USD 435 - Kansas School Lunch Week

Kansas School Lunch Week

. . . and fun facts about foods produced in Kansas!

Did you know there are more cattle in Kansas than people? There are about 6.63 million beef cows in Kansas and 2.8 million people. Kansas is the second highest beef producing state in the nation. This is just one of the fun facts associated with this week’s celebration of Kansas School Lunch Week, January 26-30, 2015.

The Kansas State Department of Education in partnership with Kansas Department of Agriculture, Kansas Agri-Tourism, Kansas Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom and Kansas Rural Center have joined together to celebrate the connections between local food and schools. In doing so, they encouraged schools across the state to feature Kansas food products in their daily menus. Therefore, according to Kyleen Harris, USD 435’s Food and Nutrition Services Director, Abilene students are dining on our state’s bounty this week.

Monday’s menu included pork sandwiches while Kansas beef was used to prepare Tuesday’s tacos. On Wednesday whole wheat rolls were offered along with a whole grain breaded chicken pattie. Today’s menu (Thursday) included a side of corn, and Friday’s fare will incorporate dairy—cheesy Huntington Chicken along with milk that, of course, is an everyday offering.

It’s always fun to have a reason to celebrate and to learn a little more about our state but, Kansas School Lunch Week is also a great time to recognize the efforts that go into the daily production of both breakfast and lunch meals. A big THANK YOU to Kyleen, and her staff for all the time and effort spent feeding our kids!

Other Kansas Fun Food Facts — Did you know?

• Sunflower: The head of a sunflower holds between 1,000-2,000 sunflower seeds.

• Corn: 75% of all food found in a grocery store contains corn in some form. Even when you buy meat, don’t forget that animal was probably fed corn!

• Milk: There are more than 123,000 dairy cows in Kansas, which produce more than 2.5 billion pounds of milk each year! A single cow produces about 90 glasses of milk a day.

• Wheat: There are 22,430 wheat farmers in Kansas that grow 18% of all the wheat grown in the U.S.A.

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