Give Michelle O Your $.02 on Let's Move

short, not so sweet (4.00 / 2)

Please do everything possible to encourage and help parents sent their children to school with healthful food from home, so the kids don't need to eat school meal junk food.

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 00:08:29 AM UTC

well it's the freaking government (4.00 / 2)

they don't have power to force parents to send healthy food in lunches. They DO have the power to make school lunch healthier. AND THEY SHOULD.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 04:55:48 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

forcing? (4.00 / 1)

I didn't say anything about forcing. And yes they should. But they won't. School meals will continue to be crap, with too few isolated exceptions, so parents who have the means should do their jobs.

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 05:00:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Power... (4.00 / 1)

They don't have the power?  Gee, radio and teevee and the cretinous reprobate guy downtown with the 'Recall Sam Adams' petition all tell me that the US government will kill my grandmother and force me to sing La Bayamesa while wearing a Che Guevera tee-shirt and gargling Leninade!

Glenn Beck wouldn't lie to us, would he?

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 05:33:11 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

my second comment (4.00 / 2)

I'm the stepmom of a child who eats school lunch as well as a journalist who covers school lunch as an issue. I'm glad the govt is moving to adopt the IOM standards and potentially (pending the child nutrition bill) setting rules for competitive foods and eliminating the time and place rule. But nothing you do is enough until the reimbursement rate is raised by $1 so that schools can purchase the quality food as well as the training, labor, and equipment they need to make lunches healthy. President Obama's call for $10b over 10 years is a lot of money historically but it's very little compared to what's needed. I realize we're under Paygo rules but there's a lot of money to be found in outdated defense programs or by making the 2/3 of corporations that the GAO says pay no taxes pay their taxes. It's very sad that the children of America have no lobbyists and these corporations and defense contractors do, but given that, we need you to act as their lobbyists for them to secure the funding needed. And in the long run, making lunch better is a money-saving act because healthy food is a lot cheaper than treating diabetes (not to mention the lost productivity and quality of life from having a population that is unhealthy).

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 05:02:11 AM UTC

Regarding school lunches and government (4.00 / 3)

I was watched the first episode of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution yesterday online, all of the episodes apparently will be available online at ABC's website for the series, so if you miss them on air like I do, at least you can still see them online if you have a fast connection.

An interesting show, but the thing that really struck me is how the school lunch program is structured and how its guidlines determine what's 'healthy' in a meal and what isn't.

One of the problems I think there are with these types of programs is that they assume that anyone administering a program like this is so stupid that they have to have every little thing spelled out for them.

A great example of this is the bread requirement that Jamie ran into when he tried to fix roasted chicken for the kids. The meal consisted of marinated roasted chicken (legs, etc.), fresh green salad, some fruit and brown rice. When the staff at the school asked him where the 'breads' were he was stumped. They explained to Jamie that the guidlines required that the meal included two breads (I was unclear as to whether that meant two servings of bread or a choice of two bread types). That, they said, was one of the reasons the kids were served things like pizza on a regular basis. It's something the kids like, it can be reheated easily, and can combine several of the required foods in one serving.

Jamie looked incredulous, and didn't think that his menu needed any bread (I didn't think it did either, but I'm just a stupid peon), but thems the rules and if you want the federal funding you have to do as the federal government says, even though it may make no sense, because in this world, the fed knows best and you're too stupid to know better.

I don't know what the solution is. But I lean more toward a system in which local control by far outweighs federal command.

On the one hand, with federal regulations you get top down command and control that may make no sense and even be harmful. The fed is so removed from the people it's supposed to be helping that it appears to not have  a clue as to child nutrition, even though they have all these 'scientific' studies and proffesionals that justify and validate things like having bread at each and every meal even if the kids don't actually need it. I swear to God that the type of food being prepared in that kitchen and the condition of a fair ammount of the kids, made it look more like a feed lot fattening cattle than someone trying to feed kids in a healthy way.

