When dancer and gymnast Ali Shafoualoff, 16, needs a snack there's one place she doesn't go: her school's vending machines.
The North Stafford High School senior skips them since they're filled with sodas and candy.
So Shafoualoff is amazed at what the machines could hold next year: fruit bars, baked chips, low-fat cookies, cereal, portable yogurt, even bagels and cream cheese.
Chap Slye, director of Stafford's nutrition services, said it's time for schools to support what they're teaching in the classroom about good nutrition in their own cafeterias and vending machines.
"It's about modeling the nutritional behavior we teach," Slye said. "We should model that behavior to the kids at least during the school day."
Hundreds of people crowded into the Alvin Y. Bandy Administrative Complex gym yesterday for the Vending Food Show.
People got to sample the low-fat, low-sugar wares of area vendors.
A Stafford schools committee is striving to eliminate junk food and soft drinks from the school system's vending machines.
The School Board will have the final say on the proposed nutrition standards, but yesterday's show was about test-driving the samples.
Under the standards, sodas and carbonated beverages would disappear. Drinks would be 16 ounces or smaller, and contain no more than 300 calories. Fruit juices would have at least 25 percent juice. Low-fat and nonfat flavored milk would be introduced.
Candy bars and regular chips would probably vanish, replaced by snacks of 300 calories or less.
No more than 30 percent of an item's calories could come from fat, and no more than 10 percent of calories could come from saturated fat. Sugar would be capped at 35 percent of a product's weight.
Vending machines are big business for schools. They can earn thousands of dollars from contracts with food and beverage suppliers. The money usually supports athletics and extracurricular activities.
But several major U.S. school districts, including New York City Public Schools and the Los Angeles Unified School District, have already cracked down on junk food. Their decision helped spur the food and beverage vending industry to create healthier, tasty options.
Frito-Lay Inc. introduced two new lines of chips, Sensible Snacks and Reduced Snacks. The chips are baked and contain no trans fats. All of the snacks contain 8 grams of fat or less, and most have 5 grams or less.
Frito-Lay representative Becky Wamsley Blalock brought 750 bags of the healthier chips and Cheetos to the Stafford fair. After an hour, she was wiped out.
"They're 40 percent lower in saturated fat, but the kids don't care about that. They taste good," Blalock said.
If they're smart, most vending companies are moving in a healthier direction, Blalock said.
"It's not just about doing the right thing, you have to admit it. It's about staying in business," she said.
Carrying bulging plastic bags like trick-or-treaters, students and some teachers and principals loaded up on the free food.
"It's Halloween, big-people style," said Brooke Point senior Caitlin Ford.
Alex Graves, a Brooke Point junior, was tossing back Sunkist Fruit Snacks.
"These are good," Graves said, who admitted to not being a calorie-conscious person. "I'm pretty much just about taste."
Other winners: bagel with cream cheese combo packs, and portable tubes of yogurt.
Both would be good options for students like Matthew Mahnken, a Colonial Forge senior whose first meal is at school.
"I normally get my breakfast from vending machines," Mahnken said.
But at least one student is skeptical that standards for vending machines will improve student health.
"I think by the time kids get to high school, they've already established their eating habits and they're responsible to eat what's healthy," said Alex Oliver, a senior at Brooke Point.
Dietician and parent Jean Hoppe, who served on the schools' vending machines committee, thinks students will adjust to what's being served, especially if it tastes good.
"Once they get used to the changes, then it's not so bad," Hoppe said.
To reach KELLY HANNON: 540/374-5436 khannon@freelancestar.com