Hot food at school is one of the factors of physical and mental health of the younger generation. It is necessary to pay close attention to this issue. Let us analyze how the organization of hot meals at school is carried out.
Diet
Two meals a day are supposed for schoolchildren of Russian educational institutions : breakfast and lunch. Children attending an extended day group are additionally required to receive an afternoon snack.
Around-the-clock presence of children in boarding schools involves a five-time meal. An hour before bedtime, in the form of a second dinner, the guys get a glass of yogurt, fermented baked milk or kefir.
Breaks between main meals should not exceed four hours.
Employee Requirements
The organization of hot meals involves the observance of personal hygiene by employees of the catering department. Only healthy employees who undergo a medical examination in accordance with the instructions and orders in force in the general educational institution are allowed to cook for schoolchildren. Each employee must have a personal health record book, which indicates information about past medical research, infectious diseases, and passing the sanitary minimum.
Hygiene rules
For employees who prepare hot meals for students, certain hygiene rules are presented. They are obliged to come to the workplace in clean shoes and clothes, leave a hat, personal belongings, outerwear in the dressing room.
Persons who are responsible for hot meals in an educational institution are required to cut their nails shortly.
Before starting work, they thoroughly wash their hands and put on clean clothes. In case of catarrhal diseases or intestinal disorders, burns or cuts, they are obliged to inform the school administration about this, seek help from a medical institution. The administration of an educational institution has the right to remove an employee of the school canteen from performing official duties if he refuses to apply to a medical institution for professional help.
Food Unit Requirements
There are certain requirements for the place where hot meals are prepared for students. It is not allowed to smoke, eat, drink alcohol in the catering department. Prior to the start of the shift, the medical officer checks the canteen workers for any obvious purulent diseases on their skin, and also takes for examination samples of dishes offered to children and employees of the educational organization.
Each school food unit should have a medical kit in which there are all the necessary drugs for first aid.
Providing hot meals is carried out only with the permission of the bodies of the Sanitary Inspection.
Meal organization
Hot meals in Russian general education organizations are carried out according to classes (groups) at large breaks. Their duration should not be less than 15 minutes. In order for the children to have time to have lunch, at the end of the lesson (in 5-10 minutes) the attendants go to the school cafeteria. They set the tables for the whole class, observing the rules of personal hygiene. Each classroom group has certain tables.
According to the rules adopted in each educational organization, duty is carried out by children over fourteen years of age, and the teacher on duty manages the process.
Hot meals at school are often organized using a distribution line. In the production facilities of the school cafeteria, the presence of children is strictly prohibited. Also, they should not be involved in works that are related to the process of cooking, cutting bread, washing dirty dishes.
List of banned products for educational organizations
Products that have expired have been categorically banned for use in school meals, and signs of poor quality have been identified. Hot meals do not allow the use of leftover food from the previous day. It is also forbidden to use vegetables and fruits in school canteens that show signs of spoilage. Meat and fish for cooking must pass a preliminary veterinary control.
In the list of prohibited foods for children, canned food without labels, with signs of rust, lacking tightness. The ban applies to non-industrial food products, cakes, pastries with butter cream, mushrooms, kvass, milk (without pasteurization and primary processing). Forbidden in the school canteen dishes that are prepared from uncooked smoked sausages and gastronomic products. Not provided for coffee, energy drinks, alcohol, soda, ice cream from vegetable fats.
Hot school meals should not contain ketchup, hot sauces, pickled fruits and vegetables, hot peppers.
Soups and main dishes in the dining room of a general educational organization cannot be made from instant concentrates.
Rationality and balance of nutrition
What foods should be school hot food? The axiom of a healthy and balanced diet provides the following rules:
- correspondence of caloric content (energy value) of a dish to physiological age-related needs of elementary school students and adolescents;
- inclusion in the diet of the necessary ratio of the main substances for growth and development;
- the use of products enriched with vitamins;
- technological processing of products, which allows to fully ensure the taste of the product while maintaining its value;
- optimal distribution of daily meals by individual meals.
Important points
In the dining room of a general educational organization, it is necessary to have an approximate menu for two weeks, which is developed on the basis of the physiological needs of the child's body in nutrients, as well as taking into account the norms approved by the sanitary-epidemiological services and the rules of the institution.
For example, the following products should be included in the daily school menu: vegetables, vegetable and butter, sugar. Twice a week, eggs, cottage cheese, cheese, fish, sour cream are added to the dishes.
Assortment of dishes
Breakfast in the school cafeteria should consist of snacks, a hot meal and a drink. It is also advisable to offer children fruits and vegetables.
In addition to salad, a hot dish, meat or fish with a side dish are served for lunch. As an appetizer, a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, sauerkraut or fresh cabbage, beets, carrots is allowed. Portioned vegetables are allowed as an additional side dish. In order to improve the taste of snacks, it is allowed to add nuts, raisins, prunes, apples to the salad.
As an afternoon snack, fermented milk products, juices, jelly, supplemented with buns without cream, are recommended.
For dinner, a vegetable or cottage cheese, porridge, drink, as well as poultry or fish is supposed. As a supplement, a fermented milk product is allowed, a bun without butter cream.
If any product is missing, it is necessary to select a replacement for it that is equivalent in nutritional value.
Nutritional standards
They must fully comply with the decree of the Government of the Russian Federation. For weakened, emaciated children and adolescents, according to the decision of the doctor, additional nutrition may be offered.
If children and adolescents stay in an educational institution for more than four hours, the organization of hot meals is a mandatory element of the school.
In addition to the free sale of ready meals, a buffet is allowed, the range of which includes culinary products for intermediate meals by children and teachers.
Selling in a buffet of bakery products should be carried out in an amount of not less than two or three items of baking. In addition to rich bakery products, it is allowed for schoolchildren to sell baked goods enriched with vitamin-mineral mixes (rolls with jam, berries, jam).
Also in the recommendations for the organization of school meals, the inclusion in the assortment of rolls with bran or with the addition of whole grain is noted.
Doctors reviews
Medical workers are convinced that catering in domestic educational institutions is an important and responsible task. They note that the physical and psychological health of schoolchildren, and, consequently, the final result of training, directly depends on the correctness and rationality of the approach to this issue. At a school where children are staying for 3-6 hours, pediatricians are sure that there should be a buffet. Here, students can be offered free hot dishes and baked goods.
In buffets and canteens of educational institutions, the sale of flour confectionery products (waffles, rolls, rugs, gingerbreads) weighing up to one hundred grams, as well as their own baking, is allowed in unlimited quantities. The exception is products with cream (oil) filling.
Of the dishes made by the employees of the school cafeteria, vinaigrettes and salads are recommended. Serving size is allowed in the range of 30 to 200 grams.
Salad dressing is carried out immediately before the sale. As hot dishes allowed for sale as part of school meals, one can distinguish boiled sausages in the dough, hot sandwiches with boiled sausage, cheese. They are prepared before implementation, heating in microwave ovens. The recommended shelf life and sale of such products should not exceed three hours after manufacture (if there is a cooling counter in the educational institution).
As part of the preferential nutrition of students for budgetary funds, as well as due to subventions from charitable organizations, educational institutions are encouraged to organize hot breakfasts. Primarily they provide primary school students, as well as children from low-income families.