New MealViewer Menu Offers Valuable Information

Students and families in Monona Grove School District have a new system for school menus called MealViewer. This new system offers much more information for families, students, and school staff particularly around allergens and nutritional values. It also promises more efficiencies for our school nutrition staff as well as our school nurses and health room staff.  The menu remains printable, and enables families to create a profile for students to clearly mark any meals that contain common allergens and other dietary restrictions and to select favorites. You do not need to create a profile to be able to view or print the menus.  Here’s a brief look at the new system: If you choose not to set up a profile, just X out of the box. Profiles are excellent for checking for allergies, checking for any ingredients students do not eat, or selecting favorites, but are not required to view or print the menu.  There are many features with this new system, some of which you may or may not use. For example, you can toggle months, add up nutritional values like calories and carbohydrates (essential information for diabetic students) based on what is actually selected and eaten (including ¼, ½, and ¾ portions), view foods that contain common allergens or dietary restrictions, and more.  If you simply want to print monthly school menus offered at your school, open your school’s menu (all schools are listed here and you can still access these from the homepage of our website or your school’s section of the website). The menu will display on your screen. In the upper right is a print icon, which will take you to a printable calendar. To view meals that may contain common allergens or dietary restrictions such as pork, click allergens in the top left. You may also print a menu with the allergens/restrictions shown in the print menu.  To view nutritional value of items or select favorites for a student profile, just hover your mouse over specific meal items. To calculate the nutritional value of selected items and portions, click on “Let’s add it up” in the left sidebar. Creating a profile allows you to save favorites as well as allergens so you don’t have to select it every time. If you print a menu from a profile, the student’s name and school will print on the top.  We’re excited about the opportunities this new system provides and know it will be a great asset for many of our families and students. If you have additional questions about how to use MealViewer, please e-mail Dee Matthys, School Nutrition Coordinator.