The National Institute for Student Welfare (Inabie) has announced significant changes to the School Meals Program (PAE) for the 2024-2025 school year. Inabie experts have worked tiredlessly around the logistics to provide a healthier, more varied and balanced menu for students in the public school system.
The 2024-25 school year officially opens in the Dominican Republic on 26 August 2024. Around 2.6 million students are registered.
The nutrition experts at Inbie, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Public Health and the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) had been collaborating for years to meet the challenge of optimizing the consumption of fiber and micronutrients in both breakfast and lunch, while at the same time keeping the meals appealing and diverse for students.
Students will now be receiving sugar-reduced muffins made with oats, corn, carrots, coconut, and banana for breakfast. These will be alternated with other bakery products such as vegetable bread, cornbread, and oatmeal cookies, along with servings of low-sugar, low-fat milk.
Inabie Executive Director Víctor Castro and Agriculture Minister Limber Cruz invited the press to the presentation of the new food plans held on 21 August at the Las Malvinas School in Santo Domingo Oeste.
Fresh tropical fruits are being included in the food program after a successful pilot program last year that covered 29 schools. Thius year, students at 5,000 schools participating in the Extended School Day Program, will receive the fruits mixes. Pineapple, melon, watermelon, papaya and mango mix will be served twice a week in a 4-ounce container. Bananas will be available separately, three times a week.
Put into numbers, these are lots of bananas. “We are talking about consuming 246 million bananas in schools next school year,” Castro said.
Agriculture Minister Limber Cruz highlighted the impact of this project and its significance for the country’s agricultural sector.
The lunch menu will also feature new dishes. Innovative preparations will be included, such as baked sardines, meatballs in fresh tomato sauce, a great source of fish; baked eggs with vegetables; lettuce and tomato salad; pasta with pork meatballs in fresh tomato sauce; and potato, egg, and vegetable salad with mayonnaise.
Nutritionist Dr. Ana Carolina Báez, who directs the Nutrition Formulation and Assessment department at Inabie, explained that these new products and dishes aim to “provide a significant contribution of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and greater variety and acceptability, helping to fulfill the fundamental objective of the PAE, which is to offer nutritionally adequate and healthy food to maintain optimal nutritional status and reduce school dropout rates among the pre-university student population in the public sector.”
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Presidency
22 August 2024