Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution - What do you think?

[Anonymous]

It's probably good PR for Jamie Oliver Inc. too.

[Anonymous]

I signed his online petition.

[Anonymous]

"Most school foodservice directors are registered dietitians with a real zeal for nutrition and feeding kids in a healthy way. They are completely hamstrung by budgetary restrictions and do what they can to buy healthy ingredients and get kids to eat them. "

In the public school system, there are so many administrators who all just sheepishly say they are hamstrung and point one level up on all issues. Passive aggressive tactics to keep an easy job, meager entitlement raises, and maintain the status quo is just pervasive in these systems. Some are better than other but MCPS is the absolute worst. They lead by excuse constantly and you would be hard pressed at any level to find someone taking responsibility for their actions.

[Anonymous]

That's me you quoted so I will respond. I have spoken to many many school nutrition directors in the course of my job, and sure, some of them are entrenched -- like in any job -- but there are some school districts out there that do amazing things with the money and resources that are allotted to school food.

My point was that as a society, we're asking for a lot and not giving the resources to accomplish it. AND we're not backing it up with good examples at home -- maybe the people reading this board are, but the vast majority of American families are not. And whether you're a lazy bureaucrat or not, it's pretty hard to provide wholesome, made-from-scratch food for around $2.50 a meal.

If you want to read about someone doing amazing things with a small amount of resources, google Anthony Geraci, the nutrition director for Baltimore Public Schools.

[Anonymous]

This issue hits a sore spot with me -- I'd be willing to pay more to get the processed food out of the cafeterias. I've looked at the Arlington elementary menus, and I'm not particularly impressed. I get that some things are cheap, but to my mind there's no reason to have chocolate or strawberry milk in the school. Why isn't it all regular milk for little kids? If a parent is so concerned that their little precious won't drink the nasty 'regular' milk, then let them send the Yoo-hoo in the lunch -- parents' choice. When I was a kid, chocolate milk cost more than regular milk, and my mother only gave me the nine cents each day for regular milk, instead of the 10 cents for chocolate milk, so I couldn't sneak a chocolate milk (which I probably would have).

Does anyone know what kind of restrictions you can place on what the elementary school can give your child? Little kids don't really have the judgment yet, although they can be guided -- look at the one group on the Food Revolution that picked the regular milk because the teacher told them to. I would want to tell the school "hey, my child can't pick the flavored milk and you may not let him take one." They're going to whine about how difficult it is to enforce that, but they've accepted the responsibility for the kids and then put out the unacceptable foods. I'm resigned to the fact that I'll probably have to pack lunches, but why on earth do I have to figure out how to keep milk cold all day and pay much more for it in the store in the shelf-stable packs when the milk's right there if I could get the schools to abide by my wishes?

Sorry for the rant, but I've always shared Jamie's abhorrence of the gross flavored milks -- it's not even like it's just regular milk with a drop of Hershey's syrup -- it's a nasty mish-mash of sugars and flavors. And don't get me started on the vending machines in the senior schools.

[Anonymous]

Its very wrong for schools to try to make money off selling a la carte junk food in school. If they need to make money off the kids, sell something like kid jewelry, pencils, stickers, or crap from oriental trading company. No the kids don't need this stuff nor would I want it but at least they don't eat it.

[Anonymous]

My kid's school has Revolution Foods for its caterer--- and the kids don't like the food! It's everything you would want, like organic and healthy and fresh but the kids have been complaining for a year now. I made DC choose some meals last month but now the one thing she liked is gone so I'm back to making "home lunch." DC even said he'd take piano lessons in exchange for not having to eat school lunch.

I'm so disappointed-- I can't figure out if it's really as bad as the kids are claiming or just healthy and they are too used to gross unhealthy food to enjoy it.

[Anonymous]

Don't even get me started on the vending machines. I used to teach high school and our school was full of machines that had all kinds of crap - from Coke to Twinkies to chips. The teachers fought like mad to get them removed not only for health reasons, but also for disciplinary problems - kids would ask to go to the bathroom and come back and sneak food in class all the time. Every time we lost because the school made so much money from the vending machines that they paid for all the band and sports uniforms from the money.

[Anonymous]

Vending machines! It's just another example of how schools use student food to make money. It is EXTREMELY common for schools to use vending machine profits to pay for sports uniforms, band uniforms, etc. in fact, many schools offer exclusive beverage contracts to Coke or Pepsi in exchange for things like a new electronic scoreboard for the football field, band uniforms, etc.

Parents need to become informed about which arrangements their schools have with vendors. They need to become active in the committee that works on the school district wellness policy (they are required to have one but there are no requirements on what it must contain). And they -- we! -- need to be willing to pay a little more in taxes to see that kids get fresh, wholesome food in an environment that isn't contaminated by unhealthy commercial vending.

[Anonymous]

I'm glad to see some discussion of this. The parties in the schools can be sugar festivals. I will say at the preschool level our child's parties actually include things like cheese and fruit. The snacks are usually processed with little nutrition, but you can pack your own. Birthdays in schools are out of control IMO. I like the idea of a small treat that one school allows. Why not only allow mini cupcakes (still plenty of sugar grams) and encourage things like banana muffins, pumkin muffins, fruit, yougurt, etc to celebrate birthdays? I cringe at the idea of teachers EVER using candy or cookies as rewards. All that sugar doesn't just lead to highs and crashes as well as tooth decay, it also affects immunity and stomach issues. I am all for sugar in moderation, but things are out of control. Stepping off my soapbox now..

[Anonymous]

Re: the use of vending machines/junk food for fundraising. . .

When I was a kid at Catholic school, once a week we had "stationery." The bell would ring and whoever had money could go down to the office and purchase school supplies-- pencils, notebooks, etc. I don't know if it was done to raise money or just provide a service, but certainly now with Staples and Office Depot, an enterprising school administrator could buy in bulk and sell individually for a profit. My five-year old loves pretty pencils and stickers. Older kids might buy art supplies or more sophisticated items.

[Anonymous]

Part of the problems with school parties is that everything must be purchased from the store. Nothing can be made at home due to allergies. One year however, the teacher wanted to have a healthier Halloween party and didn't mind breaking rules(also no allergies in the class). We made pancakes which the kids got to decorate with fresh fruit. The kids loved it! Also, no edible treats allowed for birthdays.

[Anonymous]

What many people don't know is that school nutrition departments are usually required to be self-sufficient and sometimes must actually make a profit for their district.

This is part of the problem in my view. Why should this be the case? Also, my understanding is that many school lunch programs are also alloted a portion of the school's overhead (e.g. lighting, space cost, heating) which just further sucks up the use of the reimbursement money. If the schools viewed the food program as the integral part of the school day that it is and just used the reimbursement money for the actual food vs. all the other associated costs that the school district should be factoring in just like it does other school expenses then there would be more to go around.

I'm not at all optimistic of ending up having DD buy lunch when she gets to school. I think preschool food is bad enough! Everywhere we've been looking seems to really have horrible snack options including things like chips for 2 / 3 year olds for crying out loud! (We're just looking at a morning program and so don't have to deal with lunch which also does not sound that great.)

Now, that said, I always bought lunch when I went to school (at least 3 different school systems). I have no real recollection of the food until HS when I remember essentially opting for one of 3 lunch options for at least a year: a) go home; b) walk to the mall to buy pizza or fast food; c) buy the junk food for lunch.