Plotting Michelle Obama's Next Food Move

Grist:

For anyone still doubting the food-related ambitions of First Lady Michelle Obama, the WaPo's Jane Black wishes to disabuse you. In an article that charts the internal strategizing over how best to leverage the success of the White House Kitchen Garden, Black indicates that the First Lady and "the White House [are] grappling with the very issues that have challenged the so-called good food movement for decades: How do you simplify and sell a new way of eating?"

Read the whole story: Grist

Comments

[ElsaIndy]

MO can still promote good eating habits. She can talk about portion size, fresh foods and home cooking, bringing your own lunch to school and work and so on. I would like to see her continue her campaign against obesity addressing parent and school and pediatricians on the importance of teaching good nutrition to children at home and school.

[AngieMom57]

"Big Ag will fight hard to keep the program as it is: a dumping ground for commodities with all the incentives towards serving kids the most calories for the least cost. While there is Congressional momentum to move junk food entirely out of schools, the fundamental question is how the school lunch program can serve healthier food, something for which the First Lady expresses support. Most experts believe that can only happen if Congress is willing to spend more than the current $2 per meal subsidy..... A restoration of actual food preparation equipment to schools instead of the current reliance on heat-and-serve meals delivered directly from food processing factories?"

There is your answer right there. Children learn and yearn to be outside in a garden, or helping in the kitchen...time to let fast food chains parish, tax the liven tar out of them!

[Epiphany2b]

Educating children to eat good food outside the home is hard to do if the parents don't start from the beginning. At my home day care (before retiring) I got the kids pretty early so could circumvent some bad habits to a small extent. Last week, step-daughter visited from NC with 14-month-old son and I was shocked to see her feeding him fish sticks, dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, frozen French toast, potato puffs, etc. Chocolate milk and apple juice to drink. Apparently baby food had been abandoned early on. Not a fresh fruit or vegetable in sight and all processed foods. Couldn't say much, but did tell her that if a child lugged around a bottle all day he would be too full at supper time to eat food. Didn't do any good. Fortunately I got to my grand daughter early on, and her child is being taught differently.

[AngieMom57]

....it's less expense to purchase a "Happy Meal" than it is to buy a head of broccoli.

[msladydeborah]

I work in the field of education. From what I have seen in terms of food-there needs to be a real push towards providing children with nutritional food that actually tastes good.

I am often frustrated and angry over the type of meals that children are served. Removing junk food from the menu would be a great beginning. Providing them with fresh food and meals that provide nutritional value would be an amazing improvement.

[donnajr]

does human waste taste like chicken in vegetables?

[ChelseaC]

Berrycooda,
Hey, what do you know-- I agree with you.

[berrycooda]

Sometimes the good food they are trying to sell is unaffordable to a lot of people.

Check the cost of vegetables and fruits and weigh that against
spaghetti and beans. (things that most people can afford) unless you
are working and making a good wage.

Even though kids can get a good lunch at school, that is only for part of the year.
When they get home from school, who knows what they will eat.

[msladydeborah]

While it is true that there is no control over what is served at home-wouldn't it be wise to work towards educating and developing resources to improve what consumers can purchase?

I am pro-urban gardens. Especially in areas where fresh produce is not always affordable. This would help to provide families with choices that they may not readily use in the national food market chains.

[AngieMom57]

You forgot the role that the Fast Food industry lobbyists play in all this.

[Epiphany2b]

All true if all you can truly afford is pasta and beans. I've been in a position of having to make a choice based on how many times I could fill the kids stomachs with what I could purchase, rather than the quality of the food.

But I see people in the shopping isles filling their carts with those items, supplemented with cases of soda, frozen pizza and chicken nuggets, packaged cookies and other processed foods. It is often these people who complain that they can't afford fresh fruit and vegetables. For some, it's more about making the right choices for optimum health rather than not having the money for the good stuff.