On the other hand you could go with local control where the individual school district has voluntary federal guidlines that they could follow but don't have to. You could easily get a system that's just as bad as the federal system/guidlines we have now, but at least it'd be the local school district that was doing you in and perhaps you'd have an easier time getting things turned around, in fact I believe you would have an orders of magnitude easier time at the local level than the federal. It might also make it easier for someone who wanted to change the system from the inside (such as a cook or nutritionist, etc.) to do so.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 13:36:35 PM UTC

Concerns in that situation... (4.00 / 1)

The problem with that though, would be the potential for a two (or more realistically, like four or five)-tier school lunch system.  Local and organic in Portland and Berkeley and Madison, and even worse crap than they have now in, say, Anchorage and Houston and Camden.

It would certainly be easier to bring about change locally, but then again you wouldn't see much systemic improvement overall until there was an organized Good Food movement in every city, town, village and county in America.  Which would be a great thing, of course, but how long would that take, especially in places like Camden where lunch is maybe the seventh most immediate concern when it comes to schools?

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 14:09:50 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Well, what we have now is a system in which (4.00 / 1)

we all get crap mandated by the federal government through top down command and control.

I don't have a problem with a multi-tiered system in the school cafeterias. We have that now with kids on fully subsidised lunches, kids in the higher schools like highschool going off campus to eat, and kids bringing food from home.

I don't think that just because kids eat crap in one school should mean that kids in another school in another part of the country should be forced to eat the same kind of crap.

With a local system determining what's being served, you might still feed your kids crap but at least it's your (the community's) decission as opposed to some beaureaucrat back in Washington DC. And if the community members concerned about such things as what kids are eating, want to change the food for the better, then it's a lot easier than trying to convince someone who's maybe 5,000 miles away from you and eating at fast food restaurants and cafeterias that you'd like to change the food system for your particular school.

Oh pretty please big daddy, can I feed my children something other than feed lot kiddie crap? Please mister boss man???

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 15:31:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm watching now. (4.00 / 1)

first comment: no one can say that problems in that school come from lack of kitchen equipment or staff.

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 17:33:56 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I hope I have fortitude (4.00 / 1)

to watch this whole episode. Reading about it is one thing, seeing it in full color with sound effects is stomach-churning.

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 17:40:33 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

ho ho (4.00 / 1)

burying the deep fryer in the back yard...

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 17:51:43 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Alice (4.00 / 1)

I love Alice. But it's early.

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 18:01:10 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Hey, Joanne (4.00 / 1)

What do you know about this program? Will the whole series be about school food?

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 18:05:13 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I think the whole series is on the school in Huntington (4.00 / 2)

as well as getting the townsfolk to eat better.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 18:50:11 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Long conversation... (4.00 / 1)

There's been a long conversation on the show on the Comfood email list over the past couple days, but to be honest I didn't read most of the messages / posts.  If you're a subscriber (free), you can access the archives at that link.

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 19:51:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

That's where I got the link to the (4.00 / 2)

show on ABC's website. I think there's one for the 2 hour preview episode that aired last Sunday too.

It's been a pretty interesting conversation over at Comfood. Anyone who's not subscribed should do so if they're interested in response to the series.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 20:49:30 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

fiddlesticks (4.00 / 1)

episode finished, he did only one lunch, which did not go well.

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 18:11:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

two breads (4.00 / 1)

The principal says "our guidelines." Is that actually a federal rule, or local? That isn't clear from the video.

Your point about local control might be true in general, especially when discussing change potential. In Huntington, though, local control obviously is much of the problem.

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 18:25:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

If I remember right (4.00 / 2)

the guidlines were from the federal government, USDA if memory serves, does the nutrition guidlines.

About the local control, yeah, the whole time I was watching the part of the show about changing the menus I was thinking that if the school or school district had more charge of the contents of the meals then it would have been a lot easier for Jamie to not include bread, even one choice of bread, in his offering. Personally I watched him prepare it and I wouldn't have needed bread, although it would have been handy for sopping up any juice from the chicken or extra salad dressing.

