph Napolitano, Assistant Superintendent Lisa O’Shea and Human Resources Director Sheila McGuinness sampled and then rated the foods. The selections were Honey-Lime Shiracha Chicken Poppers, Ginger Honey Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches and Honey Peach Nectar Blueberry Cupcakes.

“The students learned to think about the ingredients of their recipes and tested ways to make them more healthy like substituting honey or fruit nectar for sugar. They also had to work cooperatively in a group and share tasks,” she said. In addition, the students learned how to work in a kitchen, a skill that will benefit students throughout their life.

Photo caption: From left, YHS Chef Shandi Lopez of Aramark, Laura Tolosi, the district’s director of Wellness Programs and Mary Jo Hernandez, general manager at Aramark. Photo credit: Yorktown Central School District.