In this episode of Learning in Lake Oswego, we’re diving into a topic that affects every student: nutrition services! Joining us is Cristobal "Cris" Castro, Director of Nutrition Services for LOSD. Cris and his team ensure that all students have access to healthy, delicious meals while incorporating diverse, sustainable menu options and food education. We’ll explore how school meals have evolved, how students can help shape their dining experience, and what’s next for nutrition in LOSD. We also hear from Jake Jordan, a Lake Oswego High School sophomore, who shares a student’s perspective on school meals. Get ready to be inspired—and maybe even a little hungry!
Dr. Jennifer Schiele, Superintendent, LOSD
Mary Kay Larson, Executive Director of Communications, LOSD
Cristobal Castro, Director of Nutrition Services, LOSD
Jake Jordan, Student, Lake Oswego High School
MICHELLE ODELL:: [00:00:00] Welcome to Learning in Lake Oswego, a podcast providing educational insights for an engaged community. Lake Oswego School District Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Schiele will discuss what's important to our learning community. She'll be joined by experts examining various topics, answering important questions, and sharing upcoming events and activities you won't want to miss.
And now, it's your host.
MARY KAY LARSON:: Hi everyone, welcome to Learning in Lake Oswego. I'm Mary Kay Larson, your host here with our superintendent, Dr. Jennifer Schiele today we are talking about one of my favorite topics. or in the school district, nutritional services. Joining us is Cristobal Castro. He is our Director of Nutrition Services for Lake Oswego School District.
Chris and his team play a vital role in our schools, ensuring all students [00:01:00] have access to healthy, delicious meals. They incorporate diverse, sustainable menu options and find many opportunities to provide food education. Because every moment of the school day is a teachable moment. We'll explore how school meals have evolved.
They're not like what many of us remember when we were going to school. And how Chris and his team get the students involved in shaping their dining experience. And then also talk about what's in store for the future of nutritional services here in our schools. And speaking of getting students involved, we also have with us Jake Jordan.
He's a sophomore at Lake Oswego High School, and he is here to share the student perspective on school meals. Jake is very active in our schools and in our community. I know Dr. Scheele knows him from serving on her superintendent student council, so we're really excited to have Jake on our show as well.
So with that, Jen, let's get started.
DR JENNIFER SCHIELE:: Welcome, Chris and Jake. We're so excited to have you here [00:02:00] today. Why don't we start here with you, Chris. Please tell me a little bit about yourself, what led you to a career in nutritional services, and then what specifically brought you to Lake Oswego.
CRISTOBAL CASTRO:: Hi, yeah, thanks for having me.
I originally, I'm from Southern California. I studied at Arizona State University for, and my background is in dietetics with an emphasis in school nutrition. I've been doing it for about seven, eight years now. I've been working all across the Southwest and I started at Lake Oswego almost four years ago now.
And I just have a love for the Pacific Northwest and I really enjoy being here and being able to be a part of the community. and being able to provide some healthy nutritious meals.
Speaker 3: That's fantastic. So looking at the big picture, what are the core focus areas guiding nutrition services in Lake Oswego?
And then how do those priorities shape what's offered to students each day in the cafeteria?
Speaker 4: Well, the important part is Always [00:03:00] keeping up with trends, especially these days and age social media plays a huge factor in what students see and what they want to have for lunch. So that's one thing that we do is we try to stay in touch with what the kids are viewing online.
We always try to make our meals accessible for everyone no matter what. We try to be as sustainable as possible with our food and our products. In all this, we're doing it at the same time as promoting healthy choices and rotating entrees and things like that. We always try to establish local partnerships with local farms and local producers.
And we try to educate our students through some small chef classes and through some farmer's market events at elementary campuses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've been to those events. They're amazing and super fun. And the kids looking at all the food. Fresh fruit and vegetables and the bright colors. And I think it's fair to say school meals have changed a lot over the years.
