Green Options

I work in a school district where over 75% of the children are on the free and reduced lunch program. To be eligible for such a program, family income must fall below 130 percent of the Federal poverty guidelines for free meals, or family income must fall between 130 and at or below 185 percent of the Federal poverty guidelines for a reduced price meal.  The current Federal Poverty Guideline is $21,200 for a family of four.  Most of the children on this program eat both breakfast and lunch at school. Unfortunately, the nutritional quality of these meals is poor, as they are packed with processed foods.

Malnutrition is usually a consequence of poverty. Farm to School programs have the ability to combat this negative effect of poverty by providing children two healthy meals a day from a local farm:

Seems like all the good food stories I find start with an amazingly dedicated person. Someone who decides to work on making things better, often as a volunteer. Someone with unusual passion and skill. The story I want to leave you with today probably started that way too, but I don’t know that for certain. What I do know is that three years into it, Grow Montana’s Food Corps has helped schools and colleges in Montana buy more local and Montana-grown food. They are helping revitalize the Montana food economy. And they provide an inspiration for what can be done at the state level.

The FoodCorps, staffed with 5 AmeriCorps VISTA volunteers, works with Montana farmers,

In my last post, I suggested that school lunches are a reflection of our society’s crazy relationship to food. And there is no doubt that evidence for what Michael Pollan has called our “national eating disorder” can be found in many school cafeterias. I stopped by my daughter’s school yesterday at lunch time to see what they were serving, and I felt discouraged. The noodle turkey bowl and cheese pizza options both looked creepy. At least they have a salad bar, and milk.

But just as awareness is growing about food issues in general, people all over the country are trying to change school food into something we actually WANT our children to eat. So far, these efforts are local, occurring mostly by school or district. But they show that change is possible, and provide some great inspiration to parents and others who want to make things better.

I have to admit that my 3rd grader doesn’t eat school lunches. She has tried what the kids call “hot lunch” exactly 3 times in her entire public school career. She doesn’t like them. At all. Every morning, I fix her lunch, and although I sometimes grumble a little, I am glad to get to choose what she can eat for her midday meal.

But lately, I have been thinking a lot about those hot lunches. For one thing, they feed a lot of children. Many of my daughter’s friends eat them frequently or always. In 2006, more than 30 million children in the U.S. each day ate school lunches. And the school lunch program has been all over the news lately. From downer cows that end up in our kids’ lunches to efforts in districts across the country to combat obesity and bad eating habits in school cafeterias, school lunches seem to be a metaphor for all the bigger issues about food in America today.

Depending on who you talk to, school lunches might be described as anything from a program that nourishes our kids

Eaten in a school cafeteria lately? Chances are you'll be dining on processed, reheated food that helps tiny school lunch budgets stretch their pennies. In an attempt to make lunches healthier and more sustainable, the state of Oregon is taking significant steps towards increasing the amount of local food that goes into public school lunches.

One legislative bill, awaiting Gov. Ted Kulongoski's signature, that will limit caloric, sugar, and fat content of foods sold

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