Healthy School Lunches: Dollars vs. Sense

Tuesday, 9/15/2009

This week, Edutopia posted an insightful article and video about school lunches. In light of prominent recent studies by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention that show that 17% of kids 6-19 are overweight, it seems a good time to re-evaluate the food served in our public schools.

Edutopia suggests that because over 30 million children receive federally subsidized meals, school cafeterias certainly have the “leverage to make a positive difference in student diets.” One approach, as demonstrated in the video below creates locally produced, un-processed, healthy lunches that students are excited to eat.

Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School’s plan seems almost too good to be true. Its program creates food that is healthy and the students actually embrace. In a way it is too good, as the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School program relies heavily on outside grants to pay for the food and the educational programming around it. This type of funding seems difficult to implement on a national scale.

While the program represents the positive end of the healthy lunch spectrum, the article goes on to cite other simple action items a school can implement to stay within their federally subsidized budget and promote healthy eating habits:

• Buy Locally: Local companies can be price-competitive on foods like pizza and nutrition bars while the school maintains control over the ingredients to include items like whole grains and low fat cheese – an option national brands cannot provide. Buying produce locally instead of in bulk from national companies also saves money on storage.
• Buy in Bulk: Join other schools in your district to leverage purchasing power to lower the costs of healthy foods.
• Remove Junk Food: Remove junk foods from vending machines and replace them with more nutritious alternatives.
• Display Foods: Display healthier lunch options more prominently in the lunch line. Students are more likely to choose the items they can see the best.
• Rotate Foods: Include cheaper foods (such as baked tater tots) into the rotation to balance out the costs of more expensive fruits and vegetables.
• Apply for Grants: Apply for federal grants and stimulus money to fund other aspects of the school budget such as reading programs. Use the freed-up funds to help subsidize the lunch program.

Edutopia suggests that small steps are key to success in changing lunches in schools, and posts simple recipes that can be easily implemented in any cafeteria.

We want to hear from you. Share your recipes and ideas for simple steps for change.

(via edutopia.org ©edutopia.org, The George Lucas Educational Foundation.)

Posted by » walden
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