Can Michelle Obama Make the Math Work for Better School Food?

by: euclidarms

Wed Feb 17, 2010 at 02:07:00 AM PST

Launching her anti-obesity campaign--Let's Move--last week, first lady Michelle Obama vowed to add 1 million kids to the 31 million already being served daily by federal reimbersible meal programs while cutting back on the foods kids like most--refined grains, potatoes, sugar, salt--and adding things kids like least--vegetables and whole grains. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama offered to split $1 billion per year over the next 10 years between schools and other meal programs, an amount school food advocates say isn't enough to add even an apple to kids' cafeteria trays.

Sound like a winning strategy?

Impressively, Michelle Obama has rounded up a bevy of national interest groups and corporations to attempt yet another transformation of school meals. A program that started as a convenient way to dispose of farm surpluses during the Great Depression and turned into an anti-poverty weapon in the 1960s would now become, with the Obama imprint, a teachable moment in the country's battle against swelling waistlines. But success could hinge on whether the government antes up to pay for it, and whether kids will actually eat it. Skeptics are yet to be convinced.

"Michelle Obama is leading a grassroots effort to try and bring the country along. But I don't think the USDA or the White House have the 'clout' or the political will to make the hard changes," said Ann Cooper, nutritionist for schools in Boulder, Colorado, and a leading advocate for improved school food. She said "true change" would require at least another "$1 a day" per child in federal reimbursements. The federal government currently pays $2.68 for each fully-reimbursable school lunch.

Much of the Let's Move agenda turns on nutrition standards recommended last October by the Institute of Medicine at the behest of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The IOM found that kids are eating too much pizza, french fries and candied cereals. But it warned that  replacing Tater Tots with fresh broccoli is bound to raise the cost of school meals considerably, including the addition of kitchen equipment and skilled staff to prepare attractive, palatable meals.

Specifically, the panel making the recommendations called for adding five servings of fruit each week in the subsidized breakfast program as well as seven or more servings of whole grains. The panel recommends adding two to four servings of fruit at lunch (six to eight servings  for high schoolers), and two to four additional servings (four to six servings for high schoolers) of vegetables, especially dark green and orange varieties, and legumes.

"A change in the meal requirements could have a major effect on the cost of food to school food authorities (SFAs) if there are large changes in the types and amounts of foods required by the standards for menu planning," the IOM panel reported. The panel said it could not predict exactly how much food costs might increase. But the IOM estimated that if students actually select the increased offerings of fruits, vegetables and whole grain products when they are in the meal line--which is, after all, the point of improving the standards--the cost of breakfast would likely rise 23 percent, lunch by 9 percent.

Replacing refined-grain products with whole grain foods, for instance, would result in increased costs of between 3 and 20 percent. But the cost could be higher as there are few whole grain products readily available for school meal programs. They would need to be developed. The IOM recommendations are potentially years from being implimented by the USDA.

Cooper, who previously teamed with Alice Waters to introduce school meals with freshly cooked, local ingredients in Berkeley, Calif., said that while the average cost of food in a school lunch runs around $1, she spends about $1.20 in Boulder, and the budget in Berkeley is around $1.30.

Raising the cost of school food by improving quality is just half the picture, however. The other half of school food budgets is taken up by labor, and Michelle Obama's action plan runs exactly counter to the trend of the last several decades. To cope with tight budgets, schools and their contracted food providers have moved away from skilled kitchen workers and replaced them with "warmer-uppers" who don't work enough hours to qualify for benefits and whose primary qualification consists of being able to re-heat highly processed, precooked meal items shipped from industrial food factories. Introducing more vegetables and other whole ingredients to school menus and making them palatable, the IOM warns, would certainly require more qualified chefs--as well as improved kitchen equipment to work with.

"One possible approach to offering school meals that meet the recommended standards for menu planning is to introduce more on-site food preparation," the IOM states. "This approach requires greater managerial skill, often requires susbstantial one-time investment in equipment, and most often would require more skilled labor and/or training..."

