DepED nurse reiterates: Rice

munggo curls not junk food

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol (PIA)—It may look like it is junk food, but it isn’t, assures Department of Education (DEPeD) School-based Feeding Program (SBFP) focal person Marjorie Ebojo.

Ebojo, a nurse by profession, who takes on the task of coordinating for the government’s supplemental feeding program for nutritionally deficient school kids as evidenced by stunted growth and wasting, came to Kapihan sa PIA to help explain the national feeding program and clarify on the allegations that the government is now allowing junk foods in schools.

Recognizing that school participation by undernourished kids are hampered, the DepED intends to improve learning capacity and classroom performance of learners by getting to the kids who are by common standards, severely wasted (SW), wasted (W) and stunted, while supporting good health and hygiene through the SBFP.

SBFP provides nutritious meals to undernourished learners in public kinder and elementary schools to address malnutrition and hunger that affect learning of undernourished kindergarten to Grade 6 learners from schools in food-insecure and disadvantaged areas, explains Ebojo.

Conducted for at least 120 school days, the program serves meals daily during school days, each meal providing a third of the recommended energy and nutrient intake (RENI) as per existing laws.

Here, the DepEd used to have their approved menus which use iron-rich, protein-rich, and energy-giving foods, milk feeding in fresh and nutritious food to skip from Kindergarten to Grade 6 learners, and the use of hot meals as a feeding modality along with fortified food products and milk.

In some areas, to vary the meals, the DepED also used fortified food products like the Rice Munggo Curls which the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) developed, caused a stir among parents.

Rice-Mongo (Rice-Munggo) Curls which come in barbecue or cheese flavour are nutritious extruded snack foods made from a blend of rice flour and mung bean (mongo) flour using food technology developed by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) of DOST, Ebojo explains.

According to the FNRI documentation, a 30 gram serving of the curls, which indeed looks like the usual junkfood contains more or less 130 kilo calories of energy and more or less 4 grams of protein.

They’re designed to help meet part of a child’s energy and protein needs as a complementary food item, she stressed.

With modern kids now not really into eating vegetables, an innovative way adapted here is for parents to cook squash noodles instead.

Made from squash starch and turned into noodles, the innovative pancit has smartly reinforced kids nutrition by having them eat vegetables without forcing them. (PIABohol)

FOR THE CHOOSY KIDS. The government’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute has come up with an innovative way to get kids munching nutrient fortified food in the rice munggo curls (RiMO) as part of the National Feeding Program, says nurse Marjorie Ebojo. (PIABohol/ DOST FNRI)