Check this out!
ANN COOPER has made a career out of hammering on the poor quality of public school food. The School Nutrition Association, with 55,000 members, represents the people who prepare it.
Imagine Ms. Cooper's surprise when she was invited to the association's upcoming conference to discuss the Lunch Box, a system she developed to help school districts wean themselves from packaged, heavily processed food and begin cooking mostly local food from scratch.
"All of a sudden I am not the fringe idiot trying to get everyone to serve peas and carrots that don't come out of a can, like that's the most radical idea they have ever heard of," she said.
The invitation is a small sign of larger changes happening in public school cafeterias. For the first time since a new wave of school food reform efforts began a decade ago, once-warring camps are sharing strategies to improve what kids eat. The Department of Agriculture is welcoming ideas from community groups and more money than ever is about to flow into school cafeterias, from Washington and from private providers.
"The window's open," said Kathleen Merrigan, the deputy secretary of agriculture. "We are in the zone when a whole lot of exciting ideas are being put on the table. I have been working in the field of sustainable agriculture and nutrition all my professional life, and I really have never seen such opportunity before."
You can check out Ann Cooper's blog and her Lunch Box for yourself. I was fortunate enough to meet her last spring, and I'm thrilled the SNA is embracing her.
So just what is going to happen with school food once the Child Nutrition Reauthorization debate gets off the ground? (The Child Nutrition Reauthorization is the bill Congress passes every 5 years - including this year - that makes the rules and provides the cash for school lunch.)
Congress seems likely to spend more on school food this year, but just how much is uncertain. Under newly released reimbursement rates for the coming school year, most districts receive $2.68 for each free lunch served to a child who is poor enough to qualify. The rates vary depending on poverty level and region.
That money is the core of most school food budgets. But it does not cover the cost of the lunch, nutrition directors say, so they cannot afford to serve higher-quality food.
As a result, districts rely on processed commodity food from the Department of Agriculture and on extra income from the sale of popular foods like chips, pizza and burritos in what are commonly called à la carte programs.
The first step toward healthier school food is to increase that free-lunch subsidy by at least 70 cents, said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York. Others want more and say it should be spent largely on fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains. But some observers argue that even 70 cents is unrealistically high, given other pressures on the federal budget.
70 cents is an improvement over the 35 cent raise the School Nutrition Association asked for in a Congressional hearing earlier this year, but I don't think it's enough. And it's certainly not too much! This isn't an expenditure - it's an investment. Without healthy foods, kids will be unable to pay attention in school and they'll have a lifetime of health problems. |
