I can’t remember how I stumbled upon the blog, Fed Up with Lunch, but it’s a fascinating look into what one school district calls food. For the last seventy school days or so, I’ve read about one school’s lunch and looked at the pictures posted. It’s a horror show – no really. The ‘food’ doesn’t resemble anything I’d eat, think about eating, remember eating, or would serve to my worst enemy. I’ve been out of school for over twenty years and had no idea that the nations’ children – through school lunch programs – were eating over processed commoditized crap. It’s really disheartening, though not surprising when you consider how the American diet and palette have shifted with the introduction and mass commercialization of extremely processed ‘foods’ and high fructose corn syrup.
Anyway, Janet Poppendieck wrote a guest blog a few weeks ago, and I was prompted to buy her book, Free for All. It’s a very comprehensive and interesting history of school lunch in America – focusing on how free and reduced lunch have intersected with nutritional guidelines as well as schools using food as a money making endeavor. While highly readable, I would encourage Ms. Poppendieck to consider a shorter paragraph style. Page long paragraphs made taking in the information more of a chore than it should be.
Fundamentally, the author advocates that all schools provide free breakfast and lunch for all students. It would, she says, eliminate the stigma of the free and reduced lunch program as well as make meals and ‘nutrition’ part of a child’s regular school day and habits. After reading her book and considering her arguments, I fundamentally disagree. I’m horrified by the foods that are served in school (processed, ‘fortified’ grains, factory farmed meat, pasteurized, homogenized (and sometimes sweetened, shelf-stable) milk. Not only would I never eat these items, but I would never want these foods fed to my child. I’m truly sorry that poor children in our school districts are served this utter garbage, but expanding the garbage food to more children would not make the system better. I would never want my son to believe that ‘fast food’ items are normal for daily consumption (pizza, hamburgers, potatoes disguised as vegetables, fruit juice, processed fruit, etc). Furthermore, I don’t want America’s dominant belief in the lipid hypothesis spread any further than it is. Serving these kinds of foods in homes, restaurants, and schools has led to obesity, diabetes, and all sorts of modern illnesses. Spreading that further could only have devastating consequences.
Until these issues are fixed (and it’s unlikely in a country where the government gets nutritional information (and excess commodities) from corporations), I cannot advocate school lunch be free for anyone. The cost is just too high.
