Vegans, Vegetarians and Dietary Restrictions, Oh My!

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Mr. Walcott’s office is located behind the hot lunch line in the cafeteria, and you can contact him via his email ([email protected]).

When you’re standing in line waiting to order your food, deciding from the many options, imagine how someone feels if they don’t get the same opportunity. Vegetarians and vegans have a hard enough time trying to order at restaurants, but wouldn’t you think that the school cafeteria should be an easy place to find alternatives? Luckily in our lunch room, it is.

Mr. Walcott, the school lunch manager for the Westhampton Beach School District, takes pride in his kitchens and is very accommodating to anyone with dietary restrictions. “Pizza is probably our most popular meal served, but we have a lot more to offer that people don’t necessarily realize,” claimed Walcott. “We offer a salad bar where you can get meats, cheeses or beans for your protein. You could also get something from the deli line without the meat if you’d like.”

According to Walcott there are five essential parts to every meal served here at WHB: whole grains, proteins, fruits, vegetables and milk. When you purchase lunch you must get at least three out of the five essential components and one has to be either a fruit or vegetable. For example, if the hot lunch being served one day was turkey nachos with black beans, cheese, whole grain chips, veggie sticks, applesauce and milk, one would be able to get the turkey, as a protein, the veggie sticks, as a vegetable, and the chips, as a whole grain. Of course, you could always get more, but this is just the minimum.

“I am aware of all of the dietary restrictions in our district, like vegetarians, vegans, gluten free, etc., and the great thing about it is that all of our food is made fresh,” boasts Walcott. The cafeteria is trying to incorporate more fresh produce into their meals. “We’re able to say, ‘Oh, that has chicken and cheese.’ when someone asks what’s in our food because we made it. We don’t need to go and find a label because we know exactly what’s in it,” Walcott added.

Everyone is starving by lunch time, and we all know that something good is for lunch when we walk into the school in the morning and smell what’s cooking. Walcott’s goal is to make the lunch line experience similar to that of getting a home-cooked meal. “If anyone has any special requests, all they have to do is ask. I have no problem making something for them that they’ll enjoy,” Walcott added.