Green Options

Paige Donner is founder Greening Hollywood column, media platform and eco-consulting company. She is also the publisher and founder of the popular Greening Hollywood column. http://www.greeninghollywood.net

Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) is introducing a bill to Congress that would finally get junk foods out of our schools, addressing skyrocketing childhood obesity rates and bringing school nutrition standards forward 40 years.

“Despite pockets of progress in some states and school systems, most schools make junk food readily available to children. But junk food in schools helps fuel an epidemic of obesity and diabetes in children. And, it undercuts the considerable federal investment we make in the healthy school lunch program.” - Margo Wootan, Center for Science in the Public Interest nutrition policy director

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