Not your parents’ school lunch

DENVER — If you attended public schools, you likely remember the lunches you stared down as a student: Options were often unappetizing, institutional in appearance and probably unhealthy.

Sometimes, on lucky days, there was pizza.

But if you don’t have kids in public schools today, the meals served now are likely unrecognizable, at least as a school lunch. Although the staples — pizza, hamburgers, chicken nuggets — remain, they’re joined by chorizo quesadillas, harvest sweet potato bakes and Asian crispy chicken bowls, just to name a few. Schools are also rolling out new features like food trucks, student chef competitions and smartphone apps.

Playing a significant role in menu creation is the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, which drastically reduced the amounts of fat, sugar, salt and calories in meals and gave the USDA the authority to set nutritional standards in schools. Those restrictions do squeeze what districts can offer, but they also stir creativity in chefs.

To get a sense of some of the new, interesting and gee-whiz creations schools are serving, CBS4 talked to several large and small school districts this week.

Here’s a look at some of the strategies they’re testing and how they approach the philosophy of school lunch.