WELLS ─ A few selected Wells Elementary School classrooms are voluntarily participating in a food preference survey this fall.

This is to assist Nutrition Director Lisa Currie in determining student preferences for certain types of fruits and vegetables; healthy choice selections that perhaps many have never tried and may be passing over at lunchtime.

On Nov. 2, Currie visited Pam Lear’s fourth-grade classroom to present two types of pears (Asian and red) to students to sample and vote their preference. By a show of hands, the Asian pear became the class preference by almost a landslide.

The next taste test planned will examine preferences with pomegranates and starfruit.

“I’d rather…let kids sample it. And then we’ll put it on the menu,” said Currie, who went around the tables in Lear’s classroom with slices of pears in a tray.

According to Lear and Currie, Lear’s students will soon begin work on creating a lunch menu or menus to be implemented sometime this winter in the school’s lunchroom.

Lear thought this food sampling is a way to empower school children by giving them a say in what healthy food choices are offered them thereby reinforcing and establishing good and balanced eating habits.

“Pears can be a challenge for some children to even try,” said Lear. “So doing something like this gives everyone an opportunity for something that may be new.”

Currie said the first tasting test was in Mrs. Stapleton’s classroom with ‘pluots,’ a fruit “that is a cross between a plum and apricot.”

Following the pear test on Nov. 2, Curry said, “We put the fruit out during lunch and all the pluots were gone and most of the pears.”