I also agree with you as far as the staffing, although I've watched Robert Irvine (Dinner Impossible on Food Network) feed more people with fewer staff and using less of a kitchen than that school has on very shorter notice than Jamie did.

The kitchen looked pretty good compared to what I've heard of other school kitchens. They have stoves, ovens, steamers, etc. I think Jamie even said that this school has a better equiped kitchen than some UK schools do. The staff seemed well trained and competent too. I don't doubt that they would be perfectly cabable of prepping and serving up meals in the same way that Jamie did for the chicken.

Perhaps if he had used a different approach his first coupld days in the kitchen things would have gone smoother. I always try to use caution when entering someone else's territory, not to offend them if I want to win them over to my side. Especially if they don't have a problem with the side their on in the first place, don't see anything wrong with it, and have territory/personal space to protect, which is a very common situation with all of us in one way or another. I know that if someone came onto a job site and started telling me how to set tile I'd get my hackles up if they approached me in the wrong way, I might throw them off the jobsite, even if they had the best of intentions and actually meant no harm.

My opinion is that this is the type of prep (what they were doing before the show) that they're set up for component wise (ingredients, etc.) and the cooks didn't seem to see anything wrong with what they were serving the kids. It's difficult to get people, kids especially but adults too, to eat things they're not used to seeing, especially if they really like the stuff that's being served up to them right now. I wasn't surprised at all that a lot of the kids didn't take the chicken option and of those who did, a lot of them threw some of the food away, even though I would have gobbled all of it up, it looked very tasty to me.

It'll be interesting to see, as he starts working with the kids in the school, how or if their behavior changes as far as the eating habbits go. He certainly made inroads with the family with the deepfryer. I noticed that his aproach was considerably different with them than with the school or the women working in the kitchen.

I don't agree with some of Jamie's opinions on the food, like the pizza for breakfast. I think pizza for breakfast in and of itself isn't necessarily a problem. I think perhaps it's more a question of how big the portion, what's on the pizza, fat content, calories, sodium, etc. I think the pizza that the school was serving had eggs, cheese and a sauce.

Pizza essentially is a bread base with a topping, unless you're doing a fritatta, which is an egg base with a topping, or quiche which is more like and egg pie. If I take a good slice of the bread I make here, and top it with a fried egg, a bit of cheese and some salsa I've essentially made a pizza. If on the other hand I have a slice of bread, maybe toasted with a bit of butter, a fried egg on the plate and a dab of salsa on the egg and a bit of cheese, I'm eating the same meal, just not in the same configuration. So why might the egg on the plate be 'better' than the egg and salsa, cheese etc. all stacked up on the bread? Same stuff, just a different configuration.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 19:17:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

eating what they aren't used to (4.00 / 1)

I have some trepidation about the one week thing. Doesn't this seem like an awfully difficult challenge? Seeing how it plays out will be very interesting.

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 19:53:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Biting my tongue... (0.00 / 0)

(trying desperately not to rant about the sorry state of what passes for "pizza" in much of America, while also trying not to get all pizza-snobby...)

;-P

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 05:40:46 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Local control (4.00 / 1)

Do federal regs get any more detailed than the following?

Chapter 1: Nutrient Standards (2007)

That doesn't specify meal components. The federal approach has been to allow maximum local flexibility, and it seems to me that states and local districts have been derelict in exercising that freedom.

West Virginia is a state that has state guidelines for school meals, according to the SNA Summary of State School Nutrition Standards. The two bread rule probably is either a state or county rule.

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 19:05:08 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Interesting (4.00 / 2)

If that's the case then my post about local control was just a suggestion to do something that's already possible anyway.

I do remember reading in diaries here and articles elsewhere that at least for commodity items procured by USDA the schools send a lot of that out for further processing.