And so what are some of the biggest differences between students meals today's and, and what maybe their parents experienced when [00:04:00] they were in school? And then like, what surprises people the most about school nutrition standards and offerings?
Speaker 4: It's definitely changed a lot. The biggest surprise that we get from parents is.
Wow, you have a salad bar? Like, fresh fruits and vegetables? And usually we're like, yeah, and then whenever possible, we have organics on there as well, and that's always, like, a big shock for a lot of parents. That's just not something that would happen even 10, 15 years ago. Another big one is choices.
It's not how it was before, where, you know, everybody gets the same spaghetti and meatballs. You know, now you have choices. You have Elementary schools, three choices. Secondary schools have, I believe, up to seven at times. So, there's a lot going on. And, and all this is being done with the strict standards that USDA has within the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program.
We make sure to follow all those guidelines while being able to offer some amazing meals. You know, some of the top ones right now is ramen, [00:05:00] sushi, the asada tacos that we just had. Those are some of the favorites that the students are enjoying. We have vegan options daily. That's also something that's pretty new.
Again, all this with the strict guidelines from USDA. We're following whole grain requirements, sodium intake requirements, and we make sure to keep our saturated fat levels at a good level.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would imagine for people listening, if you go back to when you had lunch, In school, and I remember having like a little container of prunes that you had to eat or otherwise you didn't get to go out to recess.
And one time I put my prunes in my chocolate milk thinking that I could get away with that. And then the lunch lady picked up my chocolate milk thing and heard something rattling in there and she actually made me eat the prunes out of the chocolate milk. So yeah, things have changed a lot in lunch. And I mean, I still remember that very, very clearly. And so I think that that's, you know, a big difference today. And [00:06:00] another big difference I feel like I've seen is just ensuring this accessibility for all students, making sure that they have something nourishing to eat, regardless of financial or logistic barriers.
Can you share some ways how we manage that here in Lake Oswego?
Speaker 4: Right off the bat, no one is going to be denied a meal, whether it's for breakfast or lunch. Any student that's hungry, they're going to receive a meal from us. Every student already has an account that we've created for them. So if they forget their lunch at home, it's not a problem.
Just come by the lunch line and we'll make sure that your kiddo receives a meal. We also run, like I mentioned earlier, a lot of the USDA programs here, so if we do the free and reduced meal applications, we run the Oregon Expanded Income Guideline program, and then we also run the CEP program here.
And now all these programs help us provide accessibility for meals to all families. Some of them are at a reduced rate, or even a free rate. And we try to communicate that as much as possible with families, [00:07:00] and you know, if we notice, Any type of issues with an account, we'll make sure to contact families and make sure that they're educated on what's available.
We're not ever going to shame a student in, on the lunch line. That's something that will not happen here. So we'll make sure to make those types of communications directly with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so important. And it's so important that our kids have food in their stomachs when they're trying to learn. I mean, it's such an important part of, of making sure your mind is ready for that growth, that learning growth.
So, thank you. Another really big part of our new service to our students is, is getting them involved. So like, how do you gather input from students when planning menus? And have you ever made any changes based on, What students say that they want.
Speaker 4: Oh, all the time. I mean, I feel like we're having student taste testings every month.
And, and those are a lot of fun. And what we do with those events is we bring in vendors either local vendors or, you know nationwide vendors to [00:08:00] come do some tastings with our students and we have them. Tell us what they really think. You know, is, is that pizza any good? Is that chicken any good?
Most recently we just had Ota Tofu come out and do food tasting at Lake Oswego High School and we got a lot of feedback from students. A lot of them looked like it was their first time trying tofu, but it was fun and we were able to get some good feedback from them and with that feedback we were able to narrow down one specific type of recipe that we're going to be using.
So, student taste testing events, we do student surveys, we do tasters during lunchtime as well. Most recently we did another student tasting over at the brand new River Grove Elementary. cafeteria and that was a fun event. We were able to finally do one with elementary age students and they were just so happy to give their input.
