There's a quiet revolution going on in the school cafeteria. Green, leafy things are making an appearance in students' lunches, along with more whole fruit and grains. In many school kitchens, the deep fryer is gone. Out in the hallways, candy and soft drinks are vanishing from the vending machines.

In place of the fatty, sugary foods are savory ones: breakfast burritos with egg, low-fat cheese and turkey sausage; sweet potato cinnamon rolls with extra vitamins; and "homemade yogurt with so much fruit in it," describes Gina Navaroli, lead food service worker at Santa Cruz (Calif.) High School.

A growing number of school kitchens are offering better quality food and beverages.
"We're sure trying," says Jennifer Donahoo-Parsons, a food service worker at Harbor High School in Santa Cruz and, like Navaroli, a member of the AFT-affiliated Santa Cruz Council of Classified Employees. Their district is well ahead of schedule in complying with new state standards on school meals, which include offering fresh fruits and veggies every day, doing nutrition analysis and controlling portions.

One thing workers find is that if they cut up an apple or orange, students will eat it, not just take one bite and throw it away. Santa Cruz schools introduced avocados last year, Donahoo-Parsons says, adding to the ranks of cucumbers, kiwi fruit, jicama and broccoli. "Shaker salads" come in a big cup with a lid-kids simply shake them up with dressing. Entrée salads with chicken and cheese "make a nice presentation," she adds. "Students like it. They like that change."

Most revolutionary of all: Vending machines in Santa Cruz are being converted to dispense fresh fruits, salads, yogurt and other healthy snacks. If these new fast foods do the trick, Donahoo-Parsons says, "they'll be our left and right arms" in the war against junk food.

Challenges remain. Even with the trend toward healthier food, many schools are lagging. Basically, the more educated and wealthier the community, the more likely it is that students can find a healthy vegetarian option most days of the week. In poorer or more remote places, kids still may see too many hot dogs and "Colossal Burgers." That's the word from the 2007 national School Lunch Report Card put out by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Hunger remains a problem in some places, although food service workers make sure every child gets basic meals. Cafés or supply closets inside some schools are still allowed to stock unhealthy snacks. And the rapidly rising price of food is a dark cloud on the horizon (see story What You Can Do).

Liz Trainor, a school cook and member of the Highland Essential Labor Personnel Association in Highland, N.Y., says her team is struggling to balance high-quality meals with rising food costs.

"It is very hard and expensive," says the member whose local union is part of New York State United Teachers, an AFT affiliate. "We try to use as much government food as we can, wisely, and stretch it."

Despite all the challenges, school cafeterias are rising to the occasion. Wherever you go nationwide, research shows, schools typically provide more nutritious food than students can find anywhere else, whether they're having meals at home or going out to eat.

School food is healthier

Experts on child health agree that schools are a major part of the solution to childhood obesity. Dr. Keith-Thomas Ayoob, associate professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, commends schools for promoting healthy eating, noting that the main problem lies at home.

A study at Ohio State University and Indiana University showed one measure of obesity rising more than twice as fast when kindergartners and first-graders were on summer vacation as when they were in school.

What's more, the results of nutrition education have been disappointing so far. Most kids learn what tastes "good" and what tastes "nasty" by the time they're 10 years old.

Some cafeteria workers are responding with stealth-for a good cause, they can be downright sneaky-for instance, slipping veggies into mac and cheese or camouflaging oven-baked chicken nuggets in little red-and-white bags to look deceptively like Popeyes chicken.

Any way you cut it, getting kids to eat right is a tall order.

"It's kind of disappointing when you put out all this healthy food and they come back from the gas station around the corner with soda and a bag of chips," Navaroli says. Good eating habits "have to be done at a young age, at home, before they even start school."

So, is there any hope? Of course.

"All you have to do is make it taste good and look good," Trainor remarks. Easier said than done, but our members do get it done.

In Dearborn, Mich., the salad bar is a smash hit at Miller Elementary School, says Nancy Pizzini, a member of the Dearborn Federation of School Employees. So is the "snack-and-go lunch," which consists of yogurt, veggie sticks, chunks of cheese, crackers and fruit in a bag. "From Day One, it's always been a big item," says Pizzini, a food service manager.

Dearborn's push for healthier school food really engaged last year. Now nachos and cheese are out. Whole wheat bread and pizza are in.

"I think we're getting them used to the color, you know what I mean?" says Debra Sabaugh, a satellite food service manager at Lindbergh Elementary and also a member of the Dearborn federation. "We have a lot of chubby kids here in Michigan," she adds, acknowledging that her state ranks as "one of the biggies" for childhood obesity.

What really distinguishes the Dearborn cafeterias, though, is how they have accommodated Arab-American children, who make up most of the student population. In a school of 470 students, Miller Elementary serves 312 Halal lunches per day. Halal meats contain no pork and meet other religious requirements for Muslims. Spaghetti with marinara sauce (no meat) is popular, as are tuna fish and Halal chicken nuggets.

Roping in the parents

The rise in adult obesity is leveling off and the hope is that childhood obesity will follow suit. While nutrition education hasn't changed the way students eat, those videos of dancing fruit do seem to improve the way kids think about food. So do field trips out to farms that grow a variety of vegetables, where farmers say the chaperones learn more than the children-and need to, because the adults buy the food at home.

Parents, in fact, hold the key. While dairy products have always been important in the upper Midwest, Sabaugh notes that Dearborn parents and school officials are now discussing how often to offer ice cream.

Sabaugh would like to take "some kind of survey to let us know what the parents think of everything, what kind of healthy food parents would like to see on the menu. Myself, I don't think chicken patties are good. Too much salt. I'm a real stickler for healthy food."