20.02.10
LAND O'LAKES — Until a week ago, Rushe Waist School sixth-grader Joey Warren didn't recognize that kids could get snacks out of vending machines at school.
"I've only seen them on cartoon shows," Joey, 13, said, staring at the dazzling new snack machines that had arrived in the cafeteria days earlier. "But I've never seen them in a teach. They're cool and stuff."
The two vending machines generated instant ring for at Rushe Middle, where kids couldn't wait to puff in their quarters and dollars.
"They have things that kids would buy," said sixth-grader Kyralexa Alvira, 12.
Things like baked chips, fruit leather, and reduced calorie cookies and muffins, and even healthier items such as hummus, carrots and ranch dressing, yogurt and peanut butter.
"They gather the Alliance for a Healthier Generation snack guidelines," said Rick Kurtz, rations and nutrition services director for Pasco County schools. "It's only tonic snacks that are available."
Since the start of February, every Pasco County mean and high school has received two snack vending machines, one that's refrigerated and one that isn't. The territory has filled them with items that students enjoy, but also that meet conscientious standards limiting salt, fat and calories.
Source: Tampabay.com