ABSTRACT
School is considered a privileged environment for health education and school feeding represents an opportunity for promoting sustainable foods to young generations. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that is possible to select, from existing school menus, recipes that combine healthy foods with low environmental impact. A national sample of Italian school menus was collected and a total number of 194 recipes were included on a database containing 70 first courses, 83 s courses, 39 side dishes, 1 portion of fruit, and 1 portion of bread. A mathematical model was conceived to combine nutritional adequacy and acceptability criteria while minimizing GHGs emissions. The result is a four-week menu characterized by large vegetable components that were used not only as side dishes but also as ingredients in the first and second courses. Legumes and pasta are often included, and white meat is selected instead of red meat. The findings presented in this paper demonstrated that it is possible to design environmental-friendly meals from existing school menus. The mathematical model developed in this work has the potentiality of being completely scalable, easily updatable, and widely utilizable in different settings either for design or monitoring purposes as well as for research data collection.
Subject(s)
Food Services , Lunch , Menu Planning/methods , School Health Services , Sustainable Development , Adolescent , Child , Child, Preschool , Female , Humans , Italy , Male , Models, Theoretical , Nutrition Policy , Program EvaluationABSTRACT
Muchos de los alimentos consumidos a diario sufren previamente algún grado de transformación, desde mínimas operaciones de limpieza hasta cambios mayores producto de la cocción. Estas operaciones culinarias pueden afectar el volumen y/o peso de los alimentos, lo que implica una diferencia entre lo adquirido y lo realmente servido al plato. Algunos alimentos pierden gramaje mientras otros lo aumentan, dependiendo del alimento y del tipo y condiciones de la operación culinaria aplicada. Lo anterior influye en la planificación de minutas afectando el presupuesto y las raciones servidas. Para considerar estas variaciones se deben aplicar los indicadores de transformación de alimentos (ITA) que cuantifican las pérdidas por operaciones preliminares y los cambios generados por la cocción. El objetivo de este estudio fue obtener los ITA para distintos alimentos consumidos en Chile bajo diferentes operaciones culinarias. Para ello los alimentos fueron pesados, en bruto y neto, luego de lo cual se calcularon sus ITA correspondientes. Los indicadores obtenidos representan una estandarización nacional, no publicada previamente, cuya principal utilidad es la planificación de minutas, aunque también contribuyen a afinar el cálculo de la composición química de alimentos y preparaciones y al análisis de encuestas de consumo, lo que representa un aporte al área de alimentos y alimentación colectiva en Chile(AU)
Many of the foods we eat suffer some grade of previous transformation, which can go from minimal cleaning operations to major transformations resulting from the application of heat. These actions produce a change in the volume and / or weight of the food, which implies a variation between the food that is acquired or bought and the food that is actually served and / or consumed. These variations could result in loss or gain in weight, depending on the type of food and the type and conditions of the culinary operation applied. On the other hand, these variations have implications in the planning of the menus since they can affect the budget and the quantities of the portion presented in the plate. In order to take these changes into account, the food transformation indices (ITA) must be applied, which consider losses due to preliminary operations and changes generated by cooking processes. The aim of this study was to obtain the different ITAs resulting from culinary operations carried out on food consumed in Chile. For this, the food was weighed, gross and net, calculating for each one the corresponding ITA. The indicators obtained represent a national standardization, not previously published, whose greatest usefulness is the planning of menus, although they are also useful in calculating the chemical composition of food and meals, and for intake survey analysis, being a contribution to the food area and the area of collective food in Chile(AU)
