In a 2015 post titled “Letting Off Some Steam,” I vented my frustration over the fact that this artificially-colored and -flavored frozen blue dessert from SideKicks qualifies as a school food “fruit.” That’s because it’s made from 100% fruit juice (albeit with a lot of stabilizers), which can be served to kids in lieu of fruit up to half the time under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA):
What bothered me more than the mere existence of this product was the way it was marketed to school food directors: “This is one fruit credit that never winds up in the trash.” Aargh!! As I noted back then, “Maybe if we stopped offering kids bright blue Italian ices instead of fruit, we might increase the chances they’d eat an actual piece of fruit?”
Maybe it’s unfair of me to take a second bite at the apple (or a second spoonful of frozen dessert, as it were) by once again picking on this particular brand, SideKicks. But yesterday I happened to notice an ad for two new SideKicks juice desserts – products which count as “vegetables” under the HHFKA.
So instead of exposing school kids to more of these foods:
A district can serve these, up to half the time:
SideKicks is not alone, of course, in turning whole fruits and vegetables into “kid-friendly” products that bear no resemblance to the real thing. Indeed, there are aisles and aisles of such products in every American grocery store:
But what particularly irks me about SideKicks and similar products marketed to school food directors is that they totally subvert the cafeteria’s potential to serve as a nutrition education classroom. One of the clear goals of the HHFKA was to regularly expose children to a wider variety of fruits and vegetables, but turning those foods into hyper-palatable, highly processed products does nothing more than reinforce kids’ abiding love of junk food.
I have a lot more to say about this topic – so much so that I’m in the middle of writing a book about it. (The book isn’t coming out until 2019, but it’s never too early to start plugging, right? 🙂 ) And I’d love to hear your thoughts, too. Leave me a comment below or on The Lunch Tray’s Facebook page.
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Lunch Lady Jane Doe says
We use the Sunbelievable and Cherry Smooth on special celebration days in our lunchrooms. Every day, we serve a complete array of fresh fruits and have a salad bar stocked with ten different fresh vegetables including legumes like edamame (including days we offer the frozen 100% cups). Offering the frozen cup does NOT stop them from taking a fresh fruit and helping themselves to the salad bar.
Honestly, I see nothing wrong with offering something that is 100% vegetable or 100% vegetable & fruit juice with no added sugars, dyes, or colors once a month.
It’s no more “highly processed” than the fresh fruit smoothies we make for breakfast meals … or the in-house made salad dressing we serve on our salad bar … or the hummus we make for our vegetarian plates.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Hi Lunch Lady Jane Doe: I have no quarrel at all with using these products for celebrations. In that instance, they’re being offered for exactly what they are – desserts! What troubles me is when/if a school serves these products in lieu of vegetables, which is both allowed under the regs (half the time) and clearly encouraged by the marketing materials for SideKicks. That’s where I think the trouble lies – taking the easy way out instead of continuing to offer kids the real thing. As a side note, it sounds like you’re doing an amazing job in your lunchrooms. Your students are lucky to have you! Thanks as always for commenting here.
Justin Gagnon says
This is the result of eliminating nutrient standard menu planning and relying exclusively on food based menu planning. More requirements, more rules, and yet who didn’t think that the school food big boys would find a way around it? More rules work to their advantage because it makes it harder for districts to comply with the litany of regs, and so they turn to the big boys who are right there waiting. This is the side effect of increased regulatory burden. As for the HHFKA leading to increase waste, that is absolutely a legitimate problem that Foodservice operations are facing, and again, the unintended consequence of overregulation.
We don’t use them and wouldn’t ever use a product like that, but I understand why other district operations turn to it.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Justin – this comment is so interesting to me. As a layperson/observer, I’ve always viewed the switch from the nutrient standard to food-based menu planning as a huge win for kids. As you may know, my school food blogger “origin story” 🙂 relates to a discussion I had with my district back in 2010 over why they were giving kids sugary animal crackers at breakfast every morning. This turned out to be their way of giving kids the requisite amount of iron, from the fortified white flour, under the nutrient standard regime. This isn’t to say that companies can still bend the current rules to their advantage, as is the case with this SideKicks product, but isn’t it a lot harder? Couldn’t the worst products pass muster just through vitamin/mineral fortification, back in the old days?
