It’s strange how much you forget as you grow up. Most of the stories I read about adults who become involved in the politics of school lunches only realize the problem when their own children start going to school. I know I can hardly remember what I ate at school when I was little, and that wasn’t so long ago. It all comes flooding back, though, when I read the blog posts of Mrs. Q, a school teacher who decided to eat lunch at her cafeteria every school day for a year. The steamed carrots, the strange beef variants (Mrs. Q had “salisbury steak,” I remember “shaved steak”) and most importantly, the lack of choices. Once we can choose what we eat, it’s easy to think of eating wilted broccoli and semi-frozen chicken tenders in the same sense as wearing light-up shoes and obsessing over Pokemon. Think about every “kids’ menu” full of bite-sized hot dogs and chocolate milk, or the dreaded Lunchables. Most of the time, we just think of this stuff as the food kids like to eat, as if there is a certain age before which humans can’t handle good food. Most school lunch decisions are made with budgets in mind, and that is a consequence of free education I will gladly accept, but I think the point of Mrs. Q’s experiment is that the adults that make these decisions do not have to live with them in the way that the kids do. There are a lot of “eco-stunts” floating around the media these days. Think “Low-Impact Man” or more generally food-oriented experiments like the “Julie and Julia” blog project (now a major motion picture) and these are all excellent vehicles for attracting attention (good or bad) to a worthy cause. Mrs. Q’s blog, though, is probably my favorite experiment of these. She hasn’t told us what school she works at, or where in the country she is, and the blog doesn’t read like an angry confrontation with the school board. Mrs. Q simply draws out attention to the end result of a decision made by adults who do not have to live with the consequences.
It seems that the impossible has occurred. Although the farthest you could possibly get from a McDonalds restaurant in the USA is 107 miles, fast food chains are dying as we speak. They are being replaced by local businesses, such as Chinese Hut and Big Bites Ice Cream. Although they aren’t exactly health food, they are definitely an improvement. We’re ready to take it a step further and say that home-cooked meals are made faster then fast-food. That’s right, you could cook dinner faster then it could be delivered at your doorstep, and probably tastier too. Here are some ideas.
WOYP friends! You have until February 16th to tell the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) what you think about Monsanto, genetically engineered (GE) foods, and the importance of accurate food labeling!
A little back story: In 2006 the Center for Food Safety sued the USDA for approving Monsanto’s GE Roundup Ready alfalfa. Alfalfa is open-pollinated by bees, who can spread the seed for miles. This means that farms growing organic and non-GE alfalfa could have their crop contaminated by Monsanto’s GE alfalfa.
This poses a serious problem for organic farmers. Current USDA Organic standards state that an organic crop that has been accidentally contaminated with GE seed can still display the official “USDA Organic” seal, as long as the farmer did not intentionally pollinate the crop with GE seed.
So this means the organic food you are buying may, or may not, be genetically engineered. This may come as a surprise to the 75% of consumers who believe that when they are buying organic they are also buying GE-free.
It also forces us to ask: what good is a label if it doesn’t mean what it claims to mean? If Monsanto continues to rule over our food system, we may never have accurate and dependable labeling of GE foods.
The federal judge in the case of the USDA vs. the Center for Food Safety ordered that the USDA complete an environmental impact statement (EIS) on the effects of GE crop on farmers and the environment. The USDA finished the first draft of their EIS on December 14th — and we are now in the 60 day public comment period! (One great thing about EIS is that it mandates a period of time for the public to weigh-in.)
Go to True Food Now to tell the USDA that organic does matter, and that you want correct labeling of GE foods, just like they have in Australia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom.
Over here at What’s On Your Plate?, we’ve been hard at work to get a fun and engaging toolkit together for all the home viewers out there who will be joining us on Sunday, February 7th at 2pm. We’ve finally finished it and we’re pretty proud to share it with all of you.
Here it is for all of those looking for something fun to do that Sunday with your friends and family!
Internet, what I’m about to blog may frighten you, and those of you who are uncomfortable around giant, world-engulfing corporations might want to look away.
When I go to the grocery store, I like to think I’m a pretty good shopper. I try to buy only the products that are produced organically, thoughtfully, things that are made with a larger world in mind. I’ve got some Tom’s of Maine toothpaste, some Horizon Organic Milk, some Stonyfield yogurt. But then I read this and that nice feeling went away. It turns out the corporate ogre reaches its grubby hands far further into my world than I thought I was letting it. I guess I always knew my favorite products weren’t what they seemed. I know that Whole Foods founder/CEO John Mackey holds what I consider pretty reprehensible views on healthcare reform, labor unions, and market regulation. I can live with that, I am lucky enough to live somewhere with privately-owned grocery stores. I can spot the obvious fakes, like when Froot Loops calls itself “part of a balanced breakfast” and sticks a “Healthy Choice” label on the box. That’s no problem.
