What’s on Your Plate?

by Gabrielle Redner

Not only does Catherine Gund’s film, What’s On Your Plate? educates its audience about where our food comes from, it also investigates why getting good food to all people all the time is challenging. The audience follows two seventh graders as they make the journey that food takes, from the farm to CSAs and farmer’s markets, to schools and into the home. Sadie and Safiyah meet all the people involved in feeding the tremendous appetite of nine million New Yorkers. Throughout the film, the girls explore some essential questions: Why does food that is bad for us exist? Why can’t everyone eat healthy, non-processed food all the time?

The timing for this film’s debut could not have been better, as we team up to reform the Child Nutrition Act. Identifying what must be changed seems simple, but taking those steps means overcoming many hurdles, educating key people, raising money, and building networks across the food chain to get the job done.

Sadie and Safiyah know that more fresh fruits and vegetables, even local ones, should be in their school lunchroom. Why aren’t they? For starters, the school kitchen doesn’t have a stove, so cooking is out of the question. They need the money to buy one, and the staff to cook rather than heat up frozen meals. Sadie and Safiyah soon realize that, even with good intentions, change takes time. In this timely film, two twelve year-olds teach all of us a lesson on how to ask questions and build a team. While they are often two against one in their interviews, they do not intimidate. (Not only because they are middle school girls; that could still be scary!). They ask questions to policy makers with open-mindedness and genuine curiosity, and receive candid responses. Ultimately, the girls bring people together to work towards a city filled with better food.

Gund’s film offers enlightenment to all kinds of audiences. Those who know little about the sources of their food learn about farming and the processes of urban food distribution, as well as basic differences between processed and real food. Others who are more familiar with our food system will discover why we cannot fix its broken pieces all at once.

The subplot of this film is the networking amongst like-minded individuals, who all believe in feeding good food to all people. This is a must-see movie. Be ready to laugh, to learn and to be warmed by the sense of community amongst people who love real food.  For more about the movie, click here go to their web site.

Gabrielle is a former Slow Food USA intern and an undergraduate student at NYU who enjoys, among other things, food, writing, traveling and the ocean. 

School Lunch for the Obamas (And How We Can Make Public School Meals Just as Good)

Deborah Lehmann is an editor of School Lunch Talk, a blog about school food. She is currently studying economics and public policy at Brown University.

Ever wonder what the Obama daughters eat for school lunch? It’s a far cry from the packaged burritos and the slices of frozen pizza served in most public school cafeterias. Students at Sidwell Friends eat lemon herb baked chicken, tuscan white bean soup, local arugula and herb salad and shrimp creole. One of the favorite entrees across the board is pesto pasta with grilled chicken and vegetables.

I’ve been trying to understand for a while why that menu is so strikingly different from the ones in public schools across the country. Is it because Sidwell is a private school? Is it because the
meal program there has a bigger budget? Is it because Sasha, Malia and other students at Sidwell come from families that prioritize good food and pay attention to health?

I had an opportunity last week to talk to Leslie Phillips, the director of business development for Meriwhether Godsey, which runs school lunch at Sidwell and 36 other schools on the East coast. The answer, she said, is none of those. “It’s not public versus private,” Phillips told me. “It’s all-inclusive versus getting kids to buy.”

In many — but not all — private schools, school lunch is mandatory (or, as Phillips likes to say, “all-inclusive.”) All students pay for meals upfront as part of their tuition, and they’re covered for the year. In these schools, the menu is “in the hands of the adults,” Phillips said. Of course, they take into account what kids like to eat and strive to offer a variety of foods. But if they don’t want to sell chips or French fries, they don’t have to.

More after the jump

Why Twenty-Somethings Should Care About School Lunch

By Claire Stanford

For many (most?) twenty-somethings like myself, issues like school lunch can be murky and distant. I’m not eating school lunch; nor do I have children who are eating school lunch (nor will I in the foreseeable future). When I think of school lunch, I mostly envision a Wonder Years-style cafeteria line, complete with mystery meat (or is it called Salisbury steak?) and a scoop of mashed potatoes. Not so bad, not so good, but unchanging and unchangeable. Right? Wrong.

School lunch isn’t unchanging and it isn’t unchangeable. It is changing: it is largely getting worse – looking more and more like fast food, with fewer and fewer nutrients for the kids, and more and more fat and calories. This information alone – that kids were eating pizza and chicken nuggets and baloney and cheese sandwiches – was surprising to me, making my Wonder Years visions look like home-cooked meals. 

