Featured Intern: Taste Tests and Lunch Lines

By Amanda Sauceda

My rotation is School Foodservice is flying by and by the time you read this I have just a few more days before I’m done with the whole rotation.  After School Foodservice I’m heading towards regular Foodservice at the hospital. 

I wasn’t sure if I was really going to enjoy foodservice because I never really cared for those classes in undergrad but I’m starting to change a bit.  There are some aspects of this side of dietetics which I enjoy and aren’t a big part of nutrition therapy or community.  For instance, one of the big projects I work on each week is a product evaluation which is basically a taste test.  Doing these product evals requires a lot of work to prepare for those few minutes where you present the items to the rest of the staff.  Specifications for the products need to be gathered, pricing needs to be calculated per serving, a comparison sheet for the items needs to be generated, the test kitchen also needs to be set up, etc.  To get all those things accomplished means bouncing around to different people because not just one person has all that info.  It’s like you are playing detective all over again but this time you aren’t looking for patient data.  I’ll admit sometimes it can get a bit crazy getting everything in order especially if there are a lot of products to test but I like the challenge.

Another fun thing I got to do was watch the tray line at a middle school.  I was able to observe and be a part of the elementary tray line the week before and this was definitely different.  I had thought that the lunch period at the elementary school was fast and it was an hour long but when I got to the middle school it was like I blinked and lunch was over.  Things move a lot quicker there and the students rushed right in when that bell rang grabbed their food and were out the door to sit with friends.  I can only imagine what it’s going to be like this week when I go visit the lunch period at a high school!  The kitchens there are a lot larger and there are even more points of service adding more commotion to the lunch period.

Anyone else done School Foodservice?  What has been your favorite part about it?  Would you be interested in going into this area?