Growing Food Communities Along the Central Gulf Coast

On August 25 the Senate passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act; the House will take up the bill after summer recess, and is under pressure to pass the measure before the current Child Nutrition Act expires September 30. Although the proposed legislation does not do everything advocates – including Michelle Obama – had desired, it does provide permanent funding for public school breakfast and lunch. It also makes the first non-inflationary increase in the reimbursement rate, at six cents per student per day (although as critics point out that won’t even pay for an apple per child); creates tighter restrictions on junk food sold in school vending machines; and expands the number of eligible low-income children. Find more information and links at the Slow Food USA blog, Civil Eats, and Culinate, among others.

Write your representative (via Slow Food’s Time for Lunch campaign) to encourage him or her to pass the bill, in the House called the “Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act.” Alternatively, see my list of contact information here.

The latest LocalHarvest newsletter had a piece about improving kids’ diets at home and at school, as well as a list of suggestions for parents wanting to make changes. Laptop Lunchboxes also has some great resources for lunch ideas and nutrition guidelines, as well as a menu library. A lot of the LocalHarvest suggestions feel like common sense to me, but I have to admit that, lofty goals though I may have I still keep a box or two of Annie’s Mac & Cheese on hand for those times when the cupboard is bare and I need to give my kid a quick meal. I also worry about backlash for the lack of junk and convenience food, that it will become more attractive because it’s something my daughter is discouraged from eating. Just the other day she told me she had a dream that I had sent cheese balls (she means those neon orange cheese puffs) as a snack in her lunch.

We’re three weeks into kindergarten at this point, and though I have encouraged her to try school lunch I’m not exactly thrilled about it (and neither is she). I understand that the school is trying to provide a nutritionally balanced lunch with a good amount of protein for kids who might have poor access to those foods at home, but all the same I blanched at seeing the menu filled with processed meat: hamburgers, corn dogs, tacos, pepperoni pizza, sausage, chicken patties. Doesn’t anyone consider the possibility of providing protein in meatless form? How about beans and rice, or bean tacos, or hummus, etc? I actually asked if there was a vegetarian menu and I felt embarrassed about it afterward, like I was lucky I didn’t get laughed at. I was told that any “dietary exceptions” had to be cleared with a note from the doctor. How about an exception to unhealthy food?

If you missed it when I posted about it previously, check out the blog of an Illinois schoolteacher who is eating school lunch every day during the academic year, Fed Up With Lunch.

What are your thoughts on child nutrition or school lunch?