But what was truly shocking to me was just how possible it is to change school lunch for the better, just how changeable school lunch (and breakfast) is. For years now, since I realized just how bad school lunch really is, I have been wondering about legislation. There must be some way to change things, I thought, if only there was some way…But I figured that was just the way it is; that’s just what school lunch had to be, that it was a meal put in place by a government action a billion years ago that would take an act of divine intervention to ever get back on the Hill.

And then, this year, I discovered the Child Nutrition Act. For one thing, I had no idea there was one all-encompassing bill that covered not only school lunch, but also school breakfast. And for two, and perhaps more importantly, I had no idea that this all-encompassing wonder bill came up for reauthorization in Congress every five years.

I think a lot of people out there are like me: we know that school lunch is abominable and shameful, but it seems like such a large, vague problem that it just isn’t even approachable. Starting from scratch to fix a problem as widespread and systemic as school lunch is intimidating, but that’s the thing – we don’t have to start from scratch. A discussion of school lunch is actually built in to legislation every five years, and the next reauthorization coming up this September. And that means that we actually have a chance to make a change this year – or if you really think about it, to make a change this year, and then five years from now, and then five years from then.

I care about school lunch because five years from now (or five years from then), I may be sending my kids to school, and I want to be confident they’re getting a lunch that is both tasty and nutritious. I care because my taxes will be paying for the health care costs of diabetes (which one in three children born after the year 2000 will have). I care because better school lunch can help stimulate local economies, by giving workers skills and investing in local farms. I care because school lunch is a holistic problem, with wide-ranging implications; and I care because school lunch is also a specific issue, and because on that most specific level it the food we are feeding children is shameful.  

Want to be part of a country that feeds its children right? Sign the Time for Lunch petition, organize an Eat-In, and be aware that school lunch affects everyone in America, whether or not you or your child is eating it.

Claire Stanford is an MFA student at the University of Minnesota and a blogger at Food Junta.

Tray Trends: Bubble-Gum-Flavored Apples, and Other Sights at the SNA Food Show

First published on School Lunch Talk. Deborah Lehmann is an editor of School Lunch Talk, a blog about school food. She is currently studying economics and public policy at Brown University.

Imagine if Las Vegas built a Costco-themed hotel with a particular emphasis on chicken nugget samples and then filled the building with lunch ladies. That’s the best way I can describe the School Nutrition Association’s annual food expo, which is taking place right now in Vegas’ Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Every summer, thousands of lunch ladies flock to the show to sample the newest industry products for school lunch. They stroll through over 800 booths, tasting everything from popcorn chicken and mini cheeseburgers, to whole-grain doughnuts and blue-raspberry slushees. Forget flipping through cookbooks — today, this is the menu planning process for your kid’s school cafeteria.

If you want a bird’s eye view of the problems plaguing school food, this is the place to go. The expo boasted 40 booths showcasing ice cream, cakes, cookies, puddings and other desserts. Over 20 booths peddled poultry (mostly breaded) and 20 more featured beef products. Pizza showed up at 12 booths. Fresh fruits and vegetables showed up at only 10.

I accumulated a thick stack of spec sheets and brochures during my four-hour stroll through the booths this morning. Here’s just a random sampling of the products on display:

More after the jump

Slow Food Charleston says “it’s time for lunch”

As more people across America sign up to organize Eat-Ins for Time for Lunch, we’re hearing some wonderfully creative ideas from organizers.

The leaders of Slow Food Charleston are spearheading “Children Supporting Children for Healthy School Lunch,” a summer-long initiative where kids from the Charleston, SC community will talk about Time for Lunch at tables setup in front of local food markets. Starting June 30th, they’ll be manning (supervised) tables at the Whole Foods Market in Mt. Pleasant, at Earthfare in West Ashley and at Harris Teeter on East Bay Street. Alongside community members, the kids will discuss and answer questions about Time for Lunch, gather signatures for the Time for Lunch petition and provide market-goers with packets of information about ways to get involved.

According to Melissa Clegg, the Slow Food Charleston member leading the program, “This campaign aims to empower children by giving them the tools and the platform to take initiative for the building of their futures and the futures of children without a voice. Every child I have spoken with has identified with the issue of school lunch and been energized to fight for healthier choices that help build our local communities and reduce negative impacts on the environment.”

