Did you know oranges are good for your eyesight? The fifth and sixth graders at Advantage Arts Academy learned this and other facts as they prepared to sell local fruits and vegetables at their own farmer’s market, held May 11 in partnership with A & Z Produce and Lunch Pro.

Students prepared for the farmers market by researching a specific food, learning about its season, growing climate, role in the ecosystem and health benefits. Cindy Jahnsen, arts integration specialist at AAA, said the event gave students experience with food safety rules, customer service skills and math skills in weighing produce and calculating prices.

Rosie, a sixth-grader, became a fan of oranges after learning interesting facts about them and finding recipes that use them. “I learned about the produce I’m selling, and the more I learn, the more I want to eat them,” she said. 

That was Dave Hirst’s goal when he organized the school farmer’s market.

“I really wanted to do something different and hands-on learning for the kids,” Hirst said. “I wanted kids to learn that food doesn't always come from a grocery store, and that food is fun and fresh and it’s colorful.”

Hirst is the director of operations and compliance at Lunch Pro, the food service management company that provides school lunches to Advantage Arts Academy and other local charter schools. They create meals that appeal to kids and that meet the USDA guidelines.

“We want kids to eat, and we want them to enjoy what they’re eating,” Hirst said.

He and his team are anticipating the changes coming to the USDA school lunch guidelines starting for the 2024-25 school year by experimenting with recipes with reduced sodium and sugar. At the Advantage Arts Academy farmer’s market, Hirst offered students samples of a new recipe his team had developed.

Hirst said school lunch guidelines change often and some, such as the extreme limitations and caloric restrictions of the federal government’s Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, have contributed to the negative reputation of school lunch food.

“The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act decimated school lunch,” Hirst said. “That really took the school lunch workers by surprise because manufacturers weren’t ready for that. To avoid that happening again, we’re starting now in our test kitchens. We're investing a lot of money and time finding foods that we can make so that our kids don't have to go through those same struggles.”

Utah State Office of Education Farm-to-School Coordinator Kate Wheeler said exposure and education are effective ways to combat negative views of school lunches.

“People still think of school lunches as a scoop of slop on a plate and that’s not always true,” she said. Her department encourages and supports school lunch coordinators to implement engaging activities, like a school farmer’s market, that educate children and community members about local agriculture and healthy eating.

“School lunch programs, in general, do a lot of really neat stuff like this, and just nobody knows about it,” Wheeler said.

Fun food education activities are held at many free lunch distribution locations during the summer months. During the last week of June, some locations participated in Squash Summer Hunger by incorporating some of Utah’s 20 varieties of summer squash into their summer lunch offerings. There was a contest to see which participating location could get the most people to try a squash dish, as well as a social media engagement contest.λ