High School Opens Vegetarian Lunch Line

Grady High School ninth-grader Jessica Fortney, 15, prepares to eat a
vegetarian lunch in the school cafeteria at the Atlanta, Ga. school Nov. 30,
2005. "I get the vegetarian meals because they have a decent selection you
can choose from," she said. "Otherwise, I would have to eat the disgusting
pizza every day." (AP Photo/Gene Blythe)

Miriam Archibong remembers the food offerings her high school cafeteria used
to serve for vegetarians: bland salads and greasy cheese pizza.

But salads are "not sufficient to survive," she says. "Cheese pizza that's
not healthy because of all that grease."

Archibong often brought her own food, lunching on applesauce, carrots and
water. Finally, she and other vegetarians at Grady High School demanded and
won some changes two years ago.

Today, Grady High has a separate vegetarian lunch line with a menu as varied
as veggie eggrolls, pasta salad, vegetarian pizza and sloppy joes made of
tofu.

"My favorite thing was the veggie burger. It was so good," said Archibong,
who graduated in 2005 and now is pursuing more vegetarian options at her new
school Spelman College, an all-girls and historically black school, also in
Atlanta.

For years, school cafeterias have tried to please students with vegetarian
offerings. The American School Food Service Association says more than a
third of U.S. high schools have meatless items that include salads and
cheese pizza.

However, a new trend vegetarian-only lunch lines has started in the
unlikeliest of places the South, home of the "Stroke Belt," long known for
its trademark fried and fatty foods and higher rates of heart attacks and
strokes than other parts of the country.

The urban Atlanta high school's vegetarian-only lunch line is believed to be
one of the first in the country. It's an odd birthplace for such a healthy
innovation, considering the school is only blocks from the city's downtown
bastions of Southern cuisine, including the fried chicken and fried green
tomatoes at the historic Mary Mac's Tea Room and the fried peach pies at the
landmark Varsity restaurant.

Schools in Eugene, Ore., and in other progressive, health-conscious cities
of the Pacific Northwest are beginning to look to Atlanta's example, said
Tom Callahan, senior vice president of Sodexho Inc., the company that
provides Grady's food service.

Emphasis in the past was simply on making sure there were meatless options,
Callahan said. Last year his company brought the separate vegetarian menu to
Eugene "and now we're starting to see some momentum building," he said.

In the middle of a national obesity epidemic in which up to 30 percent of
U.S. children are overweight or obese, health officials long have been
concerned about what students eat, or whether they eat. For example, Atlanta
schools' cafeterias only serve meals to about one in five high schoolers,
who aren't allowed to leave campus for lunch. School officials worry that
many of the students either are bringing junk food for lunch or are not
eating at all.

"There are students who are coming to us on empty and leaving on empty. We
constantly have to look at creative ways to engage middle and high school
students," said Dr. Marilyn Hughes of Atlanta Public Schools' nutrition
department.

"That concerns us overall for the obesity rate and for our commitment to
academic excellence. We know they never had the opportunity to reach that if
they never had proper nourishment," Hughes said.

But Grady's vegetarian line has been a popular cafeteria draw. Originally
designed for the 30 students in Archibong's Vegetarian Club, meat-eaters
also jumped in line and the cafeteria now serves vegetarian entrees to up to
400 of the school's 1,200 students each day. This past fall, the school
district offered the vegetarian option to other schools, although so far
there have been no takers.

At Grady, non-vegetarian students who graze in the vegetarian line said they
like having better non-meat choices.

"I get the vegetarian meals because they have a decent selection you can
choose from," said ninth-grader Jessica Fortney, 15. "Otherwise, I would
have to eat the disgusting pizza every day."

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On The Net:

Atlanta Public Schools: http://www.atlanta.k12.ga.us

http://www.gradyhighschool.org/