Food Fight

To hear the kids at Sarasota High tell the story, the old cookies were built to epic proportions. The gigantic discs crackled with crystallized sugar, chocolate oozing from chips the size of Hershey's Kisses, staining hand and mouth with the marks of the truly satisfied. These were the kind of cookies that could sustain a young mind through the rigors of afternoon classes. One would fill up a dainty freshman; two made a meal for your average baseball player.

This year, the cookies are scrawny, pale things that seem to barely justify the name. Once fit for giants, the "new and improved" versions have morphed from meal-sized Frisbees into one-bite wonders with more tease than taste. They reek of health and restraint. In the Sarasota High School cafeteria, the new cookies are unpopular.

Telling the students it's for their own good doesn't usually help. But in this country, where adult obesity has grown from 15 to over 30 percent in the past 25 years and more than 25 million kids are overweight, the gloves are off. Schools across America are focused on more than just filling up plastic trays -- they want to fill young bodies and minds with at least one healthy dose of nutrition every school day. In Sarasota, school cafeterias are adopting guerilla tactics to promote healthy food. The question is: Will kids eat it up?

This is all new to me. In the '80s, I attended the old-timey Florida fish-camp known as Pine View School, before Sarasota built the fancy new campus down south. Back in high school, if we wanted a school lunch, we folded our lanky teenage frames into the tiny cafeteria benches at neighboring Alta Vista Elementary. Even the fifth graders mocked us.

To avoid the embarrassment, we Pythons regularly headed off campus for Subway meatball subs and the neighboring all-you-can-eat pizza buffet. My last week of school, my friends and I set a record by eating 93 pieces of pizza in one sitting. Tasty, sure. Healthy? I'm still working off the calories from that fateful day. I'm fairly certain that's the kind of thing the USDA and the Sarasota County School Board is hoping to change.

In 2004, the USDA set new standards for schools nationwide, calling for wide-ranging changes to nutrition and policy. Now, school meals have to pack exactly one-third of the full range of recommended daily allowances onto each tray, all while keeping the trouble areas -- fat, sodium and sugar -- down.

It can be a tough job to create healthy combinations for the more than 35,000 meals that Sarasota schools dish out every school day. It's even tougher to get the kids to eat them.

"We see the biggest improvement at the youngest ages," says Beverly Girard, a registered dietician and the district's director of food and nutrition services. "They're more impressionable." Indoctrination of our youngest kids? I journeyed into my former haunt, Alta Vista Elementary's lunchroom, to see what's really going on.

Watching a stream of tiny tots pass through the cafeteria lines, it's clear that these kids are buying in to the new regime. Maybe it's because they don't know any better.

I sit down at a table of kindergarteners and ask: Did you know that the chocolate milk you're drinking is only .5 percent fat? "I like the chocolate," replies one eager 5-year-old, while another explains how he's not allowed to have chocolate at home. PB&Js -- the most popular elementary lunch item by far -- are inhaled by these kids with practiced ease, but even the stark wedges of tomato salad get a few nibbles. Obviously, the USDA has already gotten to these poor saps. I need to speak to some seasoned upperclassmen. They'll be able to tell me the real lunchroom gossip.

"I like the healthy food," explains a chirpy fifth grader, though she seems more interested in collecting it: Her plate is still littered with the healthiest of today's options (apples and salad), while the fun food (a sandwich and cookies) has already been consumed. When I ask the table why they like the healthy stuff, one breaks out with "because it helps us grow up strong!" Heads up and down the table start to nod in unison. Eerie.

at Sarasota High's West Cafeteria, home of the wimpy cookie, it's a different story. These kids know the score, they're old hands at the lunch game and won't fall for just any old tricks. "If I was to tell them, 'Look -- eat this, it's good for you,' I'd never sell one," explains Tracy Brizendine, manager of Sarasota High's cafeteria and a guerilla fighter in the battle for our children's nutrition. She's got a secret plan.

The lunch lines are self-segregating, split in two directions. Turn right and you're eating old school: corn dogs and tater tots and Beefaroni. Turn left and you're confronted with the district's latest nutritional ploy: Make your own salads and subs. These lunch ladies have adopted the techniques of their enemies.

