I read in the Washington Post one day about a House measure, supportedby Republicans and pushed by food industry lobbyists and some school officials, that would allow some districts to opt out of federal mandates passed in 2010 to reduce sodium and increase whole grains, fresh fruits, and vegetables in school lunches. This is something that makes me insane about politics and I try to steer clear of it; I didn’t even read the whole article and get my blood up
Before the schools had to pay closer attention to what kids were buying for lunch, a kid could buy four orders of French fries for lunch. Sometimes kids throw healthy food away and it’s wasteful. It’s not easy to train an old dog, or abunch of teenagers that have been eating crap since they were old enough to buy lunch. It takes all of us time to learn to try new foods and incorporate theminto our diets. I read somewhere when I was adopting, that sometimes kids will try a food 5-7 times before they start to like it. Unfortunately, a lot of food goesin the trash in this country, but let’s give these kids however long it takes to adapt to healthier meals.
One time the county had an open house at the distribution center for the
school cafeterias. I went to it, along with less than ten other parents representing over 150,000 students. The woman in charge of the warehouse was giving an introductory speech to the parents before the tour started and she was a proponent of letting kids eat whatever the hell they wanted while saying how healthy the school food was, and this was prior to the 2010 mandate to serve healthier foods. At the time, my daughter’s school sold ice cream to kids as they were going into the cafeteria for lunch. When I brought that up at the meeting, the woman stressed how the chocolate chip cookies had whole wheat flower in the mix. I asked why the kids could go through the line and choose only unhealthy sides without there being any guidelines and I said, “The lessons learned on how to eat growing up in the public schools can be lifelong lessons,” and she replied, “NO, they are not.”
Sometimes when you get involved in the schools or anything you feel strongly about, it really is fighting an uphill battle. But the bottom line is that our whole economy is still based on supply and demand. The more people that care what goes into their bodies and purchase their food accordingly, the more we can improve our countries’ food situation. In the meantime, there will be some backwards steps while fighting large corporate interests, but in the end, everyone can choose to eat what’s best for them.
Here’s a healthy snack to pack for young and old that we used to call frogs on a log. Get a 1/4 cup of your favorite trail mix (a serving size on trail mix and granola is usually 1/4 cup). Slice a celery stalk into sections. You can put peanut butter in the channel or cut through the channel to make more sticks. Dip in peanut butter, then dip in the trail mix (or put it on the peanut butter in the channel).
