Mothership Meals and Satellite Saucers: Changing School Lunch

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Changing School Lunch

School lunch
Originally uploaded by john.murden

I first started getting involved in the school food reform back when my son was in kindergarten. I remembered ghastly school lunch from my own school days, and I started hearing that things had only gotten worse since those good old "ketchup-is-a-vegetable" days in the 80's. So I started a food committee at the school, and set about trying to change school food.

I very quickly became frustrated and discouraged and completely changed courses.

School food was like a behemoth wrapped up in laws and deals and bureaucracies. In NYC alone, 800,000 lunches are prepared every day. It is like this monstrous shark that can't switch directions very easily. It's further hindered by decades of well-meaning but often idiotic laws that dictate the amount and proportion of calories from various sources that have to go on each tray.

In addition to the bureacracy problem, there's the nutrition problem. Because: what is a healthy lunch? The NYC Coalition for Healthy Schools thinks it should be vegan. Yech. I'm not into veganism. Lots of nutritionists and parents think it should be low-fat. Like, pizzas made with low fat cheese. Disgusting! Even efforts to use local foods backfire, like when the Office of School Foods stopped using low-fat Stonyfield Yogurt in favor of a NYS yogurt that was non-fat and sweetened with high fructose corn syrup.

And then there was the fact that even when pilot programs served great food, the kids wouldn't necessarily eat it. (One research team found to get kids to accept a healthy lunch program, you had to serve great food AND have kids grow/prepare the food AND they had study it in the classrooms.)

Is it surprising that I stopped focusing on school food? My attitude was: let's focus on something that we can actually change.

Until this year. Last spring my kids' school was accepted into a pilot program created by the Office of School Foods and the NYS Agriculture Dept. It's called Garden to Cafeteria Day. About 25 schools are participating, and most of them are growing their own salad greens. We have a relationship with Added Value, an educational farm in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, so we're harvesting greens from them. Then, and this is the exciting part, the school cafeteria is going to prepare and serve them as part of lunch.

It's a small step, but an exciting one. I'm especially gratified to see how many people are supporting this -- our principal, our school's nutritionist, the teachers, the parents.

The schools are asked to make a day of it, so we're having a Harvest Museum, with tasting tables and songs and artwork and science projects all on display in the cafeteria. It's going to be very sweet.

It's happening next Wednesday. I'll be taking pictures, so I'll keep you all posted.

No comments:

Post a Comment

The Mothership Method

(Or, how to sit down for dinner with your family without completely losing your mind)

It would be great if kids AND parents wanted boiled chicken and baby carrots every night for dinner. But, too bad, we picky parents want spicy, exotic, fun foods, and our kids want, well, sorta lame foods.
Here's the solution: break it down. Serve the dish deconstructed, and let everyone put their own dish together at the table. Sort of like tapas, or smorgasbord, or tacos. Or how in some parts of China you get a bowl of rice, and everything else is in the middle of the table and you take what you want for your own little bowl of rice. That way everyone gets to eat what they want, parents don't have to nag their kids, and kids get to feels some ownership over their meals. Plus, kids get exposed to the look and taste of the foods you hope they will one day love. But it's not just tacos. You'll be amazed at what can be served with the Mothership Method.

Ten Tips to Get Through Dinner Without Having A Nervous Breakdown

1. Accept That Kids Are Picky. No need to freak out on your cooking ability, or look at your kids like there is something wrong with them. It's called "neo-phobia", and it's just how they are, especially from ages 3-6.

2. Serve Meals Broken Down. Even grown-up meals like coconut curry or linguine with clams can be served in their elements, making them more appealing to kids. Grown ups can assemble their own jumble of deliciousness at their own plate while kids take on the pared-down elements.

3. Push if it Works, But Don't Nag If It Doesn't. Some kids are okay with being expected to taste everything on their plate. Others aren't. I think it's okay to push kids -- but not if you're turning dinner into a battlefield.

4. Suggest a Smell. Smelling a new food is easier than tasting it, and can sometimes provide a kid with the information needed to take that scary first bite. But don't confine smelling to new foods. Smell favorites, too, and help them develop their sense of smell by making a game out of it.

5. Don't Ask "Do You Like It?" Instead, try, "What does this remind you of?" or, "Would your cousins like this?" or, "Does this taste salty or sweet?". Asking if they like it or not gives kids too much power and ends the conversation. Besides, we don't care if they like it! We just want them to keep tasting it until it is familiar.

6. Don't Get Frustrated. Imagine being in Taiwan, or Nairobi, or Rome for the first time. Would you eat everything on the local menu? New foods are scary and gross. Our kids need time to learn about the foods that we eat.

7. No SubstitutionsThis is family dinner, not a diner. You, in all your wisdom, have provided foods that are healthy and delicious and appropriate for your children. There is something on the table for them to eat. Period.

8. No Snacks Before Dinner. This can be the hardest with our hectic schedules and hungry kids. But children who come to the table hungry are more likely to eat than cause trouble.

9. Put Peer Pressure To Your Advantage. School children are more likely to accept new foods if the alpha girls in their group accept them. Swap healthy food ideas on playdates.

10. Involve Your Kids In Cooking, Shopping, and Gardening. The more experience kids have handling and preparing a variety of foods, the more likely they are to eventually accept the foods. (But don't get upset if they help you make a complicated wonderful meal, and then refuse to eat it.)