The IOM panel cited an analysis of data from 350 Minnesota schools suggesting that "healthier" meals required higher labor costs, but lower expenditures for processed foods. "The authors call for funds to be made available for labor training and kitchen upgrades." But if these kinds of improvements are made on the front end, and lower food costs offset higher labor costs as a result, an increase in federal reimbursement rates might be unnecessary, according to this analysis. Many schools do not have kitchens at all, but could fit within a different model in which meals are prepared fresh in central kitchens, then distributed.

"It's really hard work," said Cooper of the kinds of changes envisioned in the IOM recommendations. "You need to change the menus, change your procurement system, train the entire staff, get more equipment, find more money, do fundraisers, train the staff some more, market to parents, market to teachers, market to kids, retest recipes. work with unions, figure out the budget...It goes on and on. I've often said it's the hardest thing I've ever done."

Where would the money for kitchen upgrades come from? The IOM report suggests there might be some in the "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" (PDF) program instituted last year by USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan. Merrigan has said that nearly $1 billion in federal grant funds used in the past for building rural fire stations, hospitals and community centers could be allocated to food-related projects, such as building storage facilities for locally grown produce, food markets and school kitchens. But schools would need to apply for the money.

The IOM panel also warns that implimenting the standards it proposes could attract more children to the federal school meal program--or drive them away. Kids norotoriously don't like vegetables when they are overcooked and slapped on cafeteria trays.  As I found while observing the kitchen operations at my daughter's elementary school recently, kids will refuse the standard vegetable offerings when given a choice, and the IOM acknowledges that while new standards might result in more vegetables being served in school cafeterias, that doesn't mean kids will actually eat them. A 1996 nationwide survey of school cafeteria managers found that 42 percent of cooked vegetables--along with 30 percent of raw vegetables and salads--ended up in the trash.

Kids also don't like whole grains much. Nevertheless, Michelle Obama said several national school food suppliers--Sodexho, Chartwells, Aramark-- have "voluntarily committed" to meet the Institute of Medicine's recommendations within five years to decrease the amount of sugar, fat and salt in school meals, and increase the whole grans and double the amount of produce they serve within 10 years--a rather long time frame, as far as advocates such as Ann Cooper are concerned.

In fact, the Obama plan proposes a model of school wellness that incorporates fresh, local produce, school gardens and nutrition education at a time when most school administrators seem incapable of focusing on anything but reading and math scores.  "Let's Move" sets worthy goals for school food, but whether those are achievable within the confines of the Obama budget proposal is anybody's guess

To Make School Food Healthy, Michelle Obama Has a Tall Order

by: euclidarms

Sun Feb 14, 2010 at 04:32:02 AM PST

Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" Childhood Obesity Campaign

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 12:06:14 PM PST

In addition to the high profile media coverage of Michelle Obama's campaign, the actual work will be done by a new government-wide Task Force on Childhood Obesity that was created when President Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum to establish it this week. They've got 90 days to review everything the government is doing on childhood obesity and then come up with an action plan and track their progress. In the meantime, Michelle is also working with a variety of interest groups, including pediatricians and corporations. She's established Let's Move.gov as a one-stop-shop for healthy recipes, exercise plans, and charts parents can use to track their family's progress. And she wants to improve school lunch via the Child Nutrition Reauthorization and eliminate "food deserts" (areas where there's no healthy food available). She's also working on getting people to exercise more.

For more info (including links to transcripts and videos), keep reading below.

Tales from a D.C. School Kitchen, Conclusion: Better School Food -- Can We Get There from Here?

by: euclidarms

Sun Jan 24, 2010 at 04:47:19 AM PST

I recently spent a week in the kitchen at H.D. Cooke Elementary School here in the District of Columbia observing how food is prepared. This is the last of a six-part series of posts about what I saw. You can find previous posts on The Slow Cook blog or here:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

When I asked to spend time observing the kitchen operation at my daughter's elementary school, I thought I was going to see people cook. The food service provider for D.C. Public Schools, Chartwell-Thompson, had recently ditched the old method of feeding kids with pre-packaged meals from a food factory and replaced it with something they called "fresh cooked." Being one of those folks who's trying to return to  cooking from scratch with fresh, local ingredients, I was anxious to see how Chartwell's plan would play out.

