Chef Jeff has been a part of the high school for many years; however, as food restrictions are being enforced at AHS students may not have the luxury of rushing to the commons for the famous breakfast bagel during tutorial next year.

The Wellness Committee, consisting of ASD employees, parents and people in the community, created guidelines for food sold at ASD schools in April of 2008 that were revised last fall. As contracts with outside vendors are being renewed for next year, these guidelines have become a focus for the high school cafeteria.

“This policy was signed into being in January 2013, and was revised in October of 2013,” Elise Dreher, the school district wellness committee coordinator, said. “As they renew contracts and look at our situations for next year, they are looking to see that all the schools, including the preschool, follow these guidelines.”

These guidelines are regulation that the vendor- currently Chef Jeff- will have to adhere to. As of right now there is no contract of the 2014-15 school year.

The Wellness Committee was formed as a result of a meeting with the Children Health Foundation in 2008, and after establishing goals and specific policies, they have set out to enforced nutrition in the district.

“When we refocused our energies and set our goals [in 2013], our number one goal was to make sure the nutrition standards were being followed district wide.” Lynne Seaman, one of the parents on the Wellness Committee, said.

In order to ensure that the high school is following these standards, Chef Jeff has been asked to make adjustments for next year.

“This is a wellness policy that we are trying to adhere to and trying to comply with, and its really hard because it won’t let us have French fries; it won’t let us have a certain amount of sugar in drinks, for example Gatorade has too much sugar,” Chef Jeff said.

Changes for next year will include the following:

Breakfast bagels- different cheese and made with whole-wheat bagels.

Hash Browns- cannot be fried, might have to be made on the grill if that is fast enough.

Pizza- Whole-wheat dough will replace the currently used white dough.

All white rice will be replaced with brown rice.

Though many items will be affected by these guidlines, Chef Jeff feels they will have the largest impact on drinks sold at AHS.

“The critical things are probably the drink content, we have to really really curb back to low calories drinks,” Chef Jeff said. “So selection we be drastically altered.”

Chef Jeff has been seeking advice from other school vendors in Colorado on how to sell food that appeals to high schoolers, while meeting at the Colorado School food standards. However, in order to meet all the regulations for next year food selection will be much slimmer. Contracts are still not in place and Chef Jeff is still waiting to hear if they will be back at AHS for the 2014-2015 school year.

“We’re continuing to do what we’ve been doing with fresh veg., doing fresh salads doing everything we possibly can to make fresh and organic, but in the mean time the variation and I guess you’d call it the privilege of the things we’ve been having for the last few years is probably going to be really narrowed,” Chef Jeff said. “It’s unfortunate but it’s still a work in progress and we are trying to figure it out. We might not be the choice of the administration next year, they might choose and do it in-house, but we are going to find out and we hope we’re here.”