I'll check out those links in a bit. Gonna go haul hay right now.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 19:21:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

state standard and local variation (4.00 / 1)

West Virginia Standards for School Nutrition, Lunch Option A (page 4 of 13) has three servings from the grain group, one serving of which can be replaced by one serving of fruit once a week. Nothing about bread. Lunch option B (page 5 of 13) is not clear to me. It looks like at least 1 bread/bread alternate per day up to 7 per week for K-2, 9 per week for grades 3-4, and 11 per week for grades 5-8. To me, rice would seem like an acceptable bread alternative. The principal's insistence on two breads apparently is a mindless "local control" implementation of a sensible state standard, not the result of federal command and control mentality.

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 19:37:24 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I agree with you (4.00 / 2)

After reading the pdf I can understand how coming up with a menu made strictly from scratch cooking could be a bit intimidating. It's probably easier from just a calorie, fat, sodium standpoint to calculate everything if you're using premade items as you'll maybe be getting all that nutritional info from the manufacturer.

I could figure up nutritional info from a scratch cooked menu, I used to do that before eating every meal when I went on my weightloss regimen after graduating from HS, but unless you're used to doing all those figures it can be a bit intimidating.

I'm going to dl the doc file and open it in my word processor, my laptop thinks everything with a .doc in the file name has to be opened with notepad which kind of garbles things.

Ole Jamie's got his work cut out for himself, or at least he did when he started. I think they're shooting the last episode this week. I got to admit, I'm hooked. I'll probably have to watch each episode online (thankyou for putting those up ABC!) as they air either late enough I'm done in from working all day out here, or I'm still working when they're on.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 20:47:27 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

WordPad (4.00 / 1)

My Programs/Accessories folder has Notepad, which I use a lot, but it also contains a program called WordPad. *.doc is a Word file, so I wonder if using WordPad (if you can do that) would result in less garble?

I assume by "doc file" you mean the SNA summary. I don't know if WordPad would do any better than Notepad with a table, but you might try.

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 21:14:48 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

SNA summary (4.00 / 1)

I tried to download the SNA summary, and the dialog box just sat there and looked at me when I clicked "Save." Please let me know what happens when you do it, if this is what you planned to do.

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 21:29:23 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I just now downloaded it (4.00 / 2)

right click > save target as > save to where ever you like.

Then I opened it in Open Office. Opened fine.

One of these days I'll set the file preferences to open all of these type files with Open Office, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Harold got me a 'round to it' once, but I seem to have lost the thing....

;-)

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 21:55:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Saving (4.00 / 1)

Save Target As worked great, and WordPad opened it, no problem.

I don't know why the usual "Save As..." method didn't work, but then, I don't think I've ever tried to save a web page as a *.doc file before.

Thanks for the tip.

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by: count @ Fri Mar 26, 2010 at 23:09:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Kids did not recognize vegetables (4.00 / 2)

I just watched tonight's episode. At one point Jamie goes into a 1st grade classroom with a table full of fresh vegies (tomatoes, eggplant, potato, beets, etc.) He holds each one up and asks the kids what it is. They did not know any of them. They did not even recognize a raw potato, although they did know french fries. It was just about the saddest thing I have ever seen.

As an aside, it bugs me that Jamie keeps referring to the school lunch staff, all women older than he, as "Girls."  

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by: caseyOR @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 05:29:55 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

saddest things (4.00 / 1)

Something like that has happened to me. In a sense, not as bad as not recognizing a potato or a tomato, but worse in another sense because the incidents were with high school graduates working as checkers/cashiers in supermarkets. Older employees know what they're looking at, but something that doesn't come with a scannable bar code is an alien substance for new hires.

One cashier commiserated with me because I couldn't find nice ripe pears, by which she meant bright green. Another didn't recognize chard, and couldn't find it on her produce list even after I suggested that she look for "chard" or "Swiss chard." She called the manager for help. Scary stuff.

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by: count @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 05:41:47 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Cashiers who cannot make change (4.00 / 2)

Another sad state of affairs in the USA. I sometimes have to bite my tongue to keep from telling a cashier what change to give me. Of course, now that so many cash registers do all that high level math for the cashier, it doesn't happen as often.

