THE IMPACT OF HERBS AND SPICES ON ACCEPTANCE, SELECTION, AND INTAKE OF VEGETABLES SERVED WITHIN A RURAL PENNSYLVANIA MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM

open_access
Open Access
Author:
Fritts, Juliana Rose
Graduate Program:
Food Science
Degree:
Master of Science
Document Type:
Master Thesis
Date of Defense:
May 17, 2018
Committee Members:
Kathleen L. Keller, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
John E. Hayes, Committee Member
Helene Hopfer, Committee Member
Keywords:
school lunch
vegetables
herbs
spices
intake
acceptance
adolescents
sensory
plate waste
Abstract:
While vegetables play a vital role in a healthy diet, intake remains below recommendations for all age groups. Because the National School Lunch Program provides 30 million children with meals throughout the school year, it is a critical setting in which to influence the development of healthy dietary habits. As students participating in the National School Lunch Program are now mandated to take a fruit or vegetable daily, schools have worked to improve vegetable options to ensure they are consumed and plate waste is reduced. In this series of studies, we investigated whether the use of herbs and spices might improve vegetable acceptance, selection, and intake of vegetables within a rural middle and high school lunch program. Before recipe development, surveys conducted found herb and spice exposure to be limited within this population of students and that the lack of recipes compliant with federal regulations were a barrier to the preparation of palatable school vegetables by cafeteria staff. A set of seasoned and plain vegetable recipes that met federal nutrition guidelines for schools were developed by a research chef and evaluated by high school students at their school during lunch. For broccoli (P=0.02), vegetable dip (P<0.0001), black beans and corn (P<0.001), and cauliflower (P= 0.01), students rated overall liking for the seasoned vegetables higher than plain vegetables. Students preferred the seasoned over the plain corn and peas (P=0.002), broccoli (P=0.02), dip (P<0.0001), black beans and corn (P<0.001), cauliflower (P<0.0001), and green beans (P=0.02). During an intervention study, vegetables were added into the school lunch menu and selection, choice to eat again, and intake were compared between the 8 plain and the 8 seasoned vegetable recipes. Students ate more plain than seasoned broccoli (P=0.01), cauliflower (P=0.006), and green beans (P=0.01). Specifically, middle schoolers ate more plain than seasoned corn and peas (P<0.001) and high schoolers ate more seasoned corn and peas than middle schoolers (P=0.002). A trend was seen for the high school students to eat more seasoned than plain black beans and corn (P=0.065) and high schoolers ate more seasoned black beans and corn than middle schoolers (P=0.002). More students said they would eat the vegetable again when it was plain than when seasoned for the broccoli (P<0.0001), cauliflower (P=0.001), carrots (P=0.01), green beans (P=0.02), and corn and peas (P=0.002). A follow-up study was conducted to measure if repeated exposure (5 total exposures) to two seasoning blends might improve selection, choice to eat again, and intake for the seasoned broccoli and seasoned black beans and corn recipes. More students said they would eat broccoli again at post-exposure than pre-exposure (P=0.003) and a trend toward increased broccoli intake was found (P=0.07). No exposure effects were found for the black beans and corn but more high school students after the exposure said they would eat the black beans and corn again (from 66.7% at pre-exposure to 92.3% at post-exposure). Further, while not significant, the increase in intake from pre- to post-exposure was higher for the middle schoolers (~24.0 grams) compared to the high schoolers (~7.0 grams). These studies suggest that, even with low seasoning exposure, older adolescents may prefer seasoned over plain vegetables. When added into the school lunch program, however, younger students may consume plain over seasoned vegetables potentially due to aversion to novel seasonings. Even so, repeated exposure to seasonings may have the potential to boost intake and acceptance of seasoned vegetables with younger students in the long term. Thus, the use of herbs and spices may be a useful strategy to improve vegetable offerings within federal school lunch programs.