Most studies have assessed student receptivity to procurement practice changes based on

older meal standards and used only one method to assess student receptivity, such as the amount of food left on students’ trays (plate waste) ( Adams et al., 2005, Cashman et al., 2010 and Templeton et al., 2005) or administrative inhibitors records of unused Z-VAD-FMK research buy food ( Cohen et al., 2012). Supported in part by CPPW, this study sought to examine student receptivity to school meals offered by the LAUSD in SY 2011–2012 that met the 2012 USDA school meal nutrition standards. It builds on current evidence by using both administrative records and plate waste data to provide a more comprehensive picture of student receptivity to new menu offerings. While food waste represents SKI-606 cell line only one of several dimensions of student receptivity, it is a plausible and reliable proxy measure of student reactions to school menu changes. Because previous research suggests that plant-based options are the food category most frequently wasted by youth (Marlette et al., 2005 and Reger et al., 1996), this study focused its analysis on describing fruit and vegetable waste. To characterize

student receptivity to adopted school meal changes in the LAUSD, we measured leftover fruit and vegetable items at four randomly selected middle schools, using two sources: a) food prepared and left over after service (production waste); and b) food selected but not eaten by students (plate waste). Current USDA policy promotes the “offer versus serve” concept, where students until are required, for purposes of government reimbursement,

to choose at least three of five food components from a variety of categories (meat/meat alternate, grains, fruits, vegetables, and low-fat (1%) or fat-free milk). During any given lunch period, LAUSD schools offer multiple options for each of the categories (e.g., two entrées, two vegetable items, two fruit items). Therefore, we attempted to capture information about a) whether students selected the fruit and vegetable items and b) the extent to which students consumed these items. Simple random sampling using a random number generator was used to select four of the 75 middle schools served by the FSB (Table 1). Plate waste studies are notoriously labor intensive, disruptive of school lunchtime routine and expensive to conduct. To ensure variability of student demographic characteristics within the study budget and thereby minimize type I error, the investigators emulated sample sizes used in recent literature (Cohen et al., 2012, Cohen et al., 2013, Nozue et al., 2010 and Yon et al., 2012) by including four schools in the study. Selected schools were comparable with estimates of the LAUSD student demographics for the 2011–2012 school year, which showed that 72.3% of students were Hispanic, and 76.7% were eligible for free/reduced price lunch (California Department of Education, 2014).