More than 60,000 children throughout Texas will begin the next school year with access to a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables because of new salad bars, as part of the national Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools initiative.
In a ceremony held this week, the United Fresh Produce Association announced the donation of salad bars to 100 schools across the state. The event, titled 'Let’s Move Salad Bars to Texas Schools' brought together school administrators, government, and child nutrition officials, local health and wellness advocates and produce industry donors to recognise the 100 recipient schools and the more than 60 donor companies.
'This donation to 100 Texas schools marks one of the largest Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools events in the country and we are so proud to be part of it,' said United Fresh President and CEO Tom Stenzel. 'Produce industry members from across the United States have rallied to support salad bars for Texas schools, a fantastic example of our members’ commitment to increasing fresh fruit and vegetable consumption for tens of thousands of students in Texas and across the nation.'
Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools supports First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative to end childhood obesity within a generation, and United Fresh is a founding partner of the Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools initiative, which has a goal of donating salad bars to 6,000 schools nationwide by 2013.
'Research and school experience shows that students eat more fresh produce when they have a salad bar that provides a variety of colourful choices of fruits and vegetables every school day,' said Dr Lorelei DiSogra, United Fresh vice-president of nutrition and health. 'School salad bars are one of the easiest ways for schools to meet the new national school lunch standards, which call for doubling the amount of fruits and vegetables served everyday at lunch. Schools that have salad bars also make it easy for students to ‘Make Half Their Plate Fruits and Vegetables,’ as recommended by the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.'
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