Baker's low-fat muffins hot item on campus

Grassroots Bake Shop - whose sky-blue walls, a painted sun and butternut squash soup make it a cozy neighborhood hangout - is a short walk away from North Shore High School in Glen Head.

Students bought muffins from owner Rob Mansfield's three-year-old shop so often he figured it would be simple enough to sell his baked goods on campus.

Mansfield, 44, approached North Shore officials with a proposal, insisting his muffins would be a better snack option than the junk food sold in the school's cafeteria.

Baked goods, he says, don't have to be unhealthy. "People think of it as, 'Oh, it's all sweets and fattening,' but it's so not that," he said. "Everything we do is baked and natural."

And, he argues, "Our kids should be eating better."

But because the district follows the Choose Sensibly program, where snack items can have no more than 7 grams of fat and 15 grams of sugar, Mansfield needed to adjust his recipe to make it healthier.

"I knew we used real sugar and real butter, but I had no idea" what the fat and sugar amounts were, he said.

With the help of a consultant who creates $4,000 wedding cakes, he tried different combinations "for months and months" and about 20 recipes later, produced a muffin that didn't taste obviously low-fat.

"It was important that the quality has to be exemplary," said Mansfield, whose low-fat cranberry and banana chocolate chip muffins are soft and moist. And his muffin line ranges between 4.8 and 7 grams of fat, and between 9.3 and 15 grams of sugar - within the program's guidelines.

But his muffins suffered by comparison in some ways. The muffins originally offered at North Shore, as at many other schools, were "cheaper and huge." Mansfield sells his school muffins for $1.95, but at 3 ounces they're smaller than his original recipe, which is 3.5 ounces.

In September 2006, he started selling 18 muffins a day at North Shore. By the end of that school year, he was selling more than 100, in four varieties.

"I like them," said Ahwa Sung, a North Shore junior, last year. "They're really tiny, though, and a little expensive."

Now Mansfield goes to districts across Long Island giving samples to students. Three Village, Locust Valley and Roslyn are among the districts that sell his muffins.

Betsy McLoughlin, food service director for Roslyn schools, said the muffins are sold in the high school. Four dozen muffins and scones are sold out by the end of the week. "The kids love them," she said. "I think they're a healthy item for the kids." There, the muffins sell for $2.25.

Along with his muffins, Mansfield hopes to sell the notion that healthy school food doesn't have to taste bad. He wants to show students how to aspire to better taste and quality.

"I'm glad we're giving kids balanced choices, but if it tastes bad . . . kids aren't going to eat it."