Green Options

Chicken nuggets. Taco salad. Pizza. Cartons of milk. Hot dogs. Mystery meat. These foods were all staples of my elementary and high school cafeterias, despite clear guidelines about the nutritional benefits for school meals. Efforts to reform school lunch got a boost Tuesday when Institute of Medicine of the National Academies released “School Meals: Building Blocks for Healthy Children,” a report of recommendations for how to reform school lunch.

The report was requested by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in order to help align the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs with the most recent set of dietary guidelines for Americans. Current school lunches must meet guidelines set in 1995, but nutritional knowledge has progressed since then, and the report tries to address those changes.

Healthy school lunches the key to a sustainable future, lower health care costs, and happier citizens?

This fall, Congress begins reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, which dictates the National School Lunch Program in the U.S. Even before food prices started to rise, a USDA study found that the program covered only 82% of the cost of school lunches, which are full of processed foods. Meanwhile, vending machines packed with sugary sodas and junk food are becoming the norm in school cafeterias. This is in stark contrast to other countries’ school lunch programs, such as in Japan where school lunch is part of an education program emphasizing healthy eating. Now is the time to get heard if we want schools to serve our kids real food and Slow Food USA is planning a National Day of Action to do just that!

Slow Food USA is a group working to change food policy and attitudes in the U.S. Their mission is:

…to create dramatic and lasting change in the food system. We reconnect Americans with the people, traditions, plants, animals, fertile soils and waters that produce our food. We seek to inspire a transformation in food policy, production practices and market forces so that they ensure equity, sustainability and pleasure in the food we eat.

Chapters across the country organize events where folks can learn about the Slow Food Movement.

On September 7th, slow food groups around the country are planning eat ins to send a message to Congress: it’s time to get the junk food out of our schools and fund real, healthy school lunches. Slow Food USA president Josh Viertel explains the campaign:

The salmonella contaminated peanut butter recall has been in the news for weeks, yet recently it has been discovered that the federal government sent potentially tainted peanut butter and roasted peanuts to schools in California, Minnesota and Idaho in 2007.  It is unclear how much of this product remains in schools.

Yesterday, the Department of Agriculture suspended all business with Peanut Corp. of America, and schools are checking cafeterias and vending machines for old stock. David Shipman, acting administrator of USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service stated Peanut Corp. “lacks business integrity and business honesty, which seriously and directly hinders its ability to do business with the federal government.”

The clock is ticking and back-to-school sales are bombarding us every time we turn on the TV or open a newspaper. At the same time, farmer’s markets are at their peak with the bounty of the harvest. Is it possible to connect the two?

The answer may be Ann Cooper, a.k.a. the Renegade Lunch Lady. She’s on a crusade to persuade schools across the country to transform lunches into healthy, appetizing meals. Furthermore, she is teaching students about nutrition through hands-on work in gardens and a curriculum that covers the fundamentals of food.

Ann’s mission is to change the way our children are eating. Her goal is to tackle outdated district spending policies, commodity-based food service organizations, political platforms with no mention of school food or child health - and ultimately the USDA - to ensure that kids everywhere have wholesome, nutritious, delicious food at school.

Much of the press surrounding efforts to improve school lunches focuses on resistance from junk food-addled children who like their potatoes with partially-hydrogenated oil and their fruit juice incased in gelatin and xanthan gum. TV shows like Jamie’s School Dinners show picky children gagging at the sight of tomatoes, spitting out pieces of lettuce. This makes for excellent TV, but is it really accurate?

The Mercury News - a local Silicon Valley newspaper - recently reported the popularity of healthy cafeteria menus with the schools’ students. In fact, school lunch participation has gone up in the two school districts (Los Gatos and Saratoga Union School Districts) that have teamed up with Revolution Foods - a school catering company that sources local foods, uses 85% organic ingredients, and teams up with Whole Foods to broaden their purchasing options.

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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