National Menu for School Feeding Programmes is Launched

The Ministries of Education and Health say that they want to see more healthy meals in the schools across Belize. As a part of the initiative, a national menu for the school feeding programme was launched today in Belize City to ensure healthy eating for the students. The new menu will take into consideration portions as well as preparation of the food and will do away with unhealthy snacks.  We stopped in at the event where Minister of Education Patrick Faber told us more about the importance of the programme and what it means for the schools.

Patrick Faber

Patrick Faber, Minister of Education

“We inaugurated a new committee that will be championing sustainable school feeding programs across the country and that is very important. We want our children to be able to eat correctly and that is important for their development. But in the longer run it is going to save this entire country a lot of money because of what we spend now on addressing all of the unhealthy conditions that children grow up to be citizens that are unhealthy. So, for us this is something that is long overdue. We also launched today a menu that will cover five weeks so it can be rotated and it is suggestion for our schools to use on a daily basis to provide good quality nutritious meals to the children in our schools.”

Andrea Polanco

“Many times children think healthy meals they think it is going to be a lot of vegetables and things they don’t like. This time around you all have changed things up with the menu?”

Patrick Faber

“Absolutely. I looked at the menu and in fact it is very much a lot of what we eat now. I think a lot will have to do with the way the way that the food is being prepared. In fact, I commended those who put it together because it really reflects a lot of the cultural foods that we eat; foods from all over – Escabeche, Tacari, and so on. So, it is not a crucial departure from what we normally have here. But I believe portions and the way in which they are prepared, the combination is going to be crucial as well if we are going to have these meals be more nutritious.”