Scratch Cooking

Do more Scratch Cooking if your goal is to:

• Serve fresh, tasty, healthier meals

• Increase participation

• Build staff confidence

• Build staff competence

For the sake of our children’s health, we must begin serving more SCRATCH COOKED foods and LESS frozen, manufactured food to our children in our nation’s schools. I recognize that this is a big task; bigger for some schools than for others. Many schools have moved so far away from the scratch cook model that they don’t have kitchens equipped to do any type of cooking. If this is your situation, you certainly have more obstacles to overcome, but this work is important enough to begin the process.

Here are some ways to get the ball rolling:

Advocate for updating your district’s facilities to accommodate the preparation of real food in the future. Don’t let another Bond project, remodel or new building project begin without adding or improving kitchen facilities.

If your schools already have the ability to do some SCRATCH COOKING, then it is so important to begin moving in that direction. Set a course and get started!
If you are already doing some SCRATCH COOKING, then plan to expand your scratch offerings. Plan it into your continuous improvement plans then write them into your cycle menus. Train your teams to prepare them. Leverage your commodity foods entitlement dollars! Seek assistance from someone who is “a little further down the road” than you.
Fresh fruit and veggie bars are a great way to get going on SCRATCH COOKING very quickly!