I know I said I was done (at least until next February) but I was pleased to see that Gourmet Magazine published a letter I wrote to the editor regarding an excellent article they had done on school lunches. The city of Kent has been working steadily on improving the food available to the kids in the district. The second choice lunch for the last week of May is a turkey sandwich. To those of you who have never written, called, met to discuss, emailed and blogged about school food you may not realize the tremendous achievement of serving something that is not brown and fried for lunch. Trust me it’s a big deal. Kent schools deserve a round of applause for making progress in this area. I’m hoping to put a hit on the Super Donut and fruit pies next fall.
Elsewhere in the Cleveland area, a seven year old girl died from e-coli hanging around in a hamburger patty- or so investigators think. There has been a voluntary recall of about a zillion pounds of ground beef processed since March. Have you eaten any? Good luck trying to find out. I was interviewed by Julie Grant of NPR about my opinion of the FDA’s role in food safety particularly regarding the nasty peanut butter we have all probably been eating. My personal opinion is that any federal agency that is given the task of supervising food safety is irrelevant without the power to force recalls. I have to take off my shoes at the damn airport for pete’s sake- they can’t force companies who kill little girls with hamburgers to remove them from restaurants and cafeterias? I hope that other news outlets, magazines and school superintendents decide that food is important. In this country, food should neither harm immediately, like the tainted burgers, or harm cumulatively like salty fried lunches.
May 29, 2009 at 8:20 pm |
I just finished reading your letter referenced above and wanted to pass something on to you. If you really want to learn the skinny on how unhealthy all the animal based high fat foods we are encouraged to eat are read the book “The China Study” by Colin Campbell Phd. In it he makes a very strong case for the connection between animal based protein and what he calls the diseases of affluence (heart disease, cancer, obesity, osteoporosis, diabetes, the autoimune diseases, dimentia, Altzheimers etc.). His opinions are backed up by a significant amount of well documented research. He shares your opinion on what we are doing to our school aged children in their lunches as well as the “nutrition” lessons we are teaching them that are sponsored by none other than the dairy and meat industries. According to Dr. Campbell, cow’s milk is one of the worst things we can be giving our children. I urge you to read the book and decide for yourself.
May 31, 2009 at 3:40 am |
I haven’t read the book you mentioned- I’m a bit of an omnivore myself, but I do find the tremendous influence of paid lobbyists interesting reading. There’s a lot of room for improvement in the school lunches for sure, but so far I have opted to push for greater quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables. I’m planning on encouraging incremental changes that will gradually lead to much healthier meals. “Healthy” can be a term that is very frustrating to pin down- so tiny changes are much more easily accepted.
May 30, 2009 at 7:36 pm |
omg-I just read your letter to the editor in Gourmet…thank you for writing it. I too am a stay-at-home-mom….although I’m not sure that I’m ever home… I too am beyond disgusted at the school lunches offered at my daughters kindergarten. This was her first time in a full day program, her sisters are younger than her. I see that our district has a calorie count on the menu…which I suppose is nice, but the food is crap. On the few days I was able to drop in for lunch, my stomach turned over what my children were offered…greasy hash browns, french toast sticks, drippy sausage patties………..omg. I wouldn’t feed them that slop-o-la, so why the hell does the district have it??!!!! Oh, it’s infuriating. This year I was playing nice, but I suppose next school year I will have to get more, ahem, vocal. I used to teach in the district, so I’ve been walking a fine line… Keep up hollering about this, I will too. Jenn
May 31, 2009 at 3:52 am |
If every parent was forced to eat what the kids are given for lunch I think a lot more people would be sounding the alarm on school food. You have probably already noticed that parents with the means and the awareness pack lunches. It can be hard to motivate parents to speak up, but that is exactly what needs to happen for some change. I don’t think you should stop playing nice. Write a letter to your superintendent and school board and tell them what you observed, and what you would prefer instead. Then follow up, follow up, follow up. When presented as a matter of school business and in the context of the health education for the kids- it’s hard to argue for fried hash browns. Besides, I think writing letters is fun, sometimes people even write you back!