Palm Beach unveils new school menus

Items include blueberry and mozzarella stick, falafel, spicy omelettes, alfredo pasta and mandarin chicken salad

Parents who are tired of making school lunches, take comfort: A bounty of new school cafeteria menu items may help everyone feel better about ditching the nightly ritual.

At a taste test Thursday, Palm Beach County elementary school students wolfed down several foods that will be available for the first time in the coming school year, including a stringcheese style blueberry and mozzarella stick, creamy alfredo pasta and a spicy omelette made with pepper jack cheese.

School starts Monday in Palm Beach County. Old standards such as pizza, chicken tenders and hamburgers are still on the menu. So are milk, chocolate milk, juice and apples. Cost is also the

same: Breakfast is free, while lunch is $2.05 for elementary students and $2.30 for middle and high schoolers. Free and reduced price lunches are also available, depending on the family’s income.

For those looking for new culinary thrills, there will be never-before-offered options that the schools hope will appeal to a variety of tastes. Vegans can dine on falafel or salad with vegetables grown at local farms, while kids who need their sugar shot for breakfast can get cereals such as Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charms and Cocoa Puffs. The cereals are special formulations with whole grains as the first ingredient and smaller amounts of sweeteners, said Allison Monbleau, Palm Beach County schools’ food service director.

“I think this is an improvement,” said Logan Martin, 9, a fourth-grader tasting the new offerings. “I love plums; I can’t believe they have them. And I’ve had omelettes at school before, but this one is spicier so I like it better.”

Monbleau said her department is always on the lookout for new youth eating trends to convince more students to select the cafeteria for their meals.

The school district wants to grow its cafeteria participation to ensure students are not hungry when they are trying to learn. It’s been succeeding: The district served 34.5 million meals last school year, up 3.5 percent from the previous year.

In another effort to encourage school-meal eating, the district is renovating high school cafeterias to resemble food courts. Seven schools now have the new look, which includes stalls that look like restaurants with colorful lighted signs designed to attract patrons, including Asian Xperience, Cafe Sol y Mar (Latin cuisine), the Gourmet Deli, Beyond Burgers and Fresh & Fast.

Students can also get dinner at school if they participate in an afterschool program. The Supper Program started with four schools in 2014; now 74 participate.

Student Jacob Hirschfield, 10, found a new favorite food Thursday, the blueberry and mozzarella cheese stick, which he described as “very sweet and not really cheesy. It tastes more like blueberries with a little bit of cinnamon.”

Ashley Martin, 10, favored the newly offered subs with turkey and whole grain bread, although those only will be offered to middle and high school students. She is in fifth grade.

“I ate mostly pizza last year,” she said. “There weren’t as many options.”

“I think this is an improvement.”

Logan Martin, 9,a fourth-grader sampling Palm Beach County school’s new food offerings

CARLINE JEAN/SUN SENTINEL Barrett Giguere, 6, checks out the food samples during a Palm Beach County School Food Service Taste Test at Pierce Hammock Elementary School on Thursday.

CARLINE JEAN/SUN SENTINEL Logan Martin, a fourth-grader at Pierce Hammock Elementary School in Loxahatchee, takes part in a Palm Beach County School Food Service Taste Test.