Greenville County Schools Healthy Lunch Program Honored with Golden Carrot Award
Greenville County Schools’ Food and Nutrition Services (FANS) has earned the prestigious Golden Carrot Award from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine for its efforts to provide healthier school lunches at A.J. Whittenberg, Augusta Circle, Greenbrier, Grove, Heritage, Oakview, Sterling, Stone, Summit Drive, Taylors, and Welcome elementary schools.
The award, which includes a $1,000 prize for Food and Nutrition Services, will be presented to FANS coordinator Jennifer Sharp and Chef Ron Jones from A. J. Whittenberg Elementary School.
The new culinary menu at these targeted schools includes more fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. To learn more about preparing meals from scratch, the Food and Nutrition Services staff completed a 40-hour training course over the summer that was offered by the Culinary Institute of the Carolinas. Half of the day was spent in classroom instruction on topics such as food safety, line setup, and nutrition. The other half of the day was spent in the kitchen learning to prepare soups, black bean burgers, and other menu items from scratch with lower fat, sodium, and calories. One well-received lesson was on proper knife-handling skills where they learned paring, dicing and other uses for chef knives.
The Food and Nutrition Services department will evaluate the program this year and consider expanding it to more schools next year.