In early January, the EHS Student Government successfully petitioned to bring back sorbet bowls to the breakfast menu. Although the initial proposal was for acai bowls, the ingredients required to make the acai were too costly. As a result, a compromise was reached to offer frozen yogurt instead of acai.
The Essex Westford School District Nutrition Department has established meals to meet the needs of students with dietary restrictions, such as peanut and tree nut allergies or vegetarian diets. While the return of sorbet bowls has been well received, it has also drawn attention to the limited options available for students who are gluten intolerant or have celiac disease.
Taylor Pike, a senior at Essex High School, is gluten intolerant and is limited to the choices she can eat at daily school lunches.
“It’s inconvenient, and it’s upsetting that everybody else gets free lunch,” Pike said. “I have never gotten the school lunch because, as far as I know, there’s nothing that I can eat. Even if I could, I don’t really trust it.”
Abigail Jackman, a junior at Essex High School, has celiac disease and expressed similar concerns.
“I hope they change in the future because there are so many people who are gluten-free in today’s society,” Jackman said.
According to the FDA, roughly one-third (30-31%) of Americans follow a gluten-free diet. Of those individuals, approximately 1-4% do so for medical reasons such as celiac disease, while others follow the diet due to intolerance or personal choice.
Scott Fay, director of Child Nutrition for the Essex Westford School District, along with Kelly White, manager of allergen efforts, explained that accommodations are already in place for students with Celiac Disease.
“All of what we do is governed by USDA,” Fay said. “They have meal pattern requirements, and one of the nuances to gluten-free is that we can eliminate gluten-containing products, but we’re quite limited on what we can replace those products with because they don’t credit as grains.”
According to the USDA, schools are required to ensure that at least 80 percent of the grains served each week in lunch and breakfast programs are whole-grain-rich, meaning the products must be made up of at least 50 percent whole grains. As for documented students with celiac disease, the restrictions are a little looser.
“What that diagnosis does is that it then allows us to stray from the pattern to accommodate the disease,” Fay said. “There is a whole lot more available for students who have a diagnosis on file.”
Some gluten-free choices that deviate from the standard meal pattern include: breakfast sandwiches on gluten-free bagels, yogurt parfait and sorbet bowls with gluten-free granola, pizza, wraps, burgers, tater tots, quesadillas, nachos, tacos, and more.
“I think the one thing I think we lack is the pasta,” White said. “If more and more kids have documentation, we might be able to store something else, like a pasta…that would be amazing.”
Students with celiac disease who have documented proof are encouraged to contact the EWSD Nutrition Department to set up an accommodation plan and gain access to gluten-free options.
“I think for playing by the rules we are doing a good job, and we’re actually exceeding to the point where we probably shouldn’t be,” Fay said.