My New Adventures in "Eat Cleaner" land...

by: Ellinorianne

Wed Jan 06, 2010 at 08:40:35 AM PST

Over the past few months I've been working with Mareya Ibrahim of Eat Cleaner on blogging and facebook related communications but it's more than just a product.  She's encouraged me getting involved with Slow Food's Time for Lunch Campaign which has been eye opening to say the least and frustrating but I'm still working away.  I've also been involved in local Community garden groups that I would be working on with or without her influence.

But over the last few months I've learned a great deal about Eat Cleaner and Mareya and that this is a woman on a mission and it's not just about selling you a food wash.  

Happy Thanksgiving La Vida Locavores!

by: Curtis Abbey

Thu Nov 26, 2009 at 12:09:28 PM PST

MANY More below the fold

Vilsack Lays Out Priorities for Child Nutrition But Says Very Little

by: Jill Richardson

Sat Oct 31, 2009 at 14:49:54 PM PDT

In general, he wants three things. First, better access to school nutrition programs for children. Second, healthier school lunches. Third, less errors made by the federal government in managing the school lunch program.

Hey Beavis, That's Racist Kale. Heh Heh Heh.

by: Jill Richardson

Tue Sep 22, 2009 at 17:02:17 PM PDT

Let's say you're preparing dinner and you realize with dismay that you don't have any certified organic Tuscan kale. What to do?

Here's how Michelle Obama handled this very predicament Thursday afternoon:

The Secret Service and the D.C. police brought in three dozen vehicles and shut down H Street, Vermont Avenue, two lanes of I Street and an entrance to the McPherson Square Metro station. They swept the area, in front of the Department of Veterans Affairs, with bomb-sniffing dogs and installed magnetometers in the middle of the street, put up barricades to keep pedestrians out, and took positions with binoculars atop trucks. Though the produce stand was only a block or so from the White House, the first lady hopped into her armored limousine and pulled into the market amid the wail of sirens.

Then, and only then, could Obama purchase her leafy greens. "Now it's time to buy some food," she told several hundred people who came to watch. "Let's shop!"

As if that wasn't enough, Rush Limbaugh got a hold of the Milbank piece and added his own two cents:

By the way, do you know what the real name of Tuscan kale is?  It is cavolo nero.  Do you know what that means?  Black cabbage.  Michelle Obama went to the farmers market to buy some racist cabbage.

Right. Well I'd rather her photo ops be publicizing farmers markets instead of having birthday cake with John McCain while New Orleans drowns. And don't ever let me catch you eating Bok Choy, Rush, because you know what that means in Cantonese, right? It means "white cabbage," you racist.

For a much friendlier account of the First Farmers' Market, check out Civil Eats.

The Obamas Get It: Part of Health Care Reform is Prevention - And Diet!

by: Jill Richardson

Wed Jun 17, 2009 at 03:25:05 AM PDT

The second step that we can all agree on is to invest more in preventive care so we can avoid illness and disease in the first place...

It also means cutting down on all the junk food that's fueling an epidemic of obesity - (applause) - which puts far too many Americans, young and old, at greater risk of costly, chronic conditions. That's a lesson Michelle and I have tried to instill in our daughters. As some of you know, we started a White House vegetable garden. I say "we" generously, because Michelle has done most of the work. (Laughter.) That's a lesson that we should work with local school districts to incorporate into their school lunch programs.

Michelle Obama (in a separate speech) also spoke about school lunches:

But government also has a role to play in this, as well.  For so many kids, subsidized breakfasts and lunches are their primary meals of the day.  It's what they count on.  It's where they get most of their nutrition.

And the USDA's National School Lunch Program serves approximately 30 million meals each year to low-income* children.  And because these meals are the main source of consistent nourishment for these kids, we need to make sure we offer them the healthiest meals possible.