Slow Food Charleston’s extraordinary work with children and local food education did not start with the Time for Lunch campaign. This past Sunday, Clegg and chapter leader Carole Addlestone held a “Bring-Your-Own Picnic” fundraising event on Wadmalaw Island to benefit their organic garden project at Sanders-Clyde Elementary in downtown Charleston. Last week, the project was featured in Charleston’s Post and Courier.

As Slow Food moves forward with its campaign to give schools across America the resources to serve real food – and to plant gardens like the one at Sanders-Clyde Elementary – Melissa and Carole continue to work with Charleston’s youth. With their help, several children from Charleston schools have written letters to their legislators, letting them know how important healthier school lunches are to our nation’s future.

If you’re in Charleston on September 7th, the day of the National Eat-In, make sure to attend one of the several small community Eat-Ins Slow Food Charleston is planning. To get involved, please write Carole Addlestone (caroladdlestone[at]mindspring.com).

Inside the Soquel Cafeteria: From Homemade Turkey to Burritos in a Bag

Deborah Lehmann is an editor of School Lunch Talk, a blog about school food. She is currently studying economics and public policy at Brown University.

Cathy Giannini has been working in the cafeteria in Soquel, California for 21 years. In the world of child nutrition, that’s not unusually long (I’ve spoken with directors who have been working for over 40 years). Still, the changes she has seen throughout her career are striking.

When Giannini started out, she arrived in the kitchen at 4 am every day to start cooking. She made her own refried beans, her own hamburger meat for tacos and sloppy joes, even her own ranch dressing. She cooked 20 turkeys at a time in an enormous kettle and served the meat with homemade mashed potatoes. A baker in the district made all the breads from scratch as well.

Giannini grew up on a farm in Georgia, where food and home cooking were celebrated. Her father was a cook in the Army, and her two grandmothers were always preparing something in her kitchen. Giannini learned to cook by watching them as they added a pinch of this and a pinch of that to the pot. When she was raising her own children, Giannini always cooked from scratch. She loved it, and she is a firm believer that homemade food is healthier. “That way you can control what’s in it — the amount of sodium and the amount of oil,” she said.

Today, Giannini’s lunch program is the antithesis of her experience growing up. On a visit a few months ago, students came out for brunch and picked up doughnuts and sausage-studded breakfast pizzas — both in a package, both recently out of the freezer. For lunch, they get packaged “el eXtremo” burritos, corndogs, mini cheeseburgers (on their buns in a plastic package) and Round Table Pizza. Giannini used to spend her days flipping through recipe books. Now she goes to food shows and seeks out the newest processed products.

More after the jump

A Sampler of School Lunch Loopholes

Deborah Lehmann is an editor of School Lunch Talk, a blog about school food. She is currently studying economics and public policy at Brown University.

As Congress gears up for this year’s child nutrition reauthorization, there has been a lot of discussion about the loopholes in the National School Lunch Program. For the most part, though, those discussions have focused on the laughably outdated list of “foods of minimal nutritional value” and the junk food that cafeterias sell outside of complete, reimbursable meals. Few people been paying attention to the loopholes that affect the nutritional quality of the meals themselves. Over the past few months, I’ve been accumulating a list of loopholes that allow school cafeterias to dish out less-than-healthy lunches. Here are a few of my favorites:

Percent Calories from Fat — School meals must contain no more than 30 percent of calories from fat and no more than 10 percent of calories from saturated fat. However, regulations set only a minimum for calories, not a maximum (in fact, I’ve spoken to school foodservice directors who say they were written up for serving low-calorie meals and had to put desserts back on the menu to meet the regulations). That means meeting the percent-from-fat requirements is largely a game. An entree that is high in fat or saturated fat is totally OK to serve, as long as you put it on the menu with side dishes that are high in calories but low in fat. Recently, I talked to a director who said she had been encouraged to put small bags of Skittles on the menu to meet the benchmarks. The candy boosts the calories in a meal without adding fat, so it often puts the percent of calories from fat within the acceptable threshold (it’s also fortified with vitamin C, so it helps meet that requirement as well). So while a meal with French fries or stuffed-crust pizza may be too high in fat to meet the nutrition guidelines, adding some candy (or another source of extra calories) to the tray makes the lunch into a USDA-compliant meal.

