Healthy Food = Healthy Children
What's wrong with School Food now?
Greening schools is about improving the health of both our children and our environment; so is healthy food. Every school day, millions of children are consuming foods that are oftentimes considered unhealthy. Meals often consist of fried or frozen meals, processed and packaged junk food, and pesticide-laden produce. Unfortunately, these poor diets are not conducive to learning or a healthy lifestyle, and the use of pesticides and packaging contributes to environmental degradation.
One of the main reasons why the school lunch system is in the doldrums is that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has jurisdiction over both agricultural interests and school lunches. This position creates a huge conflict of interest: they want to ensure that farmers succeed, and make money on crops they harvest and animals they raise for slaughter. So, they encourage, with subsidies, crop and animal cultivation
However, there are simply not enough consumers to buy all their products. To help them out, the USDA offers to buy these leftover or surplus foods, and “donate” them to schools via the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Most of these leftovers are processed at regional processing plants, where they become the chicken nuggets and defrosted pizzas school cafeterias are famous for.
What’s *wrong* with processed foods? Why do we need a paradigm shift in the way we feed our kids?
Processed foods are high in additives – something that, as the name suggests, is “added” to food in increase certain properties of it.
Dr. Susan Rubin, a luminary of the school food movement and one of the moms behind the documentary, “Two Angry Moms,” has a useful scale: She rates foods on a continuum from “Beneficial” to “Useful” to “Useless” to “Hazardous.” Beneficial foods include any food that is unprocessed or “whole,” with most of their nutrients intact (e.g. whole oat groats or steel cut oats). Useful foods are a little processed, but in a way that does not excessively diminish their nutritional value (e.g. old fashioned rolled oats). Useless foods are too processed to be considered “health augmenting” but not dangerous enough to be considered hazardous (instant oatmeal with sugar). Hazardous foods, however, are heavily processed and artificial – often having a negative impact on one’s health (e.g. instant oatmeal with “dinosaur eggs” in it).
Three of the most dangerous additives Dr. Rubin identifies are high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), artificial colors (food dyes), and partially hydrogenated oils. High-fructose corn syrup can raise LDL (“bad” cholesterol) levels and damage children’s livers. Certain food dyes have been found to cause behavioral issues in children, such as hyperactivity and ADD. Partially hydrogenated oils, on the other hand, contain unhealthy trans fats that increase insulin problems and predispose children to lifetimes of diabetes and obesity. For more information, see Dr. Rubin’s site.
What *is* healthy school food? Can it exist?
Healthy school food is healthy for your body, your mind, and your environment. Freshly prepared foods, made from high-quality, locally-grown ingredients, are often significantly lower in sugar, fat, calories, cholesterol, and sodium than the processed commodities sold now. .
Through our "Go Organic! for Earth Day campaign, EDN has joined with the organics industry to promote organic food, as well as locally grown, healthy food, as an alternative to existing school food programs. For instance, more than 3,500 grocery stores and 40 leading organic manufacturers nationally participated in our campaign last year. Given our huge outreach and success, our program was selected among 100 nominations for the Nutrition Business Journal Award for 2006. Furthermore, The Natural Marketing Institute (NIM) reports that the Go Organic campaign raised consumer awareness of organic products by 3% nationally - more than 10 million consumers - in 2006 alone.
Although individual schools or school districts around the country are coming up with imaginative solutions for this mounting problem, Earth Day Network believes our food system should be structured to encourage the consumption of fresh, healthy foods – not limit it to those with enterprising principals and creative community members. That’s why we’re doing something about it and think you should too!
How can you get involved?
Start at home
We need to teach people about good nutrition by mandating nutrition, disease prevention, and food source curriculum for children and providing significant funding for educating their parents. Parents who model healthy eating can positively influence the habits of their children.
Act locally/ Look for information at "Connecting the Dots"
Check out the food in your local school district - go to your child's lunchroom, and buy a school meal! If you're not happy with what you're getting, consider the fact that about 28 million American children eat those meals every day - and up to half of them depend on those meals for sustenance.
Talk to your school principal, local PTA, teachers, and other parents and try to figure out how you can make your school food healthier. Parents can work to forge ties between local farmers and local schools either through Community Supported Agriculture, or independent contracts. Many cafeterias built now don't even have full-service kitchens: They have microwave ovens in which processed foods can be quickly reheated. Parents and community members can volunteer to help prepare foods, by chopping up fruits and vegetables, and providing ideas for nutritious meals. Or you can put together a local campaign to raise money to buy new equipment for the cafeteria.
National Efforts
To better school food on a national level, EDN is staging a national campaign in preparation for the Child Nutrition and WIC Act Reauthorization of 2009. The committees with jurisdiction over the Act are Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry in the Senate, and Education and Labor in the House. One of our goals, however, is to move the Act to Health and Human Services, since Child Nutrition has much more to do with health than with agriculture.
Want to get active? Take part in our action campaign to convince Congress to pass the necessary legislation to ensure healthy meals for our children. ACT NOW!
