Dave Fouts, the world's first bariatric chef, will give two presentations at Upstate University Hospital at Community General on Thursday, Feb. 9. Provided
Syracuse — Come July 1, schools nationwide will have to make menu adjustments to meet the USDA’s new standards for healthy school lunch offerings, as championed by First Lady Michelle Obama.
Well, most schools anyway.
“Edmond [Public Schools in Oklahoma] will not have to do anything this year — they’re done,” said Chef Dave Fouts during a phone interview. Fouts created the Simply Smart Food pilot program with dietitian Vicki Bovee in 2008, and Edmond was the first school district to benefit from its method of eliminating processed foods and bringing scratch cooking back to cafeterias.
Fouts is coming to Syracuse this week to pitch his program to a group of area school administrators. He’s in the process of turning his second school district’s kitchen and menu around at Hinton Schools in Oklahoma, and he hopes to make Syracuse his next customer.
Meredith Price, Chief Administrative Officer for Upstate University Hospital at Community General, is excited to bring Fouts to the area for two presentations on Thursday, Feb. 9. Administrators from school districts spanning Onondaga and Madison counties have been invited to attend the first presentation, entitled “Changing the Taste of School Lunch,” at 2 p.m. at the hospital.
“We understand the challenges school districts are facing with the recent USDA changes to school lunches that take effect July 1,” Price said. “Chef Dave affords us the opportunity to share with local districts an area of expertise they may not otherwise have available to them, offering them a resource as they undertake this significant step aimed at reducing obesity in children.”
Fouts recognizes that schools will be crunched to accommodate the new regulations into their budgets. While every school is different, Fouts says that at Edmond, it only took four months for the school district to make back the money it cost to implement the program, which requires a complete overhaul of how the food is prepared. Edmond is a big school district that employs more than 200 cafeteria employees.
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