And with that input, we were able to narrow down some flavors that they were interested in and make a deal with the local company and get those products ordered in here for them.
Speaker 3: That's great. I mean, the students at River [00:09:00] Grove help design their school, and they help design what they get to eat. So that, what an experience for students.
That definitely is new. I do not remember doing either of those when I was growing up. I also understand that we recently received a Farm to School competitive grant. So what does that mean for our students, and what are the meals they receive from that? And then how does it like connect to our district's larger focus of fresh, locally sourced foods?
Speaker 4: That grant was was granted to us this school year, and it was great to have it. We still have a portion of it available to us, but it's been awesome to be able to partner with local farms and local companies. Just to name a few, Hood River Organics, that we get a lot of fresh organic produce from them.
We partner with Happy Curry, a small company down in Salem. They provide us different curry sauces that we mix here with chicken and rice and some veggies. Felton Mary's, local Portland company, they do a lot of sausage links, and they do barbecue sauces. Pacific Seafoods, we purchased our shrimp from them, and that's locally [00:10:00] caught shrimp here on the coast of Oregon.
Origami Catering, they're the company that makes our sushis, and those sushis are the same ones that you find at stores like New Seasons. So, with that said, we're able to use those funds to purchase these high quality items from local companies, and we're able to keep it all here in Oregon. And even in Portland, the Portland metro area, that's a huge plus for us that we're able to, to have ties with the community like that.
And those foods we seem to see that the kids are enjoying them. Sushi is one of our busiest days at the secondary schools. Organics are always great to have on our salad bars. And the, the curry sauces are very fun to try. Lot of flavor there. And It's all great, and we're hoping to be able to apply for the grant again next school year.
Speaker 3: That's fantastic. I know you get the shrimp and make that ceviche, which I think is fantastic. I mean, who would have thought we'd have ceviche at lunch in our schools, but we do. That's right. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's another one, yeah.
Speaker 3: And I also was there during the tofu tasting, and also we've had a noodle [00:11:00] tasting.
And I just think that's so amazing that we're letting the kids try these items and see if they like them or don't like them. More importantly, just getting feedback about the flavors and what kind of flavors they want to have. So it's so fun to watch that in the cafeteria. I know you've had other menu option changes.
What are some of the exciting new dishes or food items students, you know, have been looking forward to this year and are really liking? And then are there trends or special requests that you're seeing?
Speaker 4: You know, the the trends right now is all about newness, you know, what's what's new and I mentioned social media earlier It's whatever's on social media is is going to be a hit this school year.
We started our new ramen recipe It took some tinkering, it took some student tasting to get it down. And I think we're, we're pretty close to getting it almost 100 percent perfect. It's a very popular day. It's very heavy on the kitchen, but the ladies love making it. It's a lot of fun. A lot of flavor there.
We're also gonna be doing some barbecue pork sliders. It's [00:12:00] gonna be a new one at the elementary level. It should be a lot of fun to do. We're doing the the Ota Tofu. That's also gonna be a fun item to, to give a go. It's just staying with the trends, and another one that's, that's pretty big is plant based items.
Plant based items have become a huge trend nationwide, and we are partnering with a company called Rebellious Foods out of Washington, and they produce some chicken less burger patties, and they also produce some of our they're called kickin nuggets, which are a very popular plant based item that we currently serve at the elementary level.
So just continuing these partnerships with these companies and Being able to make sure that we're paying attention to what students want.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was at Helen Ann last week and they were serving chicken nuggets. Which look like chicken nuggets. Yeah, and I was asking the kids like what do you think of those?
They're like, I love these. These are way better than anything I have. So I was like, huh? Okay, that's
Speaker 4: They're very tasty. I had a conversation with a parent who says that whenever the her and [00:13:00] her kiddo go out to eat now, the kiddo asks for for vegan nuggets on the menus and it's I'm like, I'm sorry I caused that but at the same time, maybe it's a good thing.
