NYT and WaPo Report on Efforts to Fix School Lunch

by Slow Food USA staffer Gordon Jenkins

School lunch is all over the national newspapers today. In The New York Times, Kim Severson writes about a public school in Queens in New York City with an intrepid school nutrition director who manages to cook most of the school’s food from scratch, despite the challenges she faces under a National School Lunch Program that doesn’t give schools the resources to serve real food. Here’s a quote:

“The principal, Laura Mastrogiovanni, readily admits that food wasn’t on her radar when she took over in 2005. The cafeteria keeps a separate budget and cooks don’t report to her. But when Mrs. Barlatier arrived in 2007 and started to improve the food, it didn’t take long to see that the children not only ate more of it but seemed happier at lunch.
‘They needed a little flair in their food,” Mrs. Mastrogiovanni said. “It’s good for their brains.Ҕ

In today’s Washington Post, Jane Black writes about Revolution Foods, a start-up food service provider that serves healthy, delicious food at 250 schools in California, Colorado and D.C. Most of the companies’ clients are public charter schools and private schools, even though the cost of a lunch from Revolution Foods ($2.90) is not much higher than the amount that Congress gives school cafeterias ($2.68) to prepare school lunch. The article does a great job of laying out the problem with school lunch, plain and simple:

“Here’s what everyone agrees on: Too many kids are fat. The food they get at school, which provides 35 percent of most schoolchildren’s calories, is not nutritious enough and tastes lousy, to boot. And there’s not enough money to change this unwholesome picture. So here’s the question: How much will it cost to fix school lunch?”

And it ends on a hopeful note towards finding a solution, with a quote from Kristin Richmond, co-founder of Revolution Foods:

“We have to be smart as a country and a food system,” Richmond said. “But we [Revolution Foods] are living proof that it can be done.’”

Slow Food USA has joined the effort to fix school lunch with our first-ever national campaign, Time for Lunch. Click here to get involved.

Seed-to-plate curriculum at Desert Marigold School

by Youth Programs Intern Heather Teige

Slow Food USA will profile a number of our 2008 Slow Food in Schools Micro-Grant recipients in the coming months.  Look out for these profiles, along with best practice suggestions for Slow Food in Schools projects from our 2008 Micro-Grant recipients, which will be housed on the Youth Programs page this fall.

Desert Marigold School in Phoenix, Arizona is a charter school that firmly believes in using an interdisciplinary approach to educate its students.  And so, it’s no surprise that five years ago they partnered with Slow Food Phoenix to establish a 5,000 square foot garden to formalize their commitment to hands-on learning. The teaching garden program focuses mostly on farming and food preparation, but hopes to expand its curriculum and give students a broader and more complete view of the seed-to-plate process by building a fully sustainable outdoor kitchen.

What started off as an in-school garden will come full circle after the kitchen is built. The outdoor kitchen will be fully functional and is expected to prepare lunch for all of Desert Marigold School’s 200 students. The program looks forward to having their student’s witness the fruits of their labor by letting them eat and delight in what they’ve grown. Through the collaborative efforts of the school, local farmers, and chefs, the students will be given a tangible education about where their food comes from, how to prepare it healthily, and how to turn their kitchen’s leftovers into compost for the garden soil.

The project is now a reality through Slow Food USA’s 2008 Slow Food in Schools Micro-Grant, the volunteer help of a local architect, and private donations. Still, construction has yet to begin.  Unanticipated Arizona state budget cuts have halted progress on the outdoor kitchen’s construction, but the school continues—undeterred—to work towards its goal.

The Power of Eating Together

by Slow Food USA President Josh Viertel
This post originally appeared on the Atlantic Food Channel

Letting go is hard for me. I want to touch everything. I have strong and specific opinions about the things I love: I have opinions about how fine to chop parsley and I am adamant about how close together to plant lettuce. Different varieties of head lettuce even get different spacing. I think it makes a difference. I like to think I’m right. But I’m learning to let go.

In my heart, I believe that a community’s collective creativity is always more rich, more inspired, and more impactful than any one individual’s. My mind sometimes gets in the way of my acting on that belief, but my experience keeps reinforcing the notion that large numbers of inspired people, on a mission, left to their own devices, will do brilliant and beautiful things. More and more, I am learning that my job at Slow Food USA is to create a context, offer some direction and support, and then get out of the way.

Nothing has taught me this more than the events that unfolded on Labor Day’s National Day of Action launching the Time for Lunch campaign.