"From Sarasota High to North Port High, they are all teenagers, they're all eating at Subway," points out Brizendine. "I hate to say we're stealing anything, but if you can make it work, well ..." The district plans to expand the healthier Subway-style sandwich bar to all high schools by January.

Looking at the lines, the plan seems to be working. A steady stream of shambling teenagers flows through both aisles, seemingly in equal measure. Considering that last year all of these kids would be headed for tacos or pizza, it's an impressive sight. Now, they can snag for some fresh produce or soups made on site.

Still, a lot of students opt out of both lines. Tucked into two corners of the room are the à la carte counters, where the vast majority of today's diners seem to be grabbing their lunch.

This is where you find the pizza; the school currently orders from Dino's, though that's set to change Oct. 1. Individually wrapped burgers are stacked high under heat lamps, giving off an appealing fast food aesthetic next to bagels and cream cheese, hypnotically swirling fruit smoothies and doughy pretzels covered in salt. I can see why this is the popular food.

Even here, though, the district is making a serious push to change kids' habits, mostly by appealing to the frugality of the students. Plastic trays next to the glowing lamps are stacked with pre-packed mini-salads and dressing packets, fruit cups and chocolate milk. A piece of pizza costs $1.75. For 50 cents more, kids can upgrade to the meal deal and add fruit and a salad or juice and soup, plus milk. It's a bargain.

Cruising the tables, it appears that the deal's thrifty nature escapes many of the kids. Maybe it would sell better if the district called it "Supersize."

One group of hunching sophomore boys is surrounded by à la carte items. Two bagels and a pretzel for lunch? "Yeah. And a smoothie," replies a carb-loading teen. These guys rarely venture to the meal lines except, apparently, for nachos.

Is it real cheese, I ask? "No, cheese sauce." That's sad. "Yeah, but it's gooood." I understand, brother.

Many of the kids I talk to are happy with the increase in choices, in their own inimitable teenage way. When I ask a group of junior boys and girls about the subs and salads, one replies simply: "They're gross, but it's still better than last year."

A few rail at the idea that healthy choices are important -- "America's fat, but there're also a lot of anorexics," says one outraged freshman girl -- but most are happy to have the option, even if they're not gorging on salad. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the kids are relatively uninterested in the whole thing. "It's just a school lunch," a junior tells me. "What do you expect?"

But one especially perceptive senior sees past the back-and-forth of complaint and acceptance to the district's real goal: "If it wasn't for this, most kids wouldn't know how to eat properly."

"We can provide healthy food," says Girard, "but what do you do with children who haven't necessarily been taught to eat right in the home?" Even if older kids don't immediately change their habits, she's convinced that the district's new programs will have younger students fully invested by the time they hit high school. She's in it for the long haul.

To get there, the district employs five registered dietitians, one of whom is dedicated solely to nutrition education in the schools. For the past year, that spot has been filled by Karla Pignotti, a recent graduate of Florida State. She was part of Sarasota County's innovative dietitian internship program, one of only two in the country that focuses on training school nutritional educators. When she completed the course, Pignotti elected to stay.

For the younger kids, she's instituted a color-coded food labeling system based on a traffic light. Apples get a green; pizza a red. The district uses the same labeling online, where the lunch menus are posted along with detailed nutritional information for every single thing the district serves. "It's mostly a tool for the parents," Pignotti admits. Next year, all student purchases will be available for mom and dad to review online.

The upperclassmen may complain about that, just as they complain about the changes the district has already undertaken. But the next crop of high schoolers won't know the difference. By the time those Alta Vista kids start working through Sarasota High's cafeteria lines, they'll be choosing those side salads and fruit cups out of habit. The pizza slices will be just the right size, with reduced-fat cheese that tastes just like it did when they were kids. Chicken nuggets? Of course they go better with brown rice than French fries! "It's all about retraining them," explains Brizendine.

Of course, they'll still be teenagers. I suspect the cookies will always be a problem.