DENVER — With the authority of a celebrity chef, Adam Fisher gestured toward the bushels of fresh basil, oregano and parsley sitting on the counter in front of him, as the crowd leaned forward.  “We almost want to treat fresh herbs like we treat fresh flowers,” he commanded, speaking into a microphone clipped to his apron. “You want to snip off the ends, and ideally you want to store them in some water.”  Mr. Fisher may not be some fast-talking TV personality, but he is a chef, a food supervisor for the Denver Public Schools, and he was giving a demonstration on how to whip up cafeteria food — in this case, cucumber and pasta salads — from scratch.  With new federal standards for school meals going into effect this month, and a renewed focus on the issue brought by the first lady, Michelle Obama, thousands of school chefs, food service workers and nutrition experts from around the country gathered in Denver this week at an annual conference put on by the School Nutrition Association, a nonprofit organization of school food professionals.  As vendors hawked samples of every imaginable school fare — whole-grain rolls, turkey sandwiches, pizza squares — cooks and school food administrators traded tips on how to improve their schools’ cuisine, part of a nationwide push to make school food tastier and more healthful.  But it was the new federal Department of Agriculture nutrition standards for school meals that seemed the main topic of conversation.  The rules establish calorie and sodium limits for meals, require schools to serve larger portions of fruits and vegetables and mandate that all milk be 1 percent or nonfat. Requirements for the use of whole grains are also being phased in.  With more schools cooking meals from scratch — which invariably means more fresh local fruits and vegetables in the kitchens rather than processed foods — districts have largely been able to keep pace with the new regulations, nutrition experts said.  “School districts for the last 15 years have been working on ways to improve their menus,” said Julia Bauscher, the School Nutrition Association’s new vice president and school nutrition director for the Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Ky. “The majority of the members that are here probably are already meeting some of the new standards.”  Gone, at least in many places, are the days when lunch ladies served fried just-about-anything with a side of unrecognizable slop. These days, many school meals start with raw ingredients and take longer to prepare. School staples like chicken nuggets are typically baked, not tossed in the fryer, and hot dogs are more likely to be made of turkey. And even those longtime favorites are served in the cafeteria less frequently.  “Ten or 15 years ago, you wouldn’t have seen a salad bar, a fresh fruit and veggie bar, homemade pasta salads,” said Theresa Hafner, executive director of the food services department for Denver Public Schools. “You probably wouldn’t have seen homemade biscuits, or homemade hamburger buns, made with a white whole-wheat flour.”  In Denver, for example, 95 percent of the public school lunch menu and about half of the breakfast menu is now prepared from scratch, since the school district introduced cooking from scratch in the fall of 2010.  The switch has not come without a cost. Since 2010, Ms. Hafner has hired more than 100 additional food service workers, as scratch cooking is more labor intensive. And her food expenses have gone up 20 percent, since fresh produce must be bought for the schools’ fruit and salad bars.  Adam Simmons, the child nutrition director for the public school system in Fayetteville, Ark., said that while the new rules were well intentioned, he worried that sodium limits and expanded servings of fruits and vegetables could result in more food being left on the tray.  “You’re increasing serving sizes on fruits and vegetables so much, I think you’re really going to just increase trash,” said Mr. Simmons, who spearheaded a switch to 70 percent scratch cooking in his school district.  Ultimately, though, he and other nutrition experts viewed the new regulations as positive, as long as the school chefs still make the food taste good.  “Putting things on a plate doesn’t make it a nutritious meal. The students have to consume it,” he said. “And if they do, it will open them to more fresh fruits and vegetables. In the long run, this can do great things.”
As new federal standards intended to make school food more healthful and nutritious go into effect, changes are already under way in many districts.