Food Revolution Revolutionizing Your Family?

Week 4 in the Series

If you haven’t seen the new show, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, then I recommend you go to hulu.com and watch the first 2 episodes soon. He got my full attention when he exclaimed in the first episode that parents should be pissed at the type of food being served to their kids. This guy is getting people talking and I love it!

Coming from a school foodservice background, I have seen the breakfast pizzas, colored milks, and French fries in masses. The amount of processed food served in many of our schools is appalling.

When I have attended past SNA (School Nutrition Association) conferences and school foodservice trade shows I was overwhelmed by the presence of big food industry sponsorship and their overrated food samples. While working with schools at the district and state levels I learned more about why these foods have integrated themselves onto our childrens' plates….and it’s the same plight that we face as parents on a regular basis…it’s cheap and it takes less time to make.

Essentially each school cafeteria is its own little business. Yet they don’t get to make up their own rules (can’t charge more than $2.60 per meal, has to serve specific number and types of food items, and has to meet USDA macronutrient and micronutrient guidelines) and profits are typically shunted from their “business” account to meet the needs of another school district department that is deemed more important. This leads to no extra money to purchase the more expensive but also more nutritious fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains. It also doesn’t allow for higher labor costs to pay for the foodservice workers to prepare more homemade meals.

The food industry has really found a creative niche with the school foodservice market. To better serve their clients, these companies have engineered these school food products to comply with the USDA requirements and they have also run all the nutritional analysis on their products. They even label the boxes with the number of USDA equivalents required-like 2 breads, 1 vegetable, etc. You can find it right next to the diabetic carbohydrate exchanges on the label. The schools can then use these edible food products with solace in knowing they are in line with the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) requirements for school foods.

The new Child Nutrition Act Reauthorization has just passed the first Senate Committee meeting. In it, they are asking for several changes that will help our school nutrition programs be more viable as a business (like not shunting their few extra dollars to other departments within the school district). It will also reduce some of the red-tape to help schools be able to feed children, regardless of income status. They are also asking that the nutrition standards be re-evaluated and updated on the basis of America’s childhood obesity epidemic. All this is great and will no doubtedly improve the efficiency of school nutrition programs and improve the overall nutrition profile of the foods served, however there was a BIG piece missing within the legislation that I read.

What I did not see in the bill was a specific measure to enforce the availability of fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, real meats and whole grains. Yes there was an amendment for schools to make local farm connections and create relationships which will in turn help boost fresh food availability, but unfortunately this is not realistic for every school in our nation.  I see this absence in verbiage as an open invitation for the food industry to reformulate or re-size their existing products to comply with the new regulations, which in turn just puts us back into the same boat. Serving our kids processed, edible, food substances.

 For more information on the updates to this renewal act click here:  Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010

To sign a petition to increase fresh food options in school cafeterias, click here: Hungry for Change