Justin Gagnon says
I can’t believe I didn’t see this reply! Just got the monthly round up email and came back to it.
Nutrient Standard Menu Planning wasn’t perfect, and I think a lot of that had to do with overregulating to specific micronutrients. And iron requirement? Come on. The tighter the regulation, the more we’re going to end up with meals and pairing that just don’t make sense.
Now we have a situation where there are “grain minimums” on a daily and weekly basis, irrespective of the carb composition of the rest of the meal. Potatoes and corn? Not grains, so even if there’s adequate carbs in a meal, gotta throw in some bread to get that grain minimum. Gee, thanks USDA. Don’t know how we would have been able to put a healthy meal on the table without your “guidance”.
In the end, it’s all comes down to money. If you believe that school food professionals at the district level a) know what they’re doing and b) have the kids wellness at heart, then why do they need to be micromanaged through regulation and the litany of paperwork that comes with it? And if the community feels the district staff isn’t doing right by the kids with the money they’re given, then get rid of them and bring in new staff.
The result of increased standards without increased funds has actually pulled dollars AWAY from the center of the plate, which is forcing districts to further rely on manufactured foods to check the rest of the boxes on compliance standards. I’ve never disagreed with the INTENT of the changes, but the unintended consequences in the execution are always where things go wrong. And the unintended consequences here are higher costs on items that have a lower likelihood of being consumed, which can end up siphoning dollars from what the foods the kids are actually ingesting.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Ha! When you didn’t reply to my question, Justin, I was actually going to chase after you with a personal email but then decided that was a bit too aggressive in the context of a blogger/commenter interaction – LOL. 🙂
But thank you for this great answer. It’s always illuminating to hear from people like you, who are on the ground and can explain that sometimes what sounds great on paper to us laypeople makes no sense when actually implemented.
But on the larger question of local control … You say: ” If you believe that school food professionals at the district level a) know what they’re doing and b) have the kids wellness at heart, then why do they need to be micromanaged through regulation?” I agree in principle, but what about communities where the food service staff is failing kids, but the community – because of poverty, lack of education, etc. – doesn’t know how to take action? It’s often the case that underprivileged parents simply don’t have the time or resources to make noise at school, or they feel too intimidated to do so because of language barriers, illegal status, etc. I worry that these are the very communities where kids most need nutritious, appetizing school food, but they might be the least likely to get them if we left meal planning entirely up to (their often-underfunded) districts. Am I just betraying my knee-jerk liberal love of Big Government, or do you think that’s a valid concern?
Justin Gagnon says
It’s a really good question, Bettina! I think the answer to that question comes in whether or not you believe that the school foodservice professionals in those districts who are responsible for adequately nourishing their students are competent in their position, or whether they require not just additional guidance and coaching, but outright regulation, audits, and enforcement to do the right thing? In areas where the foodservice staff is failing kids, it’s not only the responsibility of the parents to speak up, but the responsibility of the district itself and the leadership of that district to make sure they have the right people in place to do the job competently.
I’ve sat in nutrition committee meetings for a local district (which is not a customer of ours), and hear these kinds of responses all of the time for the foodservice staff: “We would love to make the changes you’re requesting, and if it were up to us, we would. But we have very specific menu pattern requirements that we have to follow, and they don’t allow us the liberty to do what both you and I agree we should be doing.” This sounds a bit like the district response you got with the animal cracker. “We’d like to do it differently, but see, there’s this iron requirement….” It is absolutely possible that the district staff in both instances was just scapegoating here, but I have seen first-hand how the regulations generate more waste, increase cost on ingredients that ultimately don’t get consumed, and – here’s the kicker – generate countless hours and mountains of paperwork in order to prove “compliance”. Call it my knee-jerk disdain of Big Government, but it leaves me wondering if one of the fundamental reasons for the burden of the bureaucracy isn’t the sustaining of the bureaucracy itself.
