What are our kids eating for lunch? Blogger/teacher Mrs. Q started answering this question by eating school lunch every day for a year and documenting the effort on her blog: Fed Up With Lunch. The site went viral in short order, and now Mrs. Q has over 109,000 page views and a small army of “followers”. But Mrs. Q isn’t the only one documenting school lunch, a new site American Lunchroom invites you to send in pictures of school lunches from your own neck of the woods. The submitted photographs give a broad view of the situation on the ground, and although there are some bright spots, like the Chicken Salad from Edmond Oklahoma (lunch #19), the pictures mostly confirm what we already suspect. School lunches are in dire need of increased funding, and public awareness is a huge part of this effort. The more we see what are children are actually eating, the more political will we can generate to affect change. So drop in on your kids class and submit a photo of what they've been eating !
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photos via American Lunchroom
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Cheap carbohydrates are the favorite foods of school districts across the country. What’s wrong with carbs? Unlike protein and fat, carbohydrates turn into sugar (glucose) when you eat them, which signals the body to produce insulin. A powerful hormone, insulin is responsible for storing fat in the body and has been implicated in an all-too-familiar complex of modern diseases: obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis. Teachers complain that kids are out of control after school meals. The high doses of sugar and other carbs could be an explanation. Kids gen an initial jolt of energy from this type of meal, but typically the body overcompensates with insulin: After eating so many carbs, you will soon be feeling lethargic and hungry again. Consider this meal served last week at my daughter’s school. The entree is a highly-processed version of chicken nuggets, but you can’t see the chicken under all the breading (carbs). Next to the chicken nuggets is a big blob of sugary barbecue sauce for dipping (pure carbs). The baked beans are all starch (carbs) swimming in a sugary sauce (more carbs). The macaroni and cheese is mostly refined pasta (carbs). So far, this meal is perfectly acceptable under the rules that govern the federally subsidized meal program. You’ve got protein in the chicken and a little bit of fat in the cheese, plenty of grain (no kidding) and legumes in the baked beans. Instead of a vegetable, we have fruit: a cup of diced peaches. Healthy, right? Well, maybe, if you don’t count all the sugar in those peaches (another jolt of carbs). And as a beverage with this meal the kids were served orange juice rather than milk. I checked the ingredients on the carton. A 4-ounce serving contained 12 grams of sugar, about three teaspoons, or a little less, ounce-for-ounce, than Coca-Cola.
Cheap carbohydrates are the favorite foods of school districts across the country. What’s wrong with carbs? Unlike protein and fat, carbohydrates turn into sugar (glucose) when you eat them, which signals the body to produce insulin. A powerful hormone, insulin is responsible for storing fat in the body and has been implicated in an all-too-familiar complex of modern diseases: obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis.
Teachers complain that kids are out of control after school meals. The high doses of sugar and other carbs could be an explanation. Kids gen an initial jolt of energy from this type of meal, but typically the body overcompensates with insulin: After eating so many carbs, you will soon be feeling lethargic and hungry again.
Consider this meal served last week at my daughter’s school. The entree is a highly-processed version of chicken nuggets, but you can’t see the chicken under all the breading (carbs). Next to the chicken nuggets is a big blob of sugary barbecue sauce for dipping (pure carbs). The baked beans are all starch (carbs) swimming in a sugary sauce (more carbs). The macaroni and cheese is mostly refined pasta (carbs).
So far, this meal is perfectly acceptable under the rules that govern the federally subsidized meal program. You’ve got protein in the chicken and a little bit of fat in the cheese, plenty of grain (no kidding) and legumes in the baked beans. Instead of a vegetable, we have fruit: a cup of diced peaches. Healthy, right? Well, maybe, if you don’t count all the sugar in those peaches (another jolt of carbs).
And as a beverage with this meal the kids were served orange juice rather than milk. I checked the ingredients on the carton. A 4-ounce serving contained 12 grams of sugar, about three teaspoons, or a little less, ounce-for-ounce, than Coca-Cola.
Truly, this meal is enough to send anyone’s blood sugar through the roof.
Ed Bruske
This essay is re-printed with permission from Ed Bruske, The Slow Cook Originally posted at the Better D.C. School Food blog. photo courtesy Ed Bruske
This essay is re-printed with permission from Ed Bruske, The Slow Cook
Originally posted at the Better D.C. School Food blog. photo courtesy Ed Bruske
Originally posted at the Better D.C. School Food blog.
photo courtesy Ed Bruske
Recently Chef Ann traveled to San Diego to convene with Slow Food Urban San Diego and parents and students from Albert Einstein Academies to make the case for comprehensive school lunch overhaul. The visit was sponsored by Whole Foods School Lunch Makeover Video Contest, who chose Albert Einstein's video as the winning submission.
In addition to holding a press conference with San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, Chef Ann addressed over 150 people at the Natural History Museum and later directed the Chef Ann "School Lunch-Off." Local chefs created lunch recipes using the one-dollar-per-meal guideline and USDA nutritional requirements and the resulting creations were sampled and judged by a panel of students and Chef Ann.
With the ball now rolling, the director of Nutrition Services for the San Diego School District, Gary Petil has begun a dialogue with the community, and the first steps towards a viable transformation have begun. You can help build on this momentum in by engaging your local community, building partnerships for visibility and contacting local and national legislators. Visit our Lunch Box Advocates page to contact your elected official and participate directly in the School Lunch Revolution !
It doesn’t appear likely at this point that enough political will exists in The House of Representatives to make any significant changes to the Farm Bill, a massive piece of legislation currently working its way through Congress that governs the subsidization of commodity crops and their distribution to school lunch programs. The majority of the subsidies that the bill sponsors go directly to huge agribusiness and producers of feed crops; only .37% of the bill helps out fruit and vegetable farmers. The continuation of this federal largesse is the primary reason that healthy food in America costs more than processed foods and one of the main reasons that our nation is in such poor health.
The House Agriculture Committee voted unanimously March 3 to maintain all existing subsidy programs, and seems poised to counter any reform action. Hearings on the Farm Bill are ongoing through July of this year, but most committee members seem united against President Obama’s proposed reductions. However, this fall the Senate will have a turn debating the bill, and it seems that a groundswell of public awareness around the issue might open the possibilities for reform. Lets keep this conversation alive and work towards a healthier America!
Learn more about these legislative issues and stay up to date with what’s happening with the Farm Bill
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Chef Ann - Lunchbox Advocates from DBA West on Vimeo.
Ann Cooper's live facebook chat from February 24.
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