TEMPLE, Texas — The Temple Independent School District’s school nutrition department will be participating in the Texas Department of Agriculture’s Farm Fresh Challenge program during the month of October. TISD will be featuring locally sourced sweet potatoes once a week throughout the month as part of the program.
The Farm Fresh Challenge program encourages school districts to use locally sourced fresh foods and provide educational experiences to students to help create a farm fresh generation of students. TISD is using sweet potatoes from Smithville’s Fruitful Hill Farm this month with a new recipe featured every Wednesday in cafeterias across the district. On October 6th, the featured recipe will be Roasted Sweet Potato Chunks, Baked Sweet Potato Sticks are the featured item on October 13th, Sweet Potato Bread Squares will be served on October 20th and Mashed Sweet Potatoes will close out the month of featured recipes on October 27th. TISD also uses locally sourced lettuce, grain products and milk throughout the school year. A representative from school nutrition will visit a different campus every Wednesday along with “Chef Wildcat” to share information about sweet potatoes and nutrition. There will also be educational information about where the products come from and the agricultural aspect of delivering food from farms to tables.
“The Farm Fresh Challenge by TDA is a creative and interactive way for the students to be introduced to fresh foods that are grown locally,” Miranda Rhodes, school nutrition supervisor and registered dietitian for Temple ISD said. “It also provides new exposure to students to try whole nutritious foods they might not otherwise have.”
Temple ISD school nutrition participates in the TDA’s Farm Fresh Challenge multiple times during the school year. The district will also be participating in National School Lunch Week the week of October 11-15th.