At last week’s parent-teacher conferences at McNary Heights Elementary School (MHES), our Nutrition Team flipped the script on their usual monthly Taste Test—this time, the tasters were parents.
Each month during lunch, our nutrition team hosts a Taste Test at MHES. These events give students the chance to try new foods and help decide what might get added to the menu or salad bar. After sampling the item, students vote on whether they liked it, giving valuable feedback on what’s popular. Students look forward to these fun taste tests and love getting a say in what goes on the menu.
At conferences, the team brought that same experience to families. Not only did parents get to sample one of the meals we regularly serve to students, but they also had the chance to compare it to a similar menu item from a popular fast food chain.
The featured item? Orange Chicken and Brown Rice.
The school’s version was compared to Panda Express’s Kids Meal Orange Chicken with Fried Rice. Below is the comparison:
Panda Express Meal | School District Meal |
|---|---|
Calories: 610 | Calories: 394 |
“We try to offer kids menus that they can find outside of school, but that are healthier,” said Nutrition Educator Lourdes Yparranguierre. “We have different cooking techniques to use in order to follow these rules.”
School meals must meet strict nutrition standards, including limits on added sugars, sodium, and fats. The Umatilla School District uses products and recipes that are specifically formulated for schools, meaning they contain higher amounts of essential vitamins and nutrients while also being lower in sodium, calories, sugar, and fats. This ensures meals meet all state and federal requirements and provide the most nutritious options possible for our students.
For this meal, brown rice was steamed instead of fried, and the chicken was breaded with whole wheat flour and baked–making it higher in fiber and lower in fat.
Students were excited to see their parents participating in the event. Many encouraged their parents to try the food, even if they didn’t think they’d like it—repeating the same message they hear from Lourdes during their own taste tests: “Just try it. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like it—we just want you to try it.”
The result? Of the 86 parents who sampled the school’s Orange Chicken and Brown Rice, all 86 said they liked it.