So to make sure that we give all our kids a good start to their day and to their future, we need to improve the quality and nutrition of the food served in schools.  We're approaching the first big opportunity to move this to the top of the agenda with the upcoming reauthorization of the child nutrition programs.  In doing so, we can go a long way towards creating a healthier generation for our kids.

I'm glad the Obamas are for healthier school lunches, but if they wants to achieve that, Barack specifically needs to take the same kind of leadership on that that he's taking on health care reform. We need him out there making televised speeches to the School Nutrition Association about spending more - maybe even double - on each child's lunch. We need him to talk about not starving our schools of funds so they look to the lunch programs as money makers and serve the kids junk to get them to buy more food. And we need him to talk about how it's unrealistic to expect our nation to eat better if we aren't even producing the right amount of healthy foods in the first place.

If every single American wanted to eat the recommended amount of fruits & veggies every day, they couldn't - we don't grow enough. Kind of an obvious problem that we need to fix, huh? There's a bill (H.R.800) that would address some of the problem by allowing commodity farmers to grow fruits and veggies on their land. Right now, if you grow commodities that receive federal subsidies and you want to rotate your crops, you're not allowed to grow fruits and veggies on that land. This bill would allow you to do so. Not so surprisingly, it's supported by legislators from the midwest from both major political parties - and California farm groups like Blue Diamond Growers are out lobbying against it because they don't want any competition from midwestern farmers.

UPDATE: Ali from Gastronomalies just called my attention to this Maureen Dowd article on the Obamas' mixed messages about food. When they are in front of kids and doctors, they are for healthy eating. But they don't hesitate to take high profile trips to burger joints too. It reminds me of my friend's Dad who spent a lifetime telling my friend about the evils of pot... until one day he called him to ask, "Have you seen my stash? I can't find it." The problem isn't so much Barack and Michelle as it is our culture that views eating junk as being down to earth and fun.

Pesticide Lovers on the Offensive

by: Jill Richardson

Thu May 21, 2009 at 20:00:00 PM PDT

At least... that seems to be the message of the infamous CropLife Association, the same group of dumbasses that I exposed for writing Michelle Obama once and pleading with her to soak her veggies in poison so that her two daughters could grow up as cancer- and Parkinsons-prone as every other child in America. Hat tip to Tom Philpott for finding this letter writing campaign on their site.

In the meantime, Gov. Rendell of PA has jumped on the garden bandwagon, as has Vermont (VT's garden will be organic... no word yet about PA). Sorry CropLife. Organic is in for gardens this year. Pesticides are SO last century!

Sampler Platter 05.16.09

by: Jill Richardson

Sat May 16, 2009 at 09:33:25 AM PDT

• Obama Foodorama covers the First Lady's commencement speech at UC Merced in CA's Central Valley, a town that's a great example of the rural recovery efforts this country needs.

• Can you tell the difference between pate and dog food? Many Americans can't. I'm almost afraid to take that taste test because I would be so upset with myself if I couldn't tell the difference!!

• Oy vey, a conservative commentator decided that feeding healthy food to the poor is a waste of food. Natasha Chart doesn't agree. My comment about the conservatives: AND THEY CALL US ELITIST???

• Hooray! Chicago bans baby bottles with BPA! Now, please, can everywhere else ban them too? In fact, can we just ban ALL BPA?

• Civil Eats looks at the USDA's numbers of new farms and asks what is a farm? A backyard flock of chickens that lays $1000 of eggs in a year? What about 60,000 cows that stand in the dirt and eat feed grown elsewhere? Most of us would probably say both of those aren't farms, but to the USDA they are.

• The Ethicurean took a trip to the Sustainable Foods Institute in Monterey, CA and told us all about it on the blog.

• Oh please. The National School Boards Association opposes healthier school lunches. Why? Why??? What kind of screwed up society do we live in?

• Alternet posted its zillionth plea for us to quit eating so many factory farmed animals. I really hope somebody besides myself is reading these.

• Another great one from Alternet asks if the farm that grew your organic food is a humanitarian nightmare. Yet another reason to buy food from a farmer you know.