More after the jump

When It Comes to Kids, Change Can’t Wait

Gordon Jenkins is the Time for Lunch Campaign Coordinator at Slow Food USA

Last week, Michelle Obama made these remarks to a group of fifth-graders who had just harvested 73 pounds of lettuce and 12 pounds of snap peas from the First Lady’s Garden on the White House Lawn:

“To make sure that we give all our kids a good start to their day and to their future, we need to improve the quality and nutrition of the food served in schools. We’re approaching the first big opportunity to move this to the top of the agenda with the upcoming reauthorization of the child nutrition programs. In doing so, we can go a long way towards creating a healthier generation for our kids.”

It wasn’t Michael Pollan who said those words. It was the First Lady. Coming from her, the phrase “big opportunity to move this to the top of the agenda” is a call to action we cannot ignore.

When children are given the chance to plant and pick and cook food that’s both delicious and good for them, they’re far more curious to give it a try—and more often than not, they like it. When those children are offered real food in the school cafeteria and at the family dinner table, they eat it. They begin to ask for it.

Michelle has said that when Sasha and Malia learned to enjoy real food, they started “lecturing” her about what she should be eating and “what a carrot does, what broccoli does” to our bodies. Her kids taught her to enjoy real food. Kids can lead the way.

The National School Lunch Program provides a meal to 30 million children every school day. By giving schools the resources to serve real food, we can teach 30 million children healthy eating habits that will last throughout their lives. That’s a major down payment on health care reform. By providing 30 million children with locally grown fruits and vegetables, we can dramatically reshape the way this country grows and gets its food. By raising a generation of children on real food, we can build a strong foundation for their health, for our economy’s health and for America’s future prosperity.

This year, the Child Nutrition Act, which is the bill that governs the National School Lunch Program, is up for reauthorization. Unless citizens everywhere speak up this summer, “business as usual” in Congress will pass a Child Nutrition Act that continues to fail our children. We can do better.

Our leaders in Congress have to hear that everyday people in their districts refuse to accept the status quo. We have to tell them that when it comes to our children and the legacy we’re leaving them, change can’t wait.

That’s why a group of us are organizing a National Eat-In for Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2009. On that day, people in communities across America will gather with their neighbors for public potlucks that send a clear message to our nation’s leaders: It’s time to provide America’s children with real food at school.

To get the whole country to sit down to share a meal together, we’re going to need the help of all kinds of people: parents, teachers, community leaders, kids and people who’ve never done anything like this before. We’re going to need everyone to pitch in, starting today—because with the President calling for health care reform and the First Lady planting a garden on the White House Lawn, we’ve got an opening to pass legislation that grants 30 million children the freedom to grow up healthy.

We can do it this year, but only if we act now. It’s time to get real food into schools.

Universal Lunch Poised to Move Beyond Philly

by Slow Food USA Interns Alex Tung and Leah Gorham

This week, the front line for getting better food into schools is Philadelphia.

After narrowly escaping the closure of its school breakfast and lunch program, which provides free meals to 120,000 low-income students without requiring their families to fill out unduly paperwork, Philadelphia has turned the tables: five Pennsylvania Congressmen are introducing bills in the House and Senate that would expand the city’s paperless program to the rest of the nation. Together, the Paperless Enrollment Act for School Meals of 2009 and Rep. Joe Sestak’s School Meal Enhancement Act of 2009 would give schools an alternative to the current application processing system and would make it easier for poor families to apply for free and reduced-price meals.

In a press release, Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, a co-sponsor of the Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act of 2009, said, “Modernization of the school lunch program is one of my top priorities when the Senate reauthorizes the Child Nutrition Act later this fall…. The current system is inefficient and outdated.”

More after the jump

Philadelphia and its Universal Feeding Program

A few weeks ago it was reported that the feds planned to discontinue Philadelphia’s universal lunch program.  For some of us, this was news—all kids in public school in Philadelphia qualify for a free lunch?  With no paperwork needing to be filed?  Amazing!  In many areas the families of children who should qualify never fill out the paper work, and hungry kids miss out.  Apparently it started as a pilot program there 20 years ago, and never left.

Well, the good news reported on all of the school food blogs this morning is that the program is thankfully safe, for the time being.  The USDA has wisely decided to wait until the Child Nutrition Act is reauthorized this fall before making a final decision.  In the meantime, many are calling for “Universal Feeding” to be expanded, if anything, into a national program.

Some are doubting: a commenter on La Vida Locavore warned us “not to get too excited,” since “the motivation has less to do with feeding children healthy meals than it does their ability get more federal funds.”  And a commenter on School Lunch Talk rightfully wondered “How does making the same drek universally free improve nutrition?”