Know

Child and Adult Care Food Program

Child care centers that offer meals and snacks through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) play a critical role in supporting the wellness, health, and development of children by providing nutritious foods and beverages. Child care providers are uniquely positioned to help instill healthy habits in young children that can serve as a foundation for healthy choices in life.

CACFP provides guidelines for serving nutritious meals and snacks to infants and children who attend child care centers. A variety of public or private nonprofit child care centers, Head Start programs, outside-school-hours care centers, and other institutions that are licensed or approved to provide child care services participate in CACFP. For-profit centers that serve lower-income children may also be eligible. CACFP reimburses child care centers for meals and snacks that meet the eligibility requirements.

To qualify for reimbursement, meals and snacks must include certainmeal components。Meal components align with the food groups of MyPlate. Including foods from each food group ensures children receive nutritionally adequate meals.

CACFP Meal Patterns

CACFP有所不同meal patternrequirements based on the age of the child. Meal patterns specify how much of each type of meal component a child should receive in a given meal. CACFP specifies meal patterns for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. For instance, according to the CACFP child meal patterns, an example of a reimbursable breakfast meal must include foods from the milk, fruits and vegetables, and grains components, served in the portions indicated for each age group.

更新的CACFP膳食模式如下。保留这些办公文件。

• Nutrition_1.MenuPlanning_L1.InfantMealPattern [Exercises & Resources – CACFP Infant Meal Pattern]
• Nutrition_1.MenuPlanning_L2.ChildMealPattern [Exercises & Resources – CACFP Child Meal Pattern]

You may also want to review the four-page PDF from the USDA Food and Nutrition Service,Serving School Meals to Preschoolers: School Year 2018-2019located athttps://fns-prod.azuredge.net/sites/default/files/tn/servingp万博体育全站appreschoolers_final.pdf.which offers guidance around differences between preschool and kindergarten meal patterns, and feeding preschool children in mixed age settings.

Updates to the CACFP

In April 2016, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service published the final rule“Child and Adult Care Food Program: Meal Pattern Revisions Related to the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act”在联邦登记册中，按照了解CACFP膳食模式Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010。新的CACFP规定将早期教育年龄组定义为婴儿 - 5个月，6-11个月，1-2岁和3 - 5年。

The new CACFP meal patterns increase the consumption of vegetables, fruits and whole grains, allow for more nutritious substitutions, and reduce the consumption of added sugars and saturated fats. The updated standards also take cost and practicality into consideration. These improvements are expected to enhance the quality of meals served to young children.

Here is a summary of key updates affecting CACFP by each food group:

以下资源提供了CACFP更新的摘要，并解决了在您的工厂中实现CACFP的最佳实践。

• 更新的CACFP膳食模式摘要：婴儿饭菜
• 更新的CACFP膳食模式摘要：儿童和成人餐
• CACFP Meal Pattern Revision: Best Practices

Basic Principles of Menu Planning

Careful menu planning is a fundamental process for successful child care food service programs. Making an effort to plan menus saves time and money; you increase efficiency, streamline ordering, and ensure that menus are in compliance with CACFP for meal reimbursement. Menu planning also allows for nutritionally adequate, balanced meals to be served to the children in your facility.

Basic menu planning principles include:

1. Strive for balance.菜单s should balance important nutrients like protein, carbohydrate, fiber, vitamins, and minerals with fat and sodium. Menus should also balance flavors so that menus are not too spicy or too bland.
2. Emphasize variety.Including a variety of foods not only helps ensure adequate nutrient intake, but also keep menus interesting and appealing. Include different forms of foods and vary how they are served from day to day.
3. 添加对比度。每日菜单应提供对比纹理，口味和颜色。例如，您不想为年龄较大的儿童提供早餐，燕麦片，苹果酱和牛奶，因为它们都是“软”食品，不包括不同的纹理。
4. 考虑颜色。Use combinations of colors that go well together. A good practice is to include at least two different colors in each meal.
5. 创造眼睛上诉。Foods should look inviting and enticing when they are served to encourage consumption.

Planning Cycle Menus in Child Care Settings

Some child care facilities choose to use周期菜单，这是一组不同的每日菜单产品，可为指定的时间提供服务。一旦所有的菜单都已服务，循环以相同的顺序重复。循环菜单通常设置为三到五周的持续时间，尽管它们可以是任何时间段。一种做法是将周期设置为季节性，例如秋季循环菜单，冬季循环菜单等。这使得能够使用新鲜农产品等季节性食品。

有很多好处在ch使用循环菜单ild care. For instance, using cycle menus can have positive impacts on the nutritional quality of meals, as well as offer streamlined budgeting and preparation aspects of food service.