I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, plant based. It's a, it's good for your digestive system. That's what I hear. We kind of mentioned River Grove a little bit earlier. Can you talk a little bit about the brand new dining space we have there and how it was designed and how it enhances student dining?
Speaker 4: That project is, well, it came out to be an amazing, incredible space.
It's just open concept. Tons of lighting coming in. It's just a place where students can socialize and, you know, enjoy their meals. As far as planning, I remember about, oh, I want to say two, three years ago, we started the planning for that room and, and when they told me, oh, we want to build a, a commons room or cafeteria for students.
I was so excited. I was like, yes, we, we get one at an elementary level. This is going to be amazing. So I put my two cents in i'm like I would like to have it like this, you know tables here tables there i'm, like if we can get some sunlight [00:14:00] and just all came really great together and It's, it's an amazing space.
Right currently at that school, we have about 65 to 75 percent of the students eating school lunch, which is huge. And it's, it's just nice to go in there and see everyone really enjoying themselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is a beautiful space and we are hopefully building two new elementary schools in the near future and Lake Grove and Forest Hills will also have amazing space.
It's very exciting to see it transform here. And when I told that story about the prunes earlier, we had a cafeteria back in the day, you know, that's, that's where people ate their lunch with the lunch ladies. We even had a traffic light in our cafeteria that was like red, yellow, and green. And if it got too loud, it went to red and that meant everybody had to stop talking.
It was very different. And now I go into River Grove and I see the kids all eating there and it's beautiful. Beautiful space as you mentioned the sunlight coming in it looks out over the recess area the playground the fields It's just [00:15:00] so beautiful. I mean, it's just a nice place to enjoy your lunch and then get on with your learning So
Speaker 4: it's pretty great.
And I think sometimes the the band teacher has a music going so that's that's nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah Absolutely. So, as you know, sustainability is a major focus in not only our district, but our community. What are some of the latest initiatives in this area for nutritional services? And then, like, when you're looking forward, how do we reduce waste, increase local sourcing, or make operations more environmentally friendly?
Speaker 4: So this first step is definitely increasing local partnerships, and that's what we've done the last few school years here, partnering with local farms or local companies. That's the first step and then once we got the food in the schools is we are very careful about how much we're preparing and how much we're serving.
So we try not to over forecast our meals and any food that is leftover though, which it does happen sometimes, instead of just being thrown away, we put it into [00:16:00] compost bins. And this has been going on for years now. With the green teams at each school, we've been able to accomplish that. We do composting, and then this school year, we've started doing well, we made a switch over to our birch wood utensils.
At all elementary schools for, since September, we've been using birch wood utensils. We are not using any more plastics. As far as the sporks or even plastic straws, we don't use those anymore. And we, we've been doing that at all elementary schools. And we are actually just started birch wood utensils at Lake Ridge High School about two weeks ago.
We're trialing it over there with a new dispensing system, and it's been working out pretty well. And we're gonna try it over here at Lake Oswego High School hopefully within the next week or so. And eventually after that, we'll make sure that our middle schools are also participating. But the goal is, by the end of this school year, to remove all single use sporks, forks, spoons from our menus.
That's a huge step for us. We'll be saving [00:17:00] Lots and lots of trash that, that would end up in landfills, you know, and ties in with our sustainability goals.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the things I admire about you, Chris, is that you, you try to pilot something somewhere and, and fix it and tweak it and make sure that it's right before you spread it out to the other schools, and that's just so smart, and so I, I really appreciate that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that it's, it's a good way to get people on board for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. Because it's change and sometimes change is hard for people so we have to help hold their hand while we we get through it. Finally, looking ahead, What's next for nutritional services in Lake Oswego? Are there any upcoming projects or new programs or goals that you personally are excited about?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean Upcoming events, definitely we got our farmers markets coming up in the spring. These will happen at the elementary schools. Those are always fun partner with local farms. We bring in fresh produce and we're able to give kids tasters during recess. We started that last school year, but we're excited to continue it on this year.
