Life Time Foundation’s New Software Helps School Food Pros Serve Healthier Meals New Tool for Schools
Life Time Foundation Nutrition Project Manager
Megan Flynn, MPH, RD
As school nutrition professionals know , when children are well-nourished, their minds and bodies can flourish. But for many, there is limited time in the day to read ingredient lists and compare the nutritional quality of products. With the help of Life Time Foundation, school nutrition pros around the country now have access to a game-changing tool: Green Onion. In our pursuit to build this tool, we found Becki and Dusty Swan of Swan Solutions, an amazing, experienced partner. Green Onion is a free online tool for school nutrition professionals and purchasing cooperatives that automatically analyzes their products for ingredients of concern. By easily and efficiently identifying these ingredients,Green Onion helps school districts serve the most nourishing, delicious food possible to the students in their care. Green Onion started from a dream: to start all kids on their healthy way of life journey (our mission at Life Time Foundation).
From the beginning, nutrition has been our primary target for achieving this goal. We knew that, if we could partner with school food professionals in their efforts to keep highly processed foods out of school meals, we could start empowering kids to lead happier, healthier lives. Today, Life Time Foundation provides grants to school districts nationwide for capital equipment, staff training, education and marketing, and operational support. For each of the grants, we work directly with school food pros to create customized plans that help them serve whole, minimally processed meals — and always encourage scratch cooking practices. To date, we’ve partnered with 35 school districts, impacting more than 1.7 million children. Partnerships typically last three-to-five years and, on top of financial grants, provide schools with the support of our nutrition project manager to help identify and eliminate unhealthy ingredients. That’s where Green Onion enters the story.
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