Good Nutrition Starts at School

I haven't got much in common with Whitney Houston; I'm not tall or thin, and I can't belt out show-stoppers. Oh, and I'm white. But, like Whitney, I believe that children are our future. We all agree - whatever size, shape or color we may be - that it's in everyone's interests to feed our children well.

"Good nutrition is essential to good learning," as President Lyndon B. Johnson stated when he signed the Child Nutrition Act into law in 1966.

Kids need fresh, wholesome, nutrient-dense foods to ensure proper brain development; talk about a no-brainer! You can't nourish children on a steady diet of processed foods full of fatty, empty carbs and sugary soda or juice.

And yet, we've been trying to do just that for the past few decades. Heat 'n' serve convenience foods have replaced made-from-scratch meals in cafeterias and kitchens all over the country. As Michael Pollan points out in Food, Inc., "the way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000."

The result? Obesity rates among children have doubled in the last 10 years and tripled for adolescents, according to One Tray, a national campaign dedicated to promoting "more healthful, more sustainably produced and regionally sourced school food that can improve the health of kids, develop new marketing opportunities for farmers, and support the local economy." Sounds like a win-win-win to me.

We know fruits and vegetables are packed with all kinds of nutrients and fiber and other key ingredients that keep us healthy. And yet, only 2% of children get enough fruits and vegetables to meet the USDA's Food Guide Pyramid serving recommendations. An entire generation is missing out on the pleasures of home-cooked meals made with freshly harvested foods.

But there's a growing movement to reclaim our food chain and give our children the tools they need to achieve kitchen literacy. It begins with feeding them real food, but it doesn't stop there; programs are flourishing all over the country dedicated to teaching kids how to grow food and cook it, too.

One Tray Campaigns like One Tray at a Time and Slow Food's Time For Lunch are galvanizing support for better school food. Chef Ann Cooper, the Renegade Lunch Lady, has launched a new website, The Lunch Box, whose motto is "healthy tools to help all schools."

Family Cook Productions has been a pioneer in the development of programs that provide families, schools, and corporations with the skills to "bring families together around delicious, fresh food". Lynn Fredericks, the founder of Family Cook Productions, is also the author of Cooking Time Is Family Time: Cooking Together, Eating Together, and Spending Time Together, an ahead-of-its-time guide that shows parents how to make mealtime a fun, family-centered activity that kids of all ages can participate in.

This post originally appeared on Meatless Monday.

Follow Kerry Trueman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kerrytrueman

Comments

[alvdh1]

Actually, good nutrition starts at home. This is where attitudes and behaviors regarding good nutrition and eating habits begin with good parental nurturing. School lunches are important, but are less challenging when the foundation of healthy eating is developed at home.

[mlaiuppa]

That's all well and good.

But you get what you pay for.

You can't feed a school student what you're suggesting for $1.67 a day. And that's what our school district alots.

In addition most of our cafeterias don't cook. Cooking requires not only ingredients. It also requires staff, which costs money. It requires facilities, which cost money. And it requires materials, like pots, pans and utensils, which cost money.

Taxpayers aren't willing to pay for that. Or I should say state governments aren't willing to allocate more taxpayer dollars to pay for that.

They don't even want to pay for teachers and books. Our state doesn't pay for librarians or libraries anymore.

[Guitarsandmore]

Spanish Rice

Rice
Ground round
Onions
Tomato sauce
Chili powder
Salt
Garlic