If the district is underfunded, and the foodservice operation is also underfunded, no amount of regulation is going to improve the product on the plate. In fact, dictating additional regulation to an already resource constrained entity is only going to further divert those precious resources from the product itself and into compliance. I’m often frustrated that much of the bureaucratic burden we encounter (and trust me, there’s a lot of it in California) isn’t to deal with anything we’re doing wrong – it’s to try and deter or catch those who ARE doing something wrong, or try and prevent a problem that doesn’t exist, but could theoretically exist. There are two problems with this. First, the people who cheat are going to cheat. More and more rules and required documentation won’t necessarily deter them from cheating, either! It’s just burdening those who don’t cheat with more work. Secondly, trying to prevent a problem that doesn’t exist or exists very infrequently from potentially existing through regulation often has a litany of unintended consequences that can make matters even worse.
As my team hears me say often, the amount of effort wasted on trying to prevent bad people from doing bad things is an enormous obstacle to good people trying to do good things.
Not sure why I’m not getting email notifications on the comments, but you can ALWAYS email me without worrying about any violation of blogger protocols 🙂 I’m a huge believer in the free and open exchange of ideas among good people wanting to learn from one another, and these are complex issues. I know neither of us believe we have all of the answers, but we sure can keep digging and learning from each other as we go!
Dietitian Debbie says
As a dietitian, I’m with you in that I’d much rather have our students eat the whole fruit/vegetable rather than disguise them as juice/dessert. However, I will say that it’s very true when they say it’s a fruit/vegetable that won’t be thrown away. We served a different brand of these at my previous district, and the students absolutely loved them.
I don’t think it’s really necessary to offer the fruit version on a regular basis (as most kids actually enjoy fruit), but I do think the red/orange vegetable credit options are pretty great. There’s only so many ways you can offer sweet potatoes, carrots and tomatoes before students get bored. And, being that there are no added sugars, if this will get kids excited about eating red/orange vegetable rather than throwing them away/choosing another option, I think it’s a win. We also make a point to tell the students that they are made from vegetables so they will be more acceptable of the unaltered, whole vegetable.
Kathleen Prechtel says
I agree with Lunch Lady Jane Doe and Dietitian Debbie. We serve this frozen fruit juice once in our 4 week cycle menu. It’s a way to offer children a “treat” while still crediting as a fruit. The day we serve this fruit we also have a full salad bar. I know of no schools who serve this as the only fruit in 50% of their meals. Please remember that we are serving children and it’s OK to have offer things on occasion that fulfill the fruit/vegetable requirement and are nutritious and appealing to most children even if it doesn’t meet your rigid whole foods only criteria. Given that a huge amount of fruit/veggies go into the garbage cans on any given day because students are required to take one whether they want it it or not, I’m glad for this option.
Lindsey Parsons says
Thanks for bringing up this topic again. This is a huge frustration and what your school food service respondants seemed to have missed is that blended up fruit for smoothies still has fiber, but sidekicks don’t. That’s the essential difference that impacts how our livers respond to the incoming rush of sugar from juice vs. fruit. Fiber slows down sugar absorption so it doesn’t become liver fat leading to type 2 diabetes, liver disease and obesity. But of course as a treat, no issue. But it’s not served that way in our district. I think it’s served at least 2 times a week.
Also, when we last advocated on this issue in the Montgomery County Public Schools, I had a conversation with the creator of Sidekicks about the dyes, and he informed me that there were two flavors without synthetic food dyes (strawberry mango and sour cherry lemon) – see ingredients here:
http://ridgefields.com/images/SK_sellsheet_nobleeds.pdf
So we did get our district to only use those flavors, to at least solve one problem. In that conversation with the creator of Sidekicks, I was told that they still had to use the green food dye because there was no natural source of green dye for food. I’m still dumbfounded at that comment.
bw1 says
“And I’d love to hear your thoughts, too.”
