Schools

Babylon Elementary Hosts First Long Island Chefs Move to Schools Day

Babylon joins the Michelle Obama initiative to connect local chefs with schools to help encourage healthy eating, in advance of new, healthier school lunches.

Carol Ann Grodski, MS RD CD/N, Babylon schools food service director, had long been hoping Babylon would be the first Long Island school to join Michelle Obama's Chefs Move to School program. Grodski signed up for the program a year ago and had been looking for a local chef to team up with, with the goal of "collaboratively educating kids about food and healthy eating." This week, Grodski's efforts were rewarded with a successful kick-off day of the new program.

The Chefs Move to Schools program, founded in May 2010, is part of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative, with the goal of solving the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation.

Marianne Dayton, a chef who works with food supplier InFusion Sales Group, visited Babylon Elementary School on May 21 to provide second graders with a lesson on vegetables and healthy eating. The students were the first on Long Island to participate in the national Chefs Move to Schools program

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Grodski hopes the program will help prepare the school and the students for the new national school lunch regulations that go into effect July 1 of this year.

"We will be highlighting vegetables – from growing them, to serving them and doing some taste-testing. Encouraging fruits, vegetables and whole grains will be our focus to accommodate the new regulations," Grodski says.

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The new USDA requirements call for half of all grains served in schools to be whole grains, and up the minimum amounts of fruits and vegetables in the meals.


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