That's not a mistake. It is the title of this op ed by famed Chef Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley CA, and Katrina Heron, who serves as a director of the Chez Panisse Foundation, which
envisions a school curriculum and school lunch program where growing, cooking, and sharing food at the table gives students the knowledge and values to build a humane and sustainable future.
This is how Waters, famed for her use of food from local farmers and ranchers who are dedicated to sustainable agriculture, which lead her to the project of The Edible School Yard
that demonstrate the transformative power of growing, cooking, and sharing food.
The op ed explores how the two authors believe the national school lunch program needs be reformed. Even if you disagree with their prescriptions, you will by reading the op ed learn a lot about that program.
The authors point out that the current cost of the School Lunch Program, which is funded through the Department of Agriculture, is about $9 billion, with the funds distributed
$2.57 for a free lunch, $2.17 for a reduced-price lunch and 24 cents for a paid lunch. But what most people don’t realize is that very little of this money even goes toward food. Schools have to use it to pay for everything from custodial services to heating in the cafeteria.
In addition, schools receive commodity foods which are clearly not the healthiest things, at a value of about $.20/meal, and which include "high-fat, low-grade meats and cheeses and processed foods like chicken nuggets and pizza," much of which is ready to be thawed, heated, or just unwrapped, because many schools lack kitchens. School often received additional "bonus" commodities from USDA which are basically leftovers from large food processors. That may benefit those processors, but it clearly is not the healthiest food we could be providing our students.
We have several epidemics that we can relate to the school lunch program, even before we address the issue of the additional junk food available in many schools, if not in the cafeteria, perhaps just outside. No more than 10-15 yards from the entrance to the cafeteria of the school in which I teach are machines in which the only items that are not unhealthy are the bottles of bottled water (which are an incredibly waste of energy, and whose contents are more expensive than an equivalent amount of gasoline). Sodas, junk foods, even the supposedly healthier juices with added sugar. This may connect both to the increase of childhood and adolescent obesity, and it certainly connects with the increases we are seeing in juvenile Type 2 (h/t Lynn Muench) diabetes. As for the obesity, the diminution of physical education is certainly an additional factor. So are things done for fundraising (which is one reason for the presence of soda and junk food machines in the first place). In our school you can get donuts and muffins in the morning and pizza in the afternoon as various school organizations seek to raise funds for the student programs they support.
It doesn't have to be like this. Waters and Heron write, for example, about Better School Food, an organization that "seeks to raise awareness of the connection between food and children's health, behavior and learning." They write that groups like Better School Food
have rejected the National School Lunch Program and have turned instead to local farmers for fresh alternatives. Amid steep budgetary challenges, these community-supported coalitions are demonstrating that schools can be the masters of their own menus. Schools here in Berkeley, for example, continue to use U.S.D.A. commodities, but cook food from scratch and have added organic fruits and vegetables from area farms. They have cut costs by adopting more efficient accounting software and smart-bulk policies (like choosing milk dispensers over individual cartons), and by working with farmers to identify crops that they can grow in volume and sell for reasonable prices.
Waters and Heron advocate scrapping the school lunch program and rebuilding it from the ground up. I am not going to go through all of their argument, but let me summarize the cost elements. There would be a one-time investment to provide all schools with proper kitchen facilities - remember that many lack them. There are obvious job implications flowing from such an investment. Further, they think the cost of providing appropriate food for 30 million school children would be about $5/meal, or about $27 billion / year. That is a significant increase in federal expenditure, but the long-term savings that result would well outweigh the costs. Healthier foods mean less long-term health expenditures. Healthier children means more effective learning (hungry children and children running on junk food are not, I can assure you, working at efficient levels in the classroom). Healthier childhood leads to a longer and healthier life, which means those children as adults will live longer, pay more taxes, consume more.
The authors note several avenues to move in this direction. For example, Congress must deal with legislation due to expire in September, Child Nutrition and Women Infants and Children Reauthorization Act. And Vice President Biden can certainly