I somehow doubt the universal sincerity of this, but OK, once more into the breach….
“Maybe if we stopped offering kids bright blue Italian ices instead of fruit, we might increase the chances they’d eat an actual piece of fruit?”
Do they really offer this INSTEAD of offering fruit, rather than along with offering fruit? (the school food professionals commenting here tend to say otherwise) I really can’t say, but my instinctual distillation of the above sentence is “If we don’t give them a choice, we increase the odds that they’ll think the way we want.” which is downright insidious in a public school, although I have no objection to hearing my interpretation verbatim from a private school administration.
Keep in mind, we are talking state actors here. One could just as easily say (and I’ll bet you have thought it) “If we didn’t let people vote for their leaders, we wouldn’t have Trump in the White House.” I’m sure, Bettina, that down there in Texas, you wouldn’t have to venture very far from your urban enclave to find people who would agree with the statement “If we don’t give students a choice about praying to Jesus, we might increase the number of souls saved.”
But that’s not what America is all about.
“in turning whole fruits and vegetables into “kid-friendly” products that bear no resemblance to the real thing.”
This sentiment resonates with me. I hate the pablum that is the dominant American pallette. I am annoyed by people who avoid foods that challenge their senses. However, I am reminded of our conversations about birthday cupcakes, sneaking carrots in smoothies, and a few others where you’ve insisted on creating a “kid-friendly” version of life that bears no resemblance to the real thing for your kids with respect to mental and emotional challenges such as refusing a cupcake when everyone else is eating them, or being confronted with the irrationality of one’s own food refusals by surprise. You’re fixated on the school creating a kid-friendly artificial environment where your kids never have to face uncomfortable choices between temptation and healthy eating. The inconsistency is glaring.
“Indeed, there are aisles and aisles of such products in every American grocery store:”
Yes, there are, because consumers in a free society have a right to choose. In particular, those fruit and veggie melts are vile, but they are an invaluable resource for parents and occupational therapists teaching children who have sensory and motor issues to safely eat solid food without choking.
“But what particularly irks me about SideKicks and similar products marketed to school food directors is that they totally subvert the cafeteria’s potential to serve as a nutrition education classroom.”
Classroom imparting objective knowledge with which the students may do as they please according to their own familial values and priorities, or re-education camp designed to indoctrinate their preferences? Therein lies the rub. Yes, some kids will bring habits and preferences from home that don’t conform to your idea of the optimum. It’s not the government’s job to change that, any more than it might be the government’s job under our current president to force all those darn immigrants to start eating “‘mericun” food instead of all that spicy unpronounceable freaky stuff.
“hyper-palatable”
I don’t find it hyper-palatable, and I doubt you do either. Let’s face it, the phrase that more accurately describes your objection is “hyper-palatable according to the tastes of people less- than me.” Try, just for a day, not to be a
missionary food snob.
“That’s where I think the trouble lies – taking the easy way out instead of continuing to offer kids the real thing.”
Which could also be characterized as choosing not to beat them over the head to make them conform to your preferences.
“I have no quarrel at all with using these products for celebrations. In that instance, they’re being offered for exactly what they are – desserts!”
That sounds like a pretty good description of the birthday cupcakes you wish to ban. So, you don’t have a problem using junk food for periodic celebrations, as long as it’s done by all-knowing Big Brother; the problem is when it becomes a voluntary exchange among free and equal citizens.
It’s encouraging to see Justin Gagnon’s realization that government regulation’s primary achievement is to further cement the position of the entrenched major players in any industry. His reasoned moderation stands in stark contrast to your command and control extremism.
You DID say you wanted to hear our thoughts.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
As of March, 2016 I no longer respond to comments from this reader: after several long years of debating with him/her, I’ve decided life’s just too short. But others can and should feel free to respond if they like.