Information for Local Bakeries
Are your products RED? How to make them AMBER!
The Fresh Tastes @ School NSW Healthy School Canteen strategy is all about giving school students a taste for healthy foods. It is based on the Australian Dietary Guidelines for Children and Adolescents and the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating.
RED or ‘Occasional’ foods can only be sold in school canteens twice per term. Meat pies, sausage rolls, cakes, muffins and sweet pastries are ‘red’ if they contain too much energy (kilojoules), saturated fat or sodium. See the Occasional Food Criteria Table in the Fresh Tastes @ School section of the website for the details of this limits.
School canteens that obtain their pies, sausage rolls etc from local bakeries will need to know the nutrient content (energy, saturated fat and sodium per 100g) of the products they are buying.
There are a number of ways that the nutrient content of a product can be measured:
1. Laboratory analysis - There are a number of laboratories in NSW that can undertake a nutrition analysis of food products. This is the most accurate way of measuring the nutrient content. Contact Information for analytical laboratories is available from the Yellow Pages or by contacting us (02 9876 1300).
2. Nutrition Information Panel calculator - This is found on the Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) website at www.foodstandards.gov.au By typing in the ingredients of your recipes, the calculator can prepare a Nutrition Information Panel (NIP) that shows the energy, saturated fat and sodium content of products per 100g and per serve. It is a good idea to have a printed copy of the NIP for every product your company supplies to school canteens available for school canteen managers.
More information
1. Fresh Tastes @ School Canteen Strategy www.health.nsw.gov.au/obesity/adult/canteens.html
2. Healthy Kids SCA www.healthy-kids.com.au phone (02) 9876 1300 or 1300 724 850 for outside Sydney.
Ideas to modify your products to meet the AMBER foods criteria
Talk to your ingredient suppliers and ask for products that are:
1. Lower in total fat
2. Contain monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fat rather than saturated fat.
3. Lower in salt
4. Higher in fibre
Reduce the energy and saturated fat content:
1. Use lean meats (visible fat removed and minimum fat marbling) and skinless chicken for fillings.
2. Cool cooked fillings and skim surface fat before using in baked products.
3. Extend meat with the addition of legumes like kidney or cannelloni beans; vegetables like pumpkin, carrots or tomato; rolled oats or rice.
4. If using a high saturated fat pastry, use it on the base of the product only. Use potato or a monounsaturated fat pastry for the top.
5. Use the thinnest amount of pastry possible.
6. Use a foil base with only pastry on the top and serve with a spoon.
Reduce the saturated fat content:
1. Use canola, sunflower, soybean, olive or peanut oil instead of butter, lard, ghee, tallow, blended vegetable oil, palm or coconut oil.
2. Choose or make a pastry based on monounsaturated fat such as canola, sunflower or olive oil.
Increase the fibre content:
1. Use some wholemeal flour in baked goods.
2. Use more vegetables and fruit in fillings.
Reduce the salt content:
1. Use less salt in the recipe and use low salt ingredients.
Develop new products:
1. Filo pastry parcels with lean meat, vegetable, low fat cheese or fruit fillings.
2. Fruit crumbles with unsweetened fruit, wholemeal flour, oats and monounsaturated margarine.
3. Mini muffins with added vegetable or fruit.
Ideas from Healthier Catering Guidelines, National Heart Foundation, Sep 2003.
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