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Robyn Daly- Nutritionist
"As you look through it you will see that it has nutrient references for our children, there is a five week menu that is included in it with lots of meal options. You might be looking through it and say, 'Wait, I don't see this, I don't see that. This is healthy that is healthy.' But that is fine. There are a lot of cultural healthy foods that we have in the country and knowing with our school feeding committee and Ms. Cod and the nutrition unit, it was a bit challenging to decide what foods to include in this five week menu. The reason why I say challenging is we have been working with school feeding for about 5 years now and we have challenges within the school feeding program in terms of cost. So, we have to take into consideration affordable foods; foods that actually can be fed for a school that has 300 children. Looking at our current situation we are challenged with what we refer to as the double burden, which means we have undernutrition and overnutrition in the country in high prevalence rates. So, looking at healthy meals is not only looking at it from a stand point of children but also from a national level. When we look at food we need to always consider are we eating for nutrition or are we just eating for eating's sake, or just to fulfill our stomachs. When we look at nutrition, food pact with nutrients vs. food pact with no nutrients is a big difference. So, as you look at feeding children, feeding ourselves, we have to take into consideration what we are eating: empty calories or food with nutrients. Also, looking at sustainability we have to keep in mind food security. The ministry of agriculture is very passionate about working along with schools and the communities to look at food security. We have to start preparing our own foods, we have to have planting. It is essential. I already received a few comments and just to make mention, you might notice that there is mostly chicken on the menu; there is a reason for this. Chicken as you know is one of our most affordable meats in the country and it has been very effective for school feeding programs because of the cost. Especially when we have schools that have 300 to 400 children to feed daily. Having things like pork and beef, which might be, depending on the quality, more costly and unhealthy in some ways for preparation, it will affect sustainability for these programs. You will also notice there is no fish even though we are by the sea, and you might say, 'Everybody should have fish on their menu.' We have had some experiences with fish. Ms. Cod can tell you particularly, the bones for the fish being stuck on the throats of children, small bones. We decided to avoid it and also the cost. There are no juices on the menu because that ties into our next point that we are looking at as a committee. We are looking at banning sugary drinks from schools. So, we are actually promoting water. Not to say that healthy natural juices aren't good but many times when people prepare they add lots of sugar and things like that. So, we want to have children having more fruits and water with their meals to that is what we are seeing."

Hon. Patrick Faber- Minister of Education
"The work is just beginning and sustainability is for many the biggest word in the NSSFDC; sustainability. And that means, for me as well, that the school garden component is very important. You have heard Robyn speak about why certain foods are not on the menu and why certain things have not been considered because of the cost implication. But even the very basic and inexpensive foods that have been included now, if we don't watch it, they will all fall off the menu. There will be no menu because to feed children is a very expensive venture.

"It really reflects a lot of the cultural foods that we eat. You know, there is food from all over- escabeche, Tacari. So it is not a crucial departure from what we normally have here but I believe portions and also the way in which the foods are prepared, the combination, if you will, is going to be very crucial if we are going to have these meals be very nutritious."

Reporter
"How will the program work? Is it that these menus are going to be shared with the schools will the schools be perhaps supported with some of the ingredients that they need?"

Hon. Patrick Faber
"Well, as it is now the ministry tries to support as best as we can along with our partners, school feeding programs across the country. So, we do have ministry run school feeding programs, we have the largest one here on the South Side of Belize City that operates from out of the Frank Lezama Training Facility. And I think that provides about 800 meals per day. But we also have in Dangriga and in rural Belize District."