Individual Action Learning Project.... Cooking School Food!

My Individual Action Learning Project (IALP) is one of my many work projects at California Food Policy Advocates (CFPA), where I am continuing my summer internship part-time this fall semester. The director and I came up with this project as it is something that CFPA is very interested in. I will be doing a fact-finding research mission on the state of scratch cooking in school nutrition services in California. We define scratch cooking as the cooking, preparing or assembly of whole or minimally processed foods. What does scratch cooking look like in different districts across the state? How do the nutrition services departments make it work? What are the impacts of scratch cooking school lunch and breakfast?

I will be working with some of the senior advocates and directors at CFPA for this project, as well as nutrition services directors across the state. I'll interview non-profit organizations that are invested in this transformation (or maintenance) of school food.

This topic I am really excited about because it definitely blends my back ground as a chef with my current training in public health. I really hope that my initial research will provide enough evidence for CFPA to invest further into scratch cooking school food.

This project is great because it is quite flexible, and that's also what makes it difficult. I have other projects at work that can take precedence, so I need to be diligent about setting time to work on this.

I know my first step is to talk to those senior colleagues and get an action plan for first steps going. Then I'll know what to do from there, and the path will be more clear.