使用周期菜单的好处包括：

• More accurate forecasting and use of staffing, equipment, and food-resource needs
• 允许批量订购成分，从而减少了在食品采购和省食品成本上花费的时间。
• 当我之前的实验板减少浪费nus are served
• Assurance that menus meet CACFP guidelines
• Ability to offer a variety of foods that incorporate different textures, colors, and flavors
• Flexibility to modify menus to meet ordering shortages, acceptability, etc.

Getting started with planning cycle menus involves a few considerations. Think about which cycle length would work the best in your facility. You may wish to have a shorter cycle for breakfast and a longer cycle for lunch, for instance. Be sure to consider the meal pattern requirements for CACFP for the various age groups. This is done by setting the same core menu for all ages and adjusting appropriately, either by increasing portions served or by adding on meal components. Think about your kitchen’s layout, staffing, delivery schedule, and equipment when choosing which recipes to include in your menus. Lastly, consider the “flow” of meal service from breakfast through the end of the day and make sure there is sufficient variety of foods served at each main meal and at snacks.

Involving school-age children in the menu planning process is a great way to design meals that appeal to this age group. You can survey the children and ask them to vote which foods (from a selected list) they would like to see on the menu. When children have “buy-in” in the meal planning process, they are more accepting of the menu offerings served.

国家食品服务管理局发表了您希望下载的规划周期菜单的参考指南。

• NFSMI Care Connection: Planning Cycle Menus for Child Care

Using Standardized Recipes

According to the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), a standardized recipe is one that has been tried, adapted, and retried several times by a child nutrition operation and has been found to produce the same good results and yield every time when the exact procedures are followed with the same type of equipment and the same quantity and quality of ingredients.

Since standardized recipes are prepared the same way each time, using them can streamline food and labor costs.

在您的育儿设施中使用标准化食谱，包括准备的一致质量，产量和营养含量，有多种福利。从管理角度来看，使用标准化的食谱有助于控制食品和劳动力成本，库存和购买。标准化配方中提供的信息可用于记录保存目的和CACFP报销过程。请务必咨询您的主管，以确定您的计划对菜单批准的需求。例如，某些程序要求在释放之前批准菜单。

See

What Do周期菜单at Department of Defense Child Care Facilities Look Like?

Different child care facilities have different menus. All menus must incorporate a variety of nutritious foods in portions that meet the CACFP requirements for children at each age group. Look over the information in the following example of aFive Week Spring Cycle Menu。What kinds of foods are included? Is there a good variety? Are the items seasonally appropriate? How might these cycle menus help streamline the meal-planning process? Keep the cycle menu handy as you will refer to it later on in this lesson.

• Five Week Spring Cycle Menu

What Do标准化食谱in Department of Defense Child Care Facilities Look Like?

There are plenty of recipe resources available to child care food service staff that are CACFP-compliant, kid-tested, budget-friendly, and still offer a variety of flavors, textures, and colors. USDA offers some standardized recipes (seehttps://www.fns.usda.gov/usda-standardized-recipe). In addition, the Department of Defense has a set of standardized recipes for use at child care centers. These recipes contain the ingredients required, the amounts needed for batch cooking, the preparation directions, and nutrition information about the recipe. Use the Department of Defense recipe for Barbeque Pulled Pork on a Roll and Coleslaw. What are some features of the recipes that you notice? Is the layout of the recipes easy to read and understand?

• Barbeque Pulled Pork recipe
• Coleslaw recipe

See the following video for more information on successful menu planning.

菜单Planning for Success

Do

Note that we host a vast number of cycle menus and production resources at//www.szvsi.com/food-service-materialsincluding bundles for Fall/Winter, Spring, Summer, and field trips. The bundles include cycle menus, inventory and ordering calculators and nutrition macros, and recipes.

Is Your Facility Compliant with the New CACFP Updates?

完成以下New CACFP Meal Pattern Self-Assessmentto see how your program complies with the new standards and what additional items must be addressed in order to meet the new standards. Discuss your findings with your trainer, coach or administrator.

• New CACFP Meal Pattern Self-Assessment

Completing this Course

有关本课程期望的更多信息，以及在整个课程中提供的随附的学习，探索和应用资源和活动的列表，请访问儿童保育食品服务的重点主题必需品万博体育下载手机版Course Guide。

Please note the References & Resources section at the end of each lesson outlines reference sources and resources to find additional information on the topics covered. As you complete lessons, you are not expected to review all the online references available. However, you are welcome to explore the resources further if you have interest, or at the request of your trainer, coach, or administrator.