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by: caseyOR @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 05:46:38 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Heh... (4.00 / 1)

I just did that the other day.  20-something clerk at a Plaid Pantry across the street.  Evidently, their registers trip them up sometimes.

And it seems like I have to (at least) drop hints at least a few times a month, myself.  Never thought of restraining myself from doing so, though.  Must be the Ole' Northeasterner in me shining through?

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 05:55:32 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I was raised in the Midwest (4.00 / 2)

Surely you've heard of "Midwest nice", an affliction that unites the disparate populations of the heartland.

So, unlike you, an abrasive Northeasterner that you are, I bite my tongue.

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by: caseyOR @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 06:01:37 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Lol... (0.00 / 0)

Well, I'm not nasty about it, but I do tend to state quickly and authoritatively "four-sixty-three", or whatever it is...

I think it's a time thing, is my theory.  We feel there's never any to waste, even when there clearly is.  Just the way we grew up.

And speaking of that, it brings up a whole other interesting discussion I came across somewhere on Teh T00bz the other day.  "Economy in language", specifically when it comes to people from North Jersey.  

We waste as few words as possible, which is why in person I can speak a 13 word sentence in what sounds like four or five, yet still clearly get my point across.

That may also explain such infamous Jerseyisms as "youze" and "fugheddaboudit".  For example, "youze" is one word and one syllable, a fluent linguistic motion, and is just as quick to say as "you", yet it also clearly gets the point across that we're using the plural.  That's also why we take "95" from NJ to Miami, and not "The 5" from Portland to LA.

Ha, I should go find that thread.  It was hilarious, mainly because it's true.

Disclaimer: my tendency towards excessive verbiage on T00bz comments does not in any way reflect my actual speaking style.

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 06:47:39 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I know that schools get government (4.00 / 2)

surplus food. Supposedly, this helps hold down costs. Am I wrong in thinking that the politics of Big Ag play a major role in deciding the food requirements? I still haven't gotten over Reagan declaring ketchup a vegetable as far as school lunches were concerned.

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by: caseyOR @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 05:33:53 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Reagan... (4.00 / 1)

Filling in the blanks on one of his 'famous' quotes -

The nine 18 most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help [you redefine ketchup as a vegetable for your children].'

Heh.

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 05:45:17 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

gCommodity food (4.00 / 1)

The regular commodity food program has two purposes, to help hold down school food costs, and to support Big Ag. Major beneficiaries are the oligarchical integrated chicken and pork giants, factory beef processors, Big Dairy, and the behemoth grain aggregators. We used to speak of the commodities as government surplus food when I was a kid, but I don't know if that term is appropriate now for the regular commodity program.

There is another commodity program, bonus commodities, that I didn't know about until I read the much-discussed Robert Woods Johnson Foundation study (2008).

Bonus Commodities

Bonus commodities are provided by USDA in accordance with its legislative authority to remove market surpluses and/or to support prices. Bonus commodities do not count against a state's regular entitlement dollars. School districts receive bonus commodity foods free of charge, but are responsible for standard shipping and handling fees. Market conditions and agricultural surpluses determine the availability of bonus commodities. In recent years, bonus items have become less common due to improved market conditions for agricultural producers, more precise crop planning, and tighter supply chain management. In the 2005-06 school year, bonus items accounted for only seven percent of the total pounds and six percent of the total servings of commodity foods provided to California schools.

Nationally, about 50% of the commodity food goes through food processors before it gets to the schools. No state or federal agency monitors the nutritional quality of food after it is turned over to the food processors, so it starts out as economical high quality food and arrives at the schools as expensive junk food.

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by: count @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 06:14:13 AM UTC

placement (4.00 / 1)

I intended to respond to caseyOR.

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by: count @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 06:17:35 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

The stats about commodity food going through the processors (4.00 / 1)

before it gets to the schools is no doubt the reason why the food processors were at the table in the school nutrition bill writing.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Sat Mar 27, 2010 at 10:02:41 AM UTC

[ Parent ]