School Taste Tests

School meals often get a bad rap. Wrapped up in the shame and stigma of the 3 tiered pricing model, many of us have memories of crowded, noisy cafeterias where we were rushed to eat unappetizing, highly processed foods or only offered fast food fare such as corn dogs, burgers, and pizza which left us tired and undernourished. 

• According to Janet Poppendieck in Free For All: Fixing School Food in America, students have these experiences due to an unfortunate set of social and political choices we have made as a society: “massive disinvestment in our public schools, an industrialized food system, an agriculture policy centered on subsidies for large-scale commodity production, [and] a business model rather than a public health approach to school food programs”. 

Fortunately, school meals have improved significantly in recent decades thanks to the combined efforts of passionate students, parents, school nutrition staff, administrators, public health professionals, advocates, and legislators, but we still have a lot of work ahead of us.

At Dig In, we join this effort to improve school meal programs by facilitating taste tests that are interactive, data-informed experiences in the cafeteria that help schools successfully introduce nutritious, locally sourced, scratch-cooked menu items by centering student voice and curiosity. We participate in the Massachusetts Farm to School Harvest of the Month Program, entering partnering schools once per month to prepare, serve, engage, support, and gather feedback.