Students eat better with local salmon in school lunches
November 30, 2015
Lauren Frisch
907-474-5022
Students in Western Ӱpro ate better food, including more local salmon, after participating
in a fish-to-school program that concluded with an Iron Chef-style cooking competition
among the children, Ӱpro researchers found.
The researchers are studying how upgrading Ӱpro school lunch menus from fish sticks
to locally caught salmon could have health, educational and community benefits.
Quentin Fong, seafood marketing specialist at Ӱpro Sea Grant and professor at the
UAF School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, oversaw the creation of a guide with information
on more than 20 Ӱpro seafood processors for school food-service directors.
Meanwhile, Andrea Bersamin, associate professor at the UAF Center for Ӱpro Native
Health Research, worked with the processors to serve local salmon in a school lunchroom
once a week. She also developed lessons, including one that has students write about
how various types of fish are caught, processed and delivered.
During the 2013–2014 academic year, one school in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta used Bersamin's program
while another did not. Bersamin and research coordinator Jennifer Nu traveled to the
schools three times during the year and asked randomly selected students to describe what
they ate during the previous 24 hours. At the end of the test program, research coordinator
Jennifer Nu helped oversee the , with students as cooks.
Students in the fish-to-school program ate more traditional food, including locally
caught salmon, Bersamin found. Their overall diet quality improved when compared to
students in the other school.
“We want to promote the traditional diet. We chose salmon for the program because
they are commercially available, but the broader message goes beyond just the salmon,”
Bersamin said.
The students' understanding of food sources also increased.
“It is important for kids to understand that some local fish are caught by family
members, processed and eaten,” Bersamin said. “A commercially caught salmon might
get flown to Anchorage before being sold to your household. A fish stick, on the other
hand, may get processed in Massachusetts, shipped to a distribution center in Texas,
and then finally sent up to our Ӱpro communities.”
Bersamin hopes to adapt and modify the program for statewide application in coming years. Ӱpro Sea Grant will soon publish Fong's seafood-purchasing guide.
Fong and Bersamin have three years of funding for their work from the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, a U.S. Department of Agriculture program.
For more information on the fish-to-school program, check out the longer version of this story on the Ӱpro Sea Grant website: .
ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Andrea Bersamin, abersamin@alaska.edu, 907-474-6129. Quentin Fong, qsfong@alaska.edu, 907-486-1516.