The idea was simple: let’s see if we can organize a series of demonstrations, part pot-luck, part sit-in, all over the country on one day, where people share food they believe in and demand legislation that gives kids real food in school. We will call the events Eat-Ins. If it works, it will be like a virtual march on Washington. The collective story will be told on the Internet and in the media.

We wanted to tell Congress that this is an issue that matters to a lot of Americans, and in the process we wanted to strengthen both the local communities where the events took place, and the national network of people working to change the way food and farming happen in America. We aimed for 100 demonstrations in 25 states. By the time Labor Day rolled around, we had 307 events confirmed, and we had demonstrations in every state in the nation.

More after the jump

Nationwide “eat-ins” show way to a revived National School Lunch Program

by Slow Food USA Board Member Chef Kurt Michael Friese

All across the country this past Labor Day, folks gathered for picnics. That’s no surprise, of course. After all, it was a holiday, and the weather was grand across nearly the whole continent. But there was something unique about one group of picnics; 307 of them to be exact, in all 50 states. They were dubbed “Eat-Ins” (modeled on the sit-ins of the ‘60s), and they were a call to action by Slow Food USA

At those picnics, including one right here in Iowa City, more than 20,000 people gathered around tables in parks and farms and school grounds to tell Congress to fix the School Lunch Program. Most of the discussions at these events and in the press afterwards centered on improving the food itself through increased Federal spending and local food initiatives. But there was another topic directly relevant to Labor Day: the call to create green jobs with a “School Lunch Corps.”

via Grist (click here for rest of article)

Legislation Update: The Healthy Food for Healthy Schools Act

by Debbie Lehmann

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 and joins us to weigh in on the breaking news that Senator Harkin has stepped down from chairing the Senate Ag Committee to chair the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee—news that Grist’s Tom Philpott calls “dismal.”

Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark), who is taking over as the chair of the Senate Ag Committee, has just introduced a new child nutrition bill. This one is called the Healthy Food for Healthy Schools Act of 2009, and it’s supposed to “improve the purchase and processing of healthful commodities for use in school meal programs.”

The text requires the secretary of agriculture to issue model food product specifications and practices to schools, state agencies and processors to ensure that foods served in school meals are in line with the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The bill also requires the secretary to conduct a study on the quantity and quality of nutrition information available to schools regarding commodities and other food service products, and to submit a report to Congress with legislative recommendations. In addition, the bill requires the USDA to purchase “the widest variety of healthful foods that reflect the most recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans.”

As far as improving the commodity program, this legislation will help somewhat. Right now, most schools use their commodity dollars for meat and dairy products, and the USDA spends just a small percentage of its budget on fresh fruits and vegetables. Requiring the secretary of agriculture to make purchases that are in line with the Dietary Guidelines will ensure that he considers health, and not just farmers’ financial health, when he buys up foods for schools. That means cafeterias will probably get increased access to fresh produce through the USDA.

But improving commodity offerings isn’t the end of the story. Upgrading facilities and equipment goes hand-in-hand with upgrading the nutritional content of food products. Faced with ill-equipped kitchens and high labor costs, cafeterias outsource about half of their commodities these days to manufacturers, who process their government chicken into nuggets and their government fruit into sherbet. The USDA can offer the most nutritious foods possible, but if schools don’t have the means to cook those foods, processed fast-food fare will continue to dominate menus. I’d like to see some legislation that funds the renovation of cafeteria kitchens, or that creates a School Lunch Corps to cook in schools nationwide. Paired with Lincoln’s bill, that would really revolutionize the commodity program.

Touring campaigns for students to look out for this fall

by youth programs intern Heather Teige

Students, as you transition back into a new school year and find yourselves thinking about exciting opportunities and events to organize on - campus, take a closer look at Food Not Lawns, The Beehive Design Collective, and Fair Food Across Borders.

Founded by Heather C. Flores, Food Not Lawns’ goal is to encourage and promote food sustainability by growing food in our own backyards. They focus on deepening community ties through gardening and offer advice on how to start a local Food Not Lawns chapter, as well as the how-to’s of organizing a community seed swap.

The Beehive Design Collective is a grassroots collective that works by creating social discourse through images. Their belief is that images are a more accessible medium, and that they allow people-despite their social background- to better engage urgent social matters. On an international level they are most known for their graphic campaigns which address globalization and the global justice movement.

Fair Food Across Borders is a Chiapas Media Project (CMP)/Promedios advocacy campaign geared to expose human rights injustices inflicted on Mexican migrant workers by Mexican agribusiness camps. They aim to accomplish this by providing video equipment and training to marginalized indigenous populations in Southern Mexico so that they may create their own media.

Be sure to keep a lookout as all three of these initiatives will be touring this fall. Securing a visit to your campus would create a greater campus awareness of current issues, the opportunity to engage them in a creative manner, and the possibility of making great connections.

[images courtesy of Fair Food Across Borders (Rodrigo Cruz) and The Beehive Design Collective]

Across America, Eating for a Cause

by Slow Food USA President, Josh Viertel
This post originally appeared on the Atlantic Monthly Food Channel, the day before the National Day of Action for the Time for Lunch campaign. Check out the Food Channel for Corby Kummer’s reflection on the first Eat-in, a year ago.

I was lucky to attend an Eat-In in Chicago, on August 26, organized by Slow Food Chicago‘s Lynn Peemoeller and her team. It rained all morning, and, as if by divine intervention, stopped about 20 minutes before the event kicked off.

A big, beautiful table sat in the middle of Daley Plaza, abounding with local peaches and plums. People from all over the city had come for the meal: young people from Growing Power, friends from Windy City Harvest, representatives from the Illinois Local and Organic Food and Farm Task Force, and state representative, soon-to-be senator Julie Hamos.

The whole staff of Angelic Organics showed up wearing cardboard hats with messages like “I grow my own tomatoes: Ask me how,” “I keep bees: Ask me how,” “I raise goats: Ask me how!”

And the Cornettes were there. They were my favorites. These advocates for urban agriculture made corn-ear costumes, salt and pepper shaker costumes, and a stick of butter costume. And their costumes were made out of cut up seed-bags for round-up ready, genetically modified corn. Good movements incorporate good theater. Just being right isn’t enough. No movement is worth being part of that doesn’t inspire creativity, art, a sense of humor to change the system. In Chicago, they were inspired.

On Labor Day, we are going to see this kind of creativity and dedication all over the country, in 300 locations, in every state as people gather for a Day of Action to kick off the Time for Lunch campaign. The campaign aims to update the National School Lunch Program (which expires in Sept. 2009) so that schools have the ability to serve food that benefits our children’s health, rather than the fast food and junk food that makes them sick. We’re telling Congress that it’s time to provide America’s children with real food: food that tastes good, is good for us, is good for the planet, and is good for the people who work to grow and prepare it.

You should come to one. They are easy to find. Just use this map or search by state. While you’re there, sign the Time for Lunch petition.

More after the jump

Labor Day Potlucks—with a purpose

by Gordon Jenkins
This post originally appeared on The Atlantic Monthly Food Channel

On Labor Day, people in nearly 300 cities and towns across America will gather in public places, sit down, and share a meal together. We will do it for two reasons: one personal, one political. The personal reason is that we love to cook and share food. Nourishing people, making them smile and momentarily making life good is something that we find deeply satisfying—and at potlucks, we share this feeling en masse.

The political reason to organize potlucks is actually the same motive. Potlucks bring people together. And people who come together in the spirit of goodwill and for the joy of sharing food are more likely to stand together when political push comes to shove. If you’re an organizer, potlucks can be one of your best agents of change: rather than goad people to name enemies and point fingers, you can gather them for something that they enjoy doing and that replenishes their will to fight. Potlucks are a ripe opportunity for inviting people who may not have sat at the same table together in the past and then celebrating what we all have in common: the need to eat and the need for support.

On Labor Day, the tens of thousands of us who will sit down together in public parks, on school grounds, at churches, and in front of City Halls will do it for an overtly political purpose: to tell Congress to stop giving our children food that hurts them. We’re calling these events “Eat-Ins,” because they’re part potluck, part sit-in. They are a launching-point of the Time for Lunch campaign, the goals of which are to give schools the ability to serve real food at lunch and to link local schools to local farms. The Eat-Ins that take place on Labor Day will rally support for the cause by organizing communities, getting some media attention and thereby sending a clear message to Congress: It’s time to provide America’s children with food that benefits their health, not food that makes them sick.

My colleagues and I organized the first Eat-In a year ago in San Francisco. The event brought together more than 250 young people, most of them fresh out of college. The day before, we had formed teams and piled into apartment kitchens across the city to cook up our favorite dishes. On Labor Day, the final day of the Slow Food Nation extravaganza, we showed up at Dolores Park armed with our dishes. We sat down on a grassy hill and we took turns rousing nearby sunbathers with rallying cries about our intention to take back the American food system in the name of everyday people. And then we sat down to eat.

More after the jump

Eat-ins out in the wild, wild west

by campaign intern Alex Tung

The Time For Lunch Campaign’s National Day of Action is only four days away! As Slow Food USA’s staff, volunteers and Eat-In organizers nationwide are busy making final preparations, I’d like to share our excitement by giving you a short preview of a few of the fine, innovative Eat-Ins that I’ve been following in my time here as a Regional Coordinator for the campaign. (As you’ll see, I’ve mostly worked with organizers in the West.)

Some Slow Food chapters have done a great job reaching out to their local school districts and working directly with city officials. Attendees at Slow Food Boulder, CO‘s Eat-In on the Boulder County Courthouse Lawn will hear stories from individuals who work hard to provide the food in Boulder’s schools. They include Boulder Valley School District’s School Food Project’s member and parent Syliva Tawse, the Growe Foundation’s School Gardens program and the Parent Education Network and St. Vrain Valley School District‘s Director of Nutrition. The potluck-style picnic will be complemented by tasty food samples made with locally sourced ingredients by students of the Culinary School of the Rockies. There will even be fun activities for children and a bluegrass band!

Others have made headway by bringing together new groups of people. At the Eat-In in Salt Lake City, UT you can share a dish with Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon and Dave Everett from the Salt Lake City Mayor’s office, who will be at Slow Food Utah‘s Eat-In to show their support for giving kids real food at school. They will be joined by Primary Children’s Hospital Pediatric Dietitian Margaret Braae, and Valerie Hammel, who spearheaded the Open Classroom‘s “Real Food Lunch Program.”  Volunteers at the family-friendly event will help kids plant seeds in little pots they can take home and watch grow. Children can also participate in fun games with local apples as prizes.

A few chapters have had to be creative about their location. To beat the heat, the Slow Food Phoenix’s Eat-In in Phoenix, AZ will be an indoor even—a “bring your own” picnic and a potluck dessert buffet at the Home Arts Building at the Arizona State Fairgrounds. Attendees can expect to see local chefs leading cooking demonstrations for kids, and interactive booths on topics ranging from “seed planting” to “a nutrition pyramid bean bag toss” and a “school garden complete with plants and bales of hay.” Strolling the event and entertaining kids and parents alike will be a trio of veggies and fruits to promote healthy eating.

In Portland, OR, real food and creativity will set the stage for “re-framing an abandoned lot as an urban grid of neighborhoods and gardens.” Teaming up with the the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art and their annual Time-Based Art Festival, Slow Food Portland will take over the lawn of the old Washington High School with a flurry of planting, harvesting, and cooking. At this sprawling picnic surrounded by temporary gardens, participants will be fed wood-fired flatbreads and joined by local food organizations.

At present, 295 Eat-Ins are scheduled to take place on Labor Day, September 7th 2009. The better we tell the stories from the Eat-Ins, the more people we’ll reach—so if you are attending an Eat-In on Labor Day, please take pictures and videos and upload them to Flickr with the tag “timeforlunch.” Post about it on your blog and email us the link (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)). Tell your friends, your neighbors, your local farmers and your elected officials.

Looking for an Eat-In near you? Visit the Time for Lunch website, here.

Huntington, NY Declares Sept. 7 “Time for Lunch Day

by Time for Lunch Campaign Coordinator Gordon Jenkins

On Monday, Huntington, NY Supervisor Frank Petrone issued a proclamation on behalf of the Town Board declaring Labor Day, Sept. 7 “Time for Lunch Day.” The proclamation is a show of support for the Eat-In that Slow Food Huntington is organizing for the Time for Lunch campaign’s National Day of Action on Sept. 7. On that day, people in communities across America are gathering for Eat-Ins (part potluck, part sit-in) that send a clear message to Congress: It’s time to provide our children with real food at school.

“With nearly 32 percent of children ages 2 to 19 considered overweight or obese, and with one in three children born since 2000 in jeopardy of developing diabetes in his or her lifetime, our schools should take the lead in teaching healthy eating habits and in providing students with healthy food,” Supervisor Petrone said. “We wholeheartedly support the goals of Slow Food USA and its local chapter, Slow Food Huntington, and ask residents to join them in their Community Eat-In.”

Slow Food Huntington is partnering with the education organization Starflower Experiences on its Eat-In, which will take place on Monday from noon to 4:00 p.m. at Manor Farm Park. To learn more about the Eat-In, visit the Time for Lunch web site.

The photo above shows Laurie Farber, executive director, Starflower Experiences; Ann Rathkopf, co-leader, Slow Food Huntington; Supervisor Frank Petrone; Bhavani Jaroff, co-leader, Slow Food Huntington; Nicolas Maiarelli, Slow Food Huntington.