What'S for Lunch
We’ve all heard the latest health advice: Avoid transfats. Eat more fruits and vegetables. You may notice those changes on grocery store shelves, but for many school children, their cafeteria lunch menus haven’t caught up. This year, an effort to get healthy foods to the school lunch table is tied up in a much larger debate - national farm policy.
What do you think should be in a school lunch? School lunch programs face major challenges. In addition to buying food, they must cover overhead and staffing. Often the products that bring most money come from vending machines.
What about demand? Should schools be responsible for changing the way kids eat, replacing the french fries with veggies? Tell us your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
You may listen to the “What’s for Lunch” Radio report online, as well as find more resources.
Lauren Sommer reports for QUEST and Radio News at KQED-FM.
I believe school lunches should be at the forefront of the healthy eating movement. In a city as foodie as San Francisco I believe we can and should be doing a much better job with public school lunches. The chefs and restaurant owners could step up the way Jamie Olivier did in London and Alice Waters has done in Berkeley to change what is being served at school. It is heart breaking when you see the truck unload trays of “food” that will be served in the cafeteria. My daughter’s public school has a kitchen. I don’t understand why they can’t prepare simple, fresh pasta dishes, chili, rice and veggies. I think there are a lot of politics with the USDA. Children’s health needs to be put first. Not politics.
Thanks for the comment, Lisa. An interesting article came out yesterday in the Los Angeles Times about Jamie Oliver’s efforts. He’s run into a problem that the Berkeley school district has tried to avoid.
http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-fg-lunch4oct04,1,5906427.story
I am currently heading up a group of interested parents at my children’s San Mateo elementary school to see what changes can be made in our district’s lunch program. I was inspired by Alice Waters, and also by Two Angry Moms, a couple of women on the East coast who are making a documentary about this topic. I would like to see more fresh, local food served that is not over-processed. It is possible to make it affordably and the time is coming to make it widely avaiable. There is a direct correlation between good nutrition and how well students learn.