• Cheerios are a drug! So says the FDA, based on Cheerios' claim to help lower bad cholesterol. If it says it does that, it is a drug, and must be regulated as such. Clinical trials, anyone?

• Ghent, Belgium, declares meatless Thursdays.

• Why is Lays promoting "local"? Tom Laskawy has a few ideas.

Case of the Mondays Sampler Platter

by: Jill Richardson

Mon Mar 23, 2009 at 07:47:44 AM PDT

• Ezra Klein got his reservations to celebrity chef Mario Batali's restaurant Babbo far in advance, awaited the day, and... it was just okay. Which makes me wonder if I should just keep my fantasy of dining at the French Laundry as a fantasy so I can assume it's really as good as I think it is.

• The Atlantic has lots to say about compost.

• Mark Bittman weighs the value of the organic label. I like his conclusion that some day we should produce food as if animals and the land mattered. He says:

  Some of that food will be organic, and hooray for that. Meanwhile, they should remember that the word itself is not synonymous with "safe," "healthy," "fair" or even necessarily "good."

• Obama Foodorama makes a profound point about the White House garden: The White House itself was built by slaves, and now Michelle, descended from slaves, is its First Lady. That adds a layer of meaning to those pics of her digging in the dirt at the groundbreaking.

• Have any questions about the fats in food? Marion Nestle answers.

• Alternet lists the Top 10 Aphrodesiac Foods. Now THERE'S a nice, free activity during this crappy economy!

• Also from Alternet: dumpster diving.

• Spain's got a new plan to give free fruit to school children. So do we, in our Fresh Fruits & Vegetables Program, but it's still in a pilot phase in only a few schools per state. Weak!

• Check this out: 100 Blogs for the Frugal Gourmet. Just what I need right about now, although I don't think I need a blog to tell me that my staples of oatmeal, whole wheat toast, spinach omelets, yogurt, roasted veggies, and fresh fruit are cheap and delicious.

• A network of women farmers in India are fighting the climate crisis by going organic.

A White House Garden's Nice, but How About Funding Farm to School?

by: Jill Richardson

Fri Mar 20, 2009 at 06:00:00 AM PDT

I can't help but get swept up in the excitement over the symbolism of the garden as well as the publicity it will bring to gardening and to eating fresh, local food. However, with Obama's position as the most powerful man in the world, I'd like to see him do more. Five years ago, Congress authorized a National Farm to School Program - but failed to fund it. Five years have gone by with no change. Now a major piece of child nutrition legislation is going through Congress so the timing is perfect. With his garden, Obama will bring change to the few lucky youngsters from Bancroft Elementary, but what about the rest of the nation?

Obamas bringing back the victory garden

by: desmoinesdem

Thu Mar 19, 2009 at 17:55:30 PM PDT

On Friday, Michelle Obama will begin digging up a patch of White House lawn to plant a vegetable garden, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt's victory garden in World War II. There will be no beets (the president doesn't like them) but arugula will make the cut.

While the organic garden will provide food for the first family's meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at time when obesity has become a national concern.

In an interview in her office, Mrs. Obama said, "My hope is that through children, they will begin to educate their families and that will, in turn, begin to educate our communities."

Twenty-three fifth graders from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington will help her dig up the soil for the 1,100-square-foot plot in a spot visible to passers-by on E Street. (It's just below the Obama girls' swing set.) Students from the school, which has had a garden since 2001, will also help plant, harvest and cook the vegetables, berries and herbs.

Almost the entire Obama family, including the president, will pull weeds, "whether they like it or not," Mrs. Obama said laughing. "Now Grandma, my mom, I don't know." Her mother, she said, would probably sit back and say: "Isn't that lovely. You missed a spot."

I have little to add, but I wanted to bring this to the attention of the La Vida Locavore community. Thanks are due to Michael Pollan for putting this idea forward in an "Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief" in the New York Times Sunday Magazine last October. Obama read Pollan's piece and paraphrased points from it in an interview with Time magazine.

Pot Luck: We're Famous In Italia!

by: Jill Richardson

Mon Mar 16, 2009 at 19:00:00 PM PDT