The National Institute of Student Welfare (INABIE) announced significant changes in the school menu with the inclusion of new recipes and products, which will begin to be implemented starting next school year 2024-2025, under a comprehensive supervision program.
According to the institution, improvements in school meals seek to optimize the consumption of fiber and micronutrients in lunch and breakfast, making them more attractive and varied for students.
“This is why, after months of testing, starting next school year they will be served at school breakfast reduced sugar muffinsmade from oats, corn, carrots, coconut and banana, which will be alternated with other bakery products, such as vegetable bread, corn flour bread and oatmeal cookies, along with morning milk rations that have had their sugar and fat reduced,” reads a press release.
The new combinations and products were presented at an event at the Las Malvinas school, located in Santo Domingo Oeste, headed by the executive director of INABIE, Víctor Castro, and the Minister of Agriculture, Limber Cruz, with whose entity the pilot project for the inclusion of fruits has been worked on.
Castro explained that the institution will continue to strengthen school meals, both by designing recipes and by effectively supervising compliance with the guidelines.
Fruits for everyone
The executive reported that the inclusion project of fresh fruits The School Feeding Program (PAE), which began last year as a pilot in 29 educational centers, passed its acceptance phase and starting next school year will be distributed in the more than five thousand educational centers that operate under the Extended School Day (JEE).
The fruit cocktail (pineapple, melon, watermelon, papaya, mango) will be served twice a week in a 4-ounce container, and whole fruits, mainly ripe bananas, will be delivered three times, totaling around 6 million banana units distributed weekly.
“For the next school year, in terms of bananas alone, 246 million units will be consumed in schools,” Castro said.
Minister Limber Cruz highlighted the impact of this project and its importance for the country’s food and agriculture program.
New recipes
Dr. Ana Carolina Baezdirector of Nutritional Formulation and Evaluation, and an expert in nutrition, obesity and eating disorders, said that improvements in the school menu, with the reduction of sugars and the optimization of fibers and micronutrients, are part of the recommendations of health organizations to promote health and prevent diseases.
School lunch will also feature new dishes, including innovative ways of preparing food that are beneficial for schoolchildren: Baked sardine meatballs in fresh tomato sauce, eggs with baked vegetables, lettuce and tomato salad, pasta with pork meatballs in fresh tomato sauce, potato, egg and vegetable salad with mayonnaiseamong others.
Dr. Báez explained that these new products and dishes seek to “provide a significant contribution of vitamins, minerals and fiber, in addition to variety and greater acceptability, contributing to fulfilling the fundamental objective of the PAE, which is to offer nutritionally adequate and healthy food to maintain an optimal nutritional status and reduce school dropout in the pre-university student population in the public sector.”
The event was also attended by the executive director of INESPRE, Iván Hernández Guzmán; the administrator of Banco Agrícola, Fernando Durán; the president of EDUCA, Darwin Caraballo; Eduardo Peña, deputy director of INABIE; and Ocirema Caminero, director of the INABIE Cabinet, among others. Also attending were Nelson Astacio, coordinator of the Extended School Day of the MINERD; Isaachart Burgos, president of UMPIH; Rodrigo Castañeda, representative of the FAO in the Dominican Republic; Jaime Tolentino, representative of the Associations of Parents, Mothers, Friends and Tutors of the School (ADMAES); as well as representatives of the Dominican Banana Association and the World Food Programme (WFP), regional and district directors of the MINERD, and directors and managers of INABIE.
Continue reading:
Are they selling Inabie school supplies in Ocoa?
Court sends corporal accused of murdering doctor Enrique Espinal to preventive detention