We're going to be Trialing some grill days at elementary campuses [00:18:00] this year again in the spring and that's fun We'll grill up some burgers some hot dogs stuff like that and for our students at elementary schools We're gonna bring back our LO chef program where we do small chef classes with students and We did those a few years ago.
There were a lot of fun And as a whole we want more kids to participate in school meals. We can get them to try our version of nachos or our version of pizza. That's always a big goal for us. We believe we do have some very nutritious and healthy food and great taste. So we want all students to be able to test that out and give us a try.
Speaker 3: For those of you listening at home, you know, try to encourage your child to try it because as Chris has said, it's changed a lot and we think they'll like it. Thanks so much, Chris, for being here today. Always fun to have you on the show, to see you and hear more about the program.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: And I'm looking forward to talking to Jake. Welcome to Learning in Lake Oswego, Jake. So fun to have you on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good to be here. Thank [00:19:00] you for having me.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Let's start with getting to know you a little bit. What school do you attend? What grade are you in? And then what are some of your interests in and out of school?
JAKE JORDAN:: I'm a sophomore here at Lake Oswego High School. I'm in Boy Scouts. I'm in Eagle Scout. I'm having a lot of fun in my history class. It's fairly interesting as well as graphic design and Let me see, forecasting is going on right now, so that's kind of what I'm focusing on. In general, I'm part of a few clubs, Dungeons and Dragons, Celery Club, weird name but it's really fun.
Outside of school, usually it's hanging out with friends, watching some movies, taking hikes or walking, driving.
Speaker 3: Cool. Well, today we're on our show. We're talking about our nutritional services, so what you eat in the cafeteria. So can you start with telling me what you most enjoy about school meals in Lake Oswego?
And then do you have a favorite meal or snack that stands out?
Speaker 2: Usually it's really nice when they've put something [00:20:00] new or really interesting on the menu for the day, like about maybe once a month they have sushi. And that's really interesting. You can see they're really popular. Some people get like two or three trays of sushi.
It's crazy. Wow. It's crazy. Yeah. It's just really fun when they try something new like the ramen or the asada tacos. Just really fun seeing the variety and the salad bars are really nice and more diverse. A few weeks ago they had shrimp in the salad bar and that was amazing.
Speaker 3: Oh, that sounds very yummy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I need to know that so I can walk over to LOI and have lunch when they have shrimp on the salad bar. We've been talking a little bit about taste tests and getting student feedback. Have you ever participated in a taste test or shared any feedback on menu items? And if so, what, what's been the, your favorite thing that you shared with the food staff?
Speaker 2: My freshman year, they had a taste test for like chicken nuggets, and they had a lot of different [00:21:00] sauces like to dip them in. And so it was really interesting seeing the variety, it looks like there was some Asian sauces, or Buffalo sauce, or It was really fun and I got to share that. I really like the variety of the sauces and the chicken nuggets and how they tasted.
Speaker 3: That's pretty fun to kind of give your feedback on how the food tastes. Have you felt like the staff has been very willing to listen to you and take your advice?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was tasty. I was like, yeah, I really like the The sauce and the chicken wings taste really good and they were really appreciative of that.
Speaker 3: And fun. I think that's kind of fun for a student to be able to talk about what things they like. And as you know, sustainability is a big focus in Lake Oswego, not only in our community, but our meal programs. What do you think about initiatives like compostable trays, or farm partnerships, or food waste reduction, composting, do you ever think about those things and do you notice these changes in our cafeteria?
Speaker 2: I [00:22:00] sometimes notice the trays we use are kind of like a cardboard ish material, and so they're trying to improve more with the sustainability of them, which I really like, because back in elementary school, they used to use plastic trays, but kids used to just throw them out, and they would just end up in landfills.
But now that they're more recyclable, it's a lot better for our planet, which is nice. And I heard earlier about the wooden forks, which seem really interesting, and I'm really excited to see them later this year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Mr. Cristobal has done such a great job just trying to embrace the sustainability goals of our district and making sure that the food service department actually is following what is best for our, our environment.
Last question, if you could add one thing to the school menu that we don't currently have, what would it be and why?
Speaker 2: See, I'm not sure how to answer that because the school menu has, like, so much variety. If I listed some of my [00:23:00] favorite foods, the school lunch has that. And that's so crazy and so interesting, but I feel like it'd be nice.
This should be easy, but it's so hard just because of the variety. Well, what's one thing you might order at a restaurant that you
Speaker 3: have not seen on the school menu?
Speaker 2: Is that I would say my favorite restaurant is a local restaurant called Deng's. It's a Thai food restaurant, and they have really good pad see ew.
So that'd be pretty cool to see on the school menu.
Speaker 3: All right. I think that'd
Speaker 2: be really fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, let's tell Mr. Christopher. And maybe he can do that. Different noodles are definitely something I've seen him explore, especially at Alohai.
Speaker 2: You've had pad see ew before?
Speaker 3: I have, actually. I also love that restaurant.
Speaker 2: So good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so good. Everything there is good, but that is actually excellent.
Speaker 2: Mm
Speaker 3: hmm. All right, Jake Thank you so much for joining us on the show today I am really appreciative of hearing the student perspective on the food in the cafeteria and again for those of you listening Please ask your student to try some of these foods because even from a kid [00:24:00] they're saying they're great
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Thank you again for having me. Absolutely. I really appreciate it.
Thank you, Chris and Jake. That was fantastic. I will say that we are recording this right before lunch and now I am very hungry. I also want to give a shout out to the nutritional services team. They cater and I know Jen and I have had an opportunity to taste many of the options.
Last year for my daughter's graduation party, we hosted a brunch. And I had the breakfast burritos catered from Chris's team, and they were a huge hit. I highly recommend it. And now I'm craving them again. I might just order them just for brunch this Sunday. I don't know. So good. But with that, Jen, before we head out to lunch, why don't we talk about where you're going to be this month?
We're heading
Speaker 3: into the end of March. Which means spring break is just right around the corner. Great time for students and staff and families to recharge before we jump into an exciting and eventful [00:25:00] April. So here's just a few things to look forward to when we return. The fourth annual ASU cultural festival.
It's Saturday, April 19th at Lake Oswego high school. And this student led event brings together hundreds and hundreds of students, families, and community members for a day of art. Crafts, culture performances, incredible food, and it's a wonderful celebration of diversity in our community, so please attend that.
We also have spring sports season kicking off. Come cheer on all of our student athletics in track and field, lacrosse, baseball, softball, and girls flag football, which is really fun and exciting. Great way to show your spirit, support our students, and connect with the community. And then our schools are also going to be buzzing with performances, showcases, academic events, from band and choir concerts to science fairs.
And be sure to check out that school calendar for all those exciting happenings so you don't miss anything with your family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, spring is a great culmination [00:26:00] of the entire school year and, and students getting a chance to show off all that they've learned. And it's just a, it's a really fun, busy time of year, but a great, fulfilling time of year.
Well, that's it for today's episode of learning in Lake Oswego. Thank you, everyone. Yeah, thank you. And
Speaker 3: until next time, keep exploring and stay engaged. Class dismissed.
Speaker: We hope you found this episode informative and helpful. While our discussions are general, we understand each family's experience is unique.
If you have specific questions about your child, please contact your school principal. To learn more about the topics we discussed, please visit us at www. lakeoswego. com. Ask a question or share ideas for future episodes, please visit LOSDSchools. org. And remember to like and follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you for engaging with Learning in Lake Oswego. We appreciate your support and look forward to having you with us for our next [00:27:00] episode.