Timber Creek High School in Keller, Texas, opened a coffee bar that sells lattes, mochas and iced blended coffee drinks along with muffins and fruit cups to students, joining several other schools in the Forth Worth area that offer the caffeinated perk, reports the Star-Telegram. “We have a generation that drinks coffee,” said a food-service manager for the Keller schools who oversees the coffee shop.
“District officials say they hope to open similar venues at the other high schools during the next several years,” said the Forth Worth newpsaper. “Because of federal nutrition guidelines, school food service providers must cut back on the calories in their drinks compared to Starbucks drinks.” The largest serving allowed at schools is 12 ounces with a maximum of 60 calories. By comparison, a 12-ounce mocha Frappuccino is 290 calories if it includes whipped cream. Schools can cut calories by using low-fat milk. There is no limit on caffeine so most of the coffee drinks at Timber Creek include a 2-ounce shot of espresso, or around 120 milligrams of caffeine.
There’s a growing trend for school districts to sell sweetened coffee drinks to high schoolers, said blogger Bettina Elias Siegel at The Lunch Tray. Last year, she wrote about a Houston-area district that was “having great success in selling a la carte ‘whole-grain rich’ donuts to kids … and then using coffee to lure high schoolers into the cafeteria.” Siegel described “the perverse incentives that can lead schools to offer foods and beverages like these, which do nothing to improve student nutrition but everything to help a district’s bottom line.”