The new Gluten-Free Zone, located in Manzanita, was recently introduced into the mix of lunch options for students.

The lunch menu already included many gluten-free items, such as salad, granola and gluten-free pizza, but the kitchen staff received many requests to provide more options.

After the Presidents Week break, they consolidated all the gluten-free items into the already gluten-free salad bar. It has now become the designated Gluten-Free Zone, expanding to include gluten-free sauces, pasta salad, chips and breads.

This week, some of the new options have been gluten-free English muffins, cookies and fruit tarts.

For kitchen staff member Connie Valenzuela, the most time consuming part of assembling the Gluten-Free Zone is shopping for the items that will be served each week.

“It maybe takes about an hour and a half of prep outside of what I normally do to make the salads and the extra snacks,” she said.

Kate Chow (9) does not eat foods with gluten in them due to allergies, so she especially appreciates the addition of the Gluten-Free Zone.

“I really like it because it gives me other options on days that do not provide as many choices of safe food for me.”

Chef Steve has heard positive feedback from students who have eaten foods from the Gluten-Free Zone, but feels that most people don’t even know that it has been introduced.

“We make our own gluten-free croutons now, so we are just experimenting and expanding every week,” he said.

The full salad bar is all gluten-free, and then we have english muffins, bagels, chips. and pasta salads are all gluten free, gluten-free granola and gluten free fruit tarts, which i’m making right now.The biggest part is going shopping and finding all the gluten free items. It takes about an hour and a half of prep to make the salads and the extra snacks.

This piece was originally published in the pages of The Winged Post on March 13, 2015.