Juice is considered a fruit, not a beverage

Tag : Fruit Beverage
Now hear this, Albany students: If you feel like having both milkand juice with your school lunch, that’s OK  as long as youdon’t try to take another fruit or vegetable, too.

Lunch supervisors at Periwinkle Elementary School were improperlytelling students they could take only one or the other beveragewith a single entree, prompting a correction from the OregonDepartment of Education’s school nutrition program. Juice isconsidered a fruit, not a beverage.

School menus will be reworded as of November, staff training willbe updated and a reminder e-mail has been sent to all schools, saidRick Sherman, director of food services for Greater Albany PublicSchools.

Heidi Dupuis, manager of school nutrition programs for the state,said she and Monica Hellweg, child nutrition specialist and liaisonfor Linn and Benton counties, made an unannounced visit toPeriwinkle’s lunchroom on Sept. 25.

The visit was in response to a parent call, although the parent,Chip Anderson, said juice was not a part of his complaint.

At the school, Dupuis said, “The way the line was set up,milk and juice were together. I interviewed the cashier and askedwhat her practice would be if a student wanted both juice and milk,and she said they would only be able to get one.”

That’s not correct, Dupuis said she told the cashier. Federallunch guidelines consider juice a fruit, so a student who choosesto get, say, a hamburger, juice and milk is entitled to all threefor one lunch price.

“It is a confusion with milk and juice because most peoplethink of those as beverages, and it is something that we alwayshave to qualify,” Dupuis said. “Milk is to be served,and juice is considered a fruit.”

Dupuis said Anderson was concerned about school menus, which state,“A school lunch consists of one entree, and at least oneother item, which may be fruits, vegetables, or milk.”

The wording on the menu should be fruits or vegetables and milk,Dupuis said. Under federal guidelines, milk is to be included inthe meal price. However, she said, the state has no evidence Albanyschools ever improperly charged students for milk.

“I didn’t see that happening, and when I asked thequestion, there was no indication that was the case,” shesaid.

The parent, Chip Anderson, told the Democrat-Herald his son, afirst-grader at Periwinkle, had not been charged for milk but thathe’s sure others have.

“Even when I talked to the teachers and staff at his school,they said milk was charged for,” Anderson said.

“I don’t want to see this just get swept away,”he said. “I want them to address what they’re going todo and find out how much money was garnished by them charging formilk, and what they’re going to do about that.”

Sherman, who has been in food service for 15 years, says schoolscharge for milk only if a student chooses to purchase a milk aspart of a sack lunch from home.

Otherwise, “We don’t charge extra for a milk. We neverhave, and I never have gotten this complaint before in all myyears.”

Confusion, he said, likely stems from federal guidelines sayingthat to reimburse a school for a lunch, a student has to take atleast two items: an entree and one other, which may be fruits,vegetables or milk. Students do not have to take milk, but one itemonly is not considered a reimbursable lunch under the guidelines.