But to read that article, and to learn that not only Tom’s of Maine, Stonyfield, and Horizon, but Odwalla, Naked Juice, Burt’s Bees, Poland Spring, Kashi, and God knows what else are all owned by huge corporations, exactly the same huge corporations that make the gross, synthetic, polluting junk that these products are supposed to help us leave behind. I was hurt when I learned this, it feels like betrayal. I mean, Burt’s Bees! That nice bearded man on the label, how could he?
The stories behind these products are just plain creepy, too. Most of the time, as in the case of Odwalla or Burt’s Bees, they really did start out as small companies with conscientious manufacturing practices and organic products, but they were bought out by corporate behemoths as soon as they started making a profit. Take Back To Nature cereals: they were bought out by Kraft (ew) who is owned by Altria (who?) which also owns Philip Morris, one of the world’s largest cigarette makers (what?!) and now when I think I’m giving my money to a nice bunch of socially conscious people, I’m paying for more fake cheese and cigarettes. That’s just it, though, these people are really, really good at getting money. To giant corporations like Altria (who I’ve still never heard of ) the organic food movement we’re all so proud of is simply another way to make money.
So what to do? On the one hand, organic products are still largely organic. Tom’s of Maine is still way better than Colgate, even if they are made by the same company (and they are, Colgate-Palmolive). And sometimes, I guess we have to make that decision: should I buy the product that is the best available to me? Even if the money is going to someone who makes something really terrible? Of course, we can also decide what products are necessary at all. We can choose the lesser of two evils between Burt’s Bees and Chapstick, or maybe we don’t need to buy lip balm in the first place.
The point I think I’m avoiding, though, is that shopping with a social conscience is hard. There is no one store that will sell me all the organic, fair-traded, non-animal-abusing, manufactured-by-highly-paid-workers-with-health-insurance things that I want to fill my life with. Again, I’m lucky to live in a place where I can choose to buy most things at small grocery stores and farmers’ markets, but that doesn’t mean I should assume I know where my stuff comes from, or where my money goes. It’s a tough fact to live with, but finding products that live up to what I want from a manufacturer is not an easy quest. But if huge corporations think they can chase down my money by buying out the companies I support, I’ll just have to keep taking my business elsewhere.
Many schools are giving back to the environment.
One such school is the NYCiSchool. The students are constructing a Green Roof, which in the most simplistic sense, is a garden on the roof of the building. An interview with student Anna Ralbovski revealed that students are expected to devise design of the Green Roof. As of yet, the design is said to include a pond, several pebble pathways with benches, and a variety of plants, flowers, and trees. But the Green Roof isn’t only supposed to look pretty. The school aims to reduce the building’s carbon footprint. Clad in wind turbines and an advanced irrigation system, the NYCiSchool’s fancy Green Roof is taking major steps in improving the city’s pollution levels. The otherwise impermeable roof surface causes excessive water runoff leading into sewage overflows, and thus polluting local rivers. The students are hoping that the irrigation system will be the solution to this problem, and finally put that water to good in use by feeding the vegetation.
Wind turbines are, if possible, even fancier. These massive, whimsical machines convert wind energy into usable power. They’re a good alternative for people that don’t want to burn more fossil fuels. The green roof should be finished the end 2012.
It seems that these schools have fed two birds with one seed: not only are the students learning valuable science information, they are contributing to the environment and community. How is that for a science class?
Are schools pushing healthy lunches away? Will vending machines and school stores lower academic achievement?
Michael Pollan wants you to eat food not “food.” Eating food should be healthy, whole, pure not food injected with additives and GMO’s.
The School Lunch Talk Dishes out the best/worst menus to examining what students eat for school lunch all around the countries.
Climate Change: The Real Problems leading to False Accusations Will the need to create cropping and livestock systems that are resilient to the climate change help to an actual solution?
School lunch meets failure Sadly fast food is healthier than what America’s 31 million children are given at our nation’s schools.
Appropriate food marketing for children Healthy food made to attract children should lead to benefiting them with firm advertisements.
Creative lunch ideas for your young jolly Many yummy food ideas that attract kids of all ages while benefiting them with a happy healthy body.
