How do we spend our lunch money?

An article in The Des Moines Register by Philip Brasher claims that the government says it wants kids to eat more fruit and vegetable but doesn’t back it up with cold, hard cash.

“For every dollar that the U.S. Department of Agriculture spent buying commodities for school lunches last year, 55 cents went to beef, chicken and cheese vs. about 23 cents for fruits and vegetables.”

The single food item that tops the list is mozzarella cheese.

This is a thought provoking article with many interesting facts cited from a wide range of sources. One important item: Congress is due to update the school lunch program this year. That makes now an important time to be informed and make your opinions known.

What’s for lunch on Labor Day?

Slow Food USA is sponsoring a national eat-in for Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2009. They hope that people will organize public pot-lucks to highlight the importance of children eating healthy. Find out more about this at their website or contact the Time for Lunch campaign team site: timeforlunch@slowfoodusa.org.

American Medical Association Passes Resolution Supporting Sustainable Food System

The American Medical Association (AMA) has approved a new policy resolution that recognizes the link between better health and a healthy and ecologically sustainable food system. This resolution supports cooperative work between the AMA and health care and public health organizations in order to educate the public about the importance of being able to “provide food and beverages of naturally high nutritional quality.”
The AMA’s new Sustainable Food policy in based on a report from its Council on Science and Public Health, which notes that locally produced and organic foods “reduce the use of fuel, decrease the need for packaging and resultant waste disposal, preserve farmland . . . [and] the related reduced fuel emissions contribute to cleaner air and in turn, lower the incidence of asthma attacks and other respiratory problems.”

What do we teach in the school cafeteria?

At School Lunch Talk there is an interesting article about how school lunch is approached in France. There, food is part of a larger picture that includes making good choices, proper eating habits and good manners. The author, Deborah Lahmann, suggests that this is a way to use lunch time as an educational tool for nutrition, preparation techniques and cultural heritage whereas the typical American approach is only to use school lunch as a re-fueling time before getting back to class. She advocates making food a higher priority, and taking advantage of the cafeteria as another classroom.
A later entry deals with Italy where there is a law that mandates schools and other institutions to use local organic products where possible and to comply with the National Institute of Nutrition. Instead of parents advocating, the state is mandating. An important part of this is that the government is willing to pay, like they are in France, and the price of lunches is subsidized by the city. In fact they pay at least half the cost of every lunch, and even more if the students come from poorer economic backgrounds. Compare that to the US where the government pays much less and the total spent on lunches is significantly less.

An interesting read

The School Food Revolution: Public Food and the Challenge of Sustainable Development is a new book about the current debates that revolve around the school cafeteria: nutrition, sustainability, social inclusion, economics, etc.
To the authors it it is becoming clear that the school food service can provide many benefits. The book examines many of the fashionable trends in foods and schools and analyzes the results that have actually been produced in diverse communities including programs like the UN’s Home Grown Program.

Is there a free lunch?

I wanted to pass along this article from Gourmet online about the Red Cloud Indian School, their history of food self-sufficiency and the path to their current lunch service under the National School Lunch Program. I think the author does a good job of describing the complexity around things like child labor issues under the old system and decisions based on what’s available through the commodity program in the new system. I think it’s worth a read.

One interesting passage challenges a common belief that cutting out unhealthy snacks and vending machines will reduce revenue in schools, or that they’ll just bring snacks from somewhere else:

“Then, three years ago, Red Cloud administrators made the difficult decision to eliminate soda pop, candy, and processed snacks in campus vending machines, and that had expensive repercussions. “Our high school students used to hang out in their lounge eating chips and soda for lunch,” explains school superintendent Robert Brave Heart Sr. “When we took out the machines, those students starting showing up in the cafeteria, and that increased the number of lunches we had to provide every day.”

(Note that for the article presents increased lunch participation was an increased expense for the school, but for most, increased participation means more reimbursable lunches, more paid lunches sold, and more money to put back into improving the lunch program)

The article mentions Senator Harkin and the Farm Bill, but doesn’t bring up the Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR). The CNR is the federal law that is updated every five years and is where the nutrition guidelines and reimbursement rates for the National School Lunch Program are set, among other child nutrition decisions. It is currently being debated and hearings are being held in DC now.

The National Farm-to-School Network has partnered with Community Food Security Coalition and School Food FOCUS to summarize the Farm to School Initiatives and their policy priorities for the current Child Nutrition Reauthorization. Some of their priorities are specifically to support farm to school programs, and others are for general improvement of the lunch program by higher reimbursement amounts, funding food service training, strengthening nutrition standards and improved nutrition education. Their document “Nourishing the Nation One Tray at a Time” contains a good overview and history of farm to school, the Child Nutrition Act and then outlines the policy priorities to make it easy for people to contact their legislators to make their opinions known.

A garden grows

'Classroom in Bloom' is a half acre garden shared by two schools in Winthrop. The garden lets the students (K-12) experience growing their own food and the cycles of food production hands on. The teachers have incorporated the whole gardening experience into the curriculum which increases the learning and gardening aspects for everyone.
Anaka Mines and Lexi Koch are the founders and co-coordinators of the program, which has been supported by the schools since the spring of 2004. Participation in the garden means young people can experience the satisfaction of working with the soil, understand the pleasure and disappointment of caring for a garden that produces food - from preparing and enriching the soil to planting and nurturing the plant to harvesting and consuming to converting the waste back into the soil.
There is a wonderful video on their web page that recounts a lot of their philosopies and experiences.