Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, Nutrition Services

Nutrition Services of Monterey Peninsula Unified School District provides breakfast, lunch, after school snack and supper, as well as summer meals to the over 10,000 students in our district. We are at the front line of closing the hunger gap in our community and so our mission of "providing the highest quality, nutritious food choices that support academic and athletic achievement" is extremely important to us. We do this in many ways, from offering as many from-scratch meals as possible, to eliminating "ingredients of concern" (high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, artificial colors, preservatives, and sweeteners) from our menu. Nutrition education is another value of our program and we participate in several programs that support this value, including California Thursdays, in which only food grown and made in California is served every Thursday, and Bay to Tray, in which Monterey Bay by-catch becomes a delicious meal for our students. Of course, we have a lot of room for growth and one of our most exciting areas of expansion will be in the form of school gardens.