School Lunches

I did meet with the director of Nutrition for Logan's school District. We talked for about 45 minutes and I had a few surprises. The biggest one is that the nutrition department's budget is not included in the School District's operating budget and gets none of the money from the government that goes to schools directly. They operate independently as a non profit organization. The money they get comes from sales of food, cash subsidies from the government, and donated commodities from the USDA for each meal they serve. In districts that serve at leas 60% free or reduced priced lunches (which Logan's school district does) get an extra two cents per meal served. Because much of the food that is served is from donated commodities, there is going to be a lot more soy, corn and wheat based products. The things that really put on the pounds! These very things are also given to big cow farms and chicken farms as surplus commodities with the sole purpose of a cheap way of fattening up the livestock so they can be brought to market quicker. The director of nutrition gave me lots of information including menus, ingredient lists and nutritional information for many of the lunches they serve. She has also tried to start a few programs in the classroom so that the curriculum is tied into what is current in the cafeteria. I told her that Logan came home one day and told me that he was learning the food pyramid and found out he is supposed to eat mostly grains! I was shocked because that is utterly false. The food pyramid has been changed to make fruits and veggies the biggest group. Unfortunately the grain lobbyists won when the new graphic was designed. Fruits and veggies were seperated into their own groups on the new pyramid so the grain slice is bigger than each one seperately. She wa also very disappointed to hear about all that. She agrees that she needs to work more with each school on the curriculum and training the teachers better on their programs.

After reviewing the information I think that they are doing a better job than many schools but think that a lot more can be done. The menu reads like a fast food menu and we are training the kids to eat these things every day. Even though the hot dogs are made from chicken and the hamburgers are 100% beef with no additives. The cheese pizza has half cheese and half imitation cheese (which is made mainly from soy and corn) so there is lots of room for improvement. The school follows the recommendations from the USDA. So the main thing is to change the rules that the USDA puts out. I sent out my letter to many people in government and at the school district. I have signed a few petitions to improve school food programs. There is a lot going on out there right now. Mostly because the old requirements expire this year and need to be renewed. Any changes in the program can only be made when the program is renewed. Also this turns out to be something that First Lady Michelle Obama is promoting right now. I hope to continue working with the school and writing to those in government to get better nutrition in the schools.

I also saw a great movie called Food Inc this weekend. It gives a lot of insight to where the current global food market is going. We saw the movie Saturday night and the national news showed many clips from the movie because of the recent e-coli thing. If you see the movie you will understand where the e-coli thing is coming from. Not good. I wont get into it here but check out the links.