Higher Food Prices Challenge Schools' Efforts to Provide Healthier Meals

As prices for milk and other basic food items increase, schools have to make decisions and cut corners, and just at a time when movements like Farm to School and school nutrition committees are pushing for more local, fresh ingredients and less processed and ready-made food. Maria Glod writes about the concessions schools are making in the Washington, DC area as they struggle to keep lunch programs from going in the red. In her article, Schools Get A Lesson in Lunch Line Economics: Food Costs Unravel Nutrition Initiatives, she notes:

Each year Uncle Sam, in an effort to ensure the neediest children get healthy meals, gives schools a little more cash to help feed students. But school officials nationwide say the federal share hasn't kept pace with rising costs. This year, the U.S. Agriculture Department is giving schools $2.47 per lunch to serve free meals to children from the poorest families, up from $2.40 last year, a 3 percent increase. In the same time, milk prices rose about 17 percent and bread nearly 12 percent.

This serves as an excellent reminder that work at the local and state level must be balanced by support at the federal level. It may also mean that states may need to start kicking in some funds to increase budgets for food in schools. As School Nutrition Directors have told us again and again, they cannot serve healthy fresh lunches without reasonable funding.

Privatizing School Lunches is Not the Solution

A study at University of Michigan looked at the realities behind a trend toward privatizing school lunch service. The study, conducted by Roland Zullo, assistant research scientist at the U-M Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, found that private lunch services offer more selection, but the additional offerings tend to be in the categories of less nutritious foods, and this affects school performance.

...the study shows that private food service is associated with a reduction of 1 percent to 3 percent in scores on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP tests for grades 3-9), after controlling for affluence, school resources and student traits.This is especially true for students in grades 3-5 and with the English, reading and writing tests. The culprit? Private food services tend to serve more high-fat and high-sugar foods on their a la carte menu.

Schools often choose to contract with private food service companies to provide meals, hoping to save money that can then be directed to classroom education, but Zullo's study found that they don't save much at all. He also discovered that schools with privatized food service have an average of 1.1 student more per classroom. There are undoubtedly other factors at play and it's not a direct causal relationship, but as Zullo says, ".... the results do not indicate that privatizing food services liberates resources for the classroom."

Here's a link: Privatized School Food Service and Student Performance in Michigan: A Preliminary Report

Food for thought: privatizing school lunches may impair learning. University of Michigan News Service

Legislature Passes Local Farms-Healthy Kids Bill

It may not make school lunch taste any better, but the Legislature approved a bill Tuesday that will put Washington-grown produce on the menu in school cafeterias around the state.
Senate Bill 6483 relaxes food-purchasing regulations to allow schools and state-run institutions to buy fresh produce and meats from Washington farmers -- even if locally grown products cost a little more than their processed or canned counterparts.
Additionally, the measure creates a number of pilot programs and grants that would allow food banks to accept local produce, allow farmers markets to accept food-stamp cards, and pay for Washington-grown fruits and vegetables to be served at schools where more than half of students get free or reduced lunch.

School Lunches May Get to Go Local!

The Local Farms-Healthy Kids legislation passed the State of Washington House of Representatives yesterday due, in no small part, to support from concerned citizens around the state.

Michael Bennett, President of Pacific Prepak, a local food processing and distribution company, wrote a great Op-Ed with Joan Crooks of the Washington Environmental Council on the bill: Local Farms — Healthy Kids a hearty investment.

Mad Cows, Bad Enforcement

The first outbreak of mad cow disease in the US occurred in Yakima, WA. Hence, Washingtonians have a stake in the the federal oversight of food safety.

Local Farms-Healthy Kids still needs funding

The Local Farms-Healthy Kids legislation has passed the first critical tests in the Washington Legislature. The policy has passed both the House and the Senate with nearly unanimous support. The next challenge will be attaching the funds to the program.

Diane Urbani de la Paz of the Peninsula Daily News asks whether there is enough support for Local Farms-Healthy Kids to pass the budget test.

If you'd like to have your voice heard on the issue, you can contact the Legislative Hotline at 1-800-562-6000 this week and ask your Senators to fully fund Local Farms-Healthy Kids.

Local Farms, Healthy Kids Passes House!

The Local Farms-Healthy Kids Bill is moving along through our state legislature.
The Washington House of Representatives passed the Local Farms-Healthy Kids bill 95-1 on February 15. There are still many hurdles ahead.

To learn more about the bill, see Jennifer Langston's article in the Seattle P-I: Bill aims to put more farm-fresh foods on school lunch menus. She describes some challenges to farm to school programs, and provides some insight into how the Local Farms-Healthy Kids bill addresses them. From the article:

"I don't think there's another state that's putting together such a
comprehensive soup-to-nuts package," said Thomas Forster, policy director for
the national Community Food Security Coalition.