Austin's own 'food revolution,' minus the reality TV series

For the past six weeks, millions of viewers have watched in horror as British chef Jamie Oliver infiltrated schools in Huntington, W.Va., to expose America's dirty school lunch secrets for the ABC series "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution."

He found elementary kids who couldn't tell a tomato from a potato, a high school student so overweight that she'd been told she has just seven years to live and crusty cooks who are as resistant to change as the picky eaters they serve. In typical reality show fashion, Oliver faced the Goliaths, from stubborn students, staff and administrators to a snarly radio jock, and in just six short weeks, defeated them with a roasted chicken thigh in hand.

Now that we've seen what Oliver's "revolution" looks like, how do Austin's own attempts to improve school food compare?

20 years in the making

"Our revolution started a long time ago," says Chris Carrillo-Spano, director of nutrition and food services for Austin Independent School District, over lunch last week at Austin High School that would make even Oliver forget that he was eating in a school cafeteria: sandwiches made with homemade rosemary focaccia bread, from-scratch chicken enchiladas and lightly steamed fresh broccoli served on whole wheat, Omega-3 enriched noodles.

Unlike Oliver's show, school districts don't go from serving mystery meat to homemade hummus overnight. Carrillo-Spano says that Austin schools have been working for more than 20 years to improve the quality of food while still meeting federal nutritional standards and staying on budget.

One of the biggest changes happened five years ago when the head of food services hired Steven Burke, an Austin Community College culinary graduate who would become the district's first chef.

The clean-shaven Burke, 31, with his tightly cropped black curls and eager grin, could be mistaken for one of Austin High's students if it weren't for the white chef's coat and pants decorated with red, yellow and green peppers he wore while he gave a tour of the school's kitchen last week.

"I didn't know anything about this kind of cooking," says Burke, who worked with catering companies and at Green Pastures restaurant before Austin High.

But in five years, he seems to have mastered a balancing act that every school district faces: how to make the best food possible, with limited funds available, that kids will eat and that meets strict nutritional requirements set by the government.

Burke trains staff at schools of every level throughout the district, works with students in focus groups and develops new recipes for the high school that eventually trickle down to middle and elementary schools. "We're not the Four Seasons, but we're not that bad," he says, as he walks past trays of food that look nothing like the mushy, indistinguishable dishes most people associate with school cafeterias. Burke, one of just a handful of district chefs in the state, often travels to other school districts to explain how he's been able to work with the food services department to improve the cafeteria environment.

'Stealth health'

One of the first big changes he made was separating the foods you'd find on a fast-food menu from the nutritionally dense and diverse dishes the kitchen staff often prepares from scratch, such as lasagna and tortilla soup. "The number of fries we served went down just by changing up the lines," he says. "It's about changing the perception of cafeteria food." If the food looks good, students will eat it, he says.

But no matter what creative dishes Burke conjures up, some students will refuse to eat anything but pizza, burgers and fries. "Fast food is the standard we are judged by," Carrillo-Spano says. "We're giving them what they are used to but giving them a healthy version of it." In every district school, pizza crust is made with white whole-wheat flour, hamburgers are made with lean ground beef and served on whole-wheat buns, and fries are oven-roasted.

"Stealth health," as Burke calls it, is especially useful in elementary schools where kids can be even less open-minded about trying new things. Young kids like easily identifiable foods, Carrillo-Spano says, so the menu options, while still healthy, are much more simple. Only a few popular dishes like hamburgers, hot dogs made with turkey meat, white-meat chicken tenders and spaghetti and meatballs repeat more than once a month. All the schools serve the same menu, depending on campus level. (You can view a month's worth of meals for elementary, middle and high schools, as well as the nutritional information, at austinisd.org/schools/menus.)