How do you find out if students like will eat food items that meet new federal guidelines for whole grains, sugar and salt? You ask them to taste test them!

And that’s just what Mt. Pleasant ISD did this past week when MPISD Food Service set up tasting stations on most of its campuses. Students got to taste bites of a chocolate muffin, banana bread, a brownie, a pull-apart with cheese spicy and not-so-spicy, pizza, a pretzel, and a food bar called Strawberry Delight.

Students in elementary schools were asked to rate the food – using smiley or frowning faces – on how it looked, smelled, tasted and made them feel. Older students just indicated if they liked the food item or not. MPISD will use the results when selecting food products to add to the school breakfast and lunch menus next year.

“What thirty, forty or fifty-year-old women think tastes great differs greatly from what 9, 10 or 11 year old children think tastes great,” explained Laura Stewart, MPISD’s Food Service Director.  “While the cafeteria managers and I have the responsibility to decide what we will purchase next year, we want  items that our students will be excited about seeing on their breakfast and lunch menus .  The only way to do that is to let them taste available products and ask them to give us their opinion on them.”

The results of the taste tests vary by campus, noted Dr. Judi Saxton, MPISD’s Director of Communication.  “While the pretzels were very popular at Mount Pleasant High School, the students at Annie Sims Elementary this morning didn’t like them very much. The Sims students really didn’t like the spicy pull-aparts. You could tell by the looks on their faces as they tasted them. It will be interesting to see how the high school students like them – they seem to like the cafeteria’s spicier offerings now.”

The MPISD cafeteria managers also like the idea of the food taste testing. “This is a fun way for the kids to have a say in what we serve in the cafeteria,” said Vivian Fowler cafeteria manager Alicia Smith.

“We got some quotes from some 5th Grade students at Wallace Middle School,” Saxton added. “I’ll let them speak for themselves.”

Jeremiah Jenkins: “I tried everything! There were a lot of choices. My favorite was the chocolate muffin. I think they should absolutely add it to the cafeteria menu!”

Andrew Avila: “The food was very tasty. I’ve never tasted anything quite the little cheese strips! I think it’s really cool we could vote for our favorites!”

Eli Rider: “I like the food. The desserts were a little unbalanced; some were super sweet and some weren’t. Overall, it was really good!”

Reese Ball: “I tried almost everything! My favorite was the strawberry delight. If they add that to the menu, I would definitely not bring my lunch as much!”

 

Picture – Wallace 5th graders Eli Rider and Jake Henley select the items to taste-test