Sugary school snacks to go

For years, students in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District have been eating junk food like it’s going out of style.

A year from now, it may be out for good ? at least as far as the district is concerned.

Newport-Mesa is planning an overhaul of its current nutrition policy following a recent Senate bill which set strict guidelines for food distributed on campuses. Starting July 1 of next year, schools throughout California will have to limit the amount of sugar, fat and calories on menus ? and candy, soda and other staples of school may soon be on the way out.

In May or June, Newport-Mesa nutrition services director Dick Greene plans to present a revised health policy to the school board. His office has consulted the California Dairy Assn., the California Pediatric Society, and a number of physicians and parents.

“We’re getting input from all over the community, and that’s encouraging to me,” Greene said.

Under the Senate bill, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law last September, a school entrée can have no more than 400 calories or 4 grams of fat per 100 calories. Individually-sold snacks also have new limitations, including the percentage of calories that can come from fat or saturated fat.

In recent years, Newport-Mesa has taken steps to improve nutrition on its campuses, eliminating candy and sodas from its vending machines. In their place, the district has found alternatives: carbonated juices, baked chips and a low-fat cookie based on Greene’s own secret recipe.

Bonnie Aden, the nutrition-services supervisor at Corona del Mar High School, said that although her cafeteria still offers Oreos and chips, many students opt for healthier choices. Newport-Mesa schools now offer free fruit for students throughout the day, and Aden noted that the mysterious cookie outsold most of the packaged brands.

“The students don’t even realize it’s a healthier cookie,” she said. “We sell an awful lot of those.”

Nevertheless, sweets still find their way onto campuses, either in cafeterias or at classroom parties and other events. Greene said that one aim of Newport-Mesa’s new nutrition policy is to impose low-fat guidelines on cookie dough ? long one of the district’s most popular fundraisers for athletic and other events.

The same rule, Greene said, should apply to other treats.

“When parents make cupcakes, we like to see them use whole-grain flour, reduce the amount of icing or put no icing on them,” he said. “We want parents to help us with a model on good nutrition.”

Lincoln Elementary School parent Julie Herold-Carter, whose husband is a cardiologist at Hoag Hospital, said she wanted schools to move beyond the notion of candy as a reward. On Tuesday, she helped to coordinate a nutrition meeting for a number of Newport-Mesa parents.

“What we want is, if children meet their reading goal, instead of bringing in cupcakes from Pavilions, they get to have a 15-minute soccer game,” Herold-Carter said.