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How can we get schools to offer healthier and more
eco-friendly cafeteria food to our kids?
Now that many schools have stopped selling sodas and
other unhealthy vending-machine items to their students, improving the
nutritional quality of cafeteria food is on the agenda of many parents and
school administrators — and, luckily for the environment, healthier
food usually means greener food.
Some forward-thinking schools are leading the charge
by sourcing their cafeteria food from local farms and producers. This saves
money and also cuts back on the pollution and global-warming impact
associated with transporting food long distances. Because many local
producers are turning to organic growing methods, local food also usually
means fewer pesticides in kids’ school lunches. Alarmed by childhood-obesity statistics and the
prevalence of unhealthy foods offered to students in schools, in 2000 the
Center for Food and Justice spearheaded the national Farm to School lunch
program. The program connects schools with local farms to provide healthy
cafeteria food while also supporting local farmers. Participating schools
not only obtain food locally, they also incorporate nutrition-based
curriculum and provide students with learning opportunities through visits
to the local farms. Farm to School programs now operate in 19 states and
in several hundred school districts. CFJ recently received significant
support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to expand the program to more
states and districts. The group’s Web site is loaded with resources
to help schools get started.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture also runs a Small
Farms/School Meals program that boasts participation in 400 school
districts in 32 states. Interested schools can check out the agency’s
“Step-by-Step Guide on How to Bring Small Farms and Local Schools
Together,” which is available free online. Other schools have taken the plunge in their own
unique ways. In Berkeley, Calif., noted chef Alice Waters holds cooking
classes in which students grow and prepare local organic fruits and
vegetables for their peers’ school-lunch menus. As documented in the
film, Super Size Me, Wisconsin’s Appleton Central Alternative School hired
a local organic bakery that helped transform Appleton’s cafeteria
fare from offerings heavy on meat and junk food to predominantly whole
grains, fresh fruits, and vegetables. Of course, parents can ensure that their children eat
well at school by forgoing the cafeteria offerings altogether and sending
their kids to school with healthy bag lunches. For on-the-go parents unable
to keep up with a daaily lunch making regimen, innovative companies are
beginning to sprout up that will do it for you. Kid Chow in San Francisco;
Health e-Lunch Kids in Fairfax, Va.; New York City’s KidFresh; and
Manhattan Beach, Calif.’s Brown Bag Naturals will deliver organic and
natural food lunches to your kids for about three times the price of a
cafeteria lunch. Prices should change for the better as the idea catches on
and more volume brings costs down.
For more information:
Farm to Schools, www.farmtoschool.org; USDA Small Farms/School Meals
Initiative, www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Lunch/Downloadable/small.pdf; Kid Chow,
www.kid-chow.com, Brown Bag Naturals, brownbagnaturals.com; Health e-Lunch
Kids, healthelunchkids.com; Kidfresh, kidfresh.com.
Send questions to Earth Talk, care of E/The Environmental Magazine,
P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881 or e-mail earthtalk@emagazine.com.
This article appears in Aug 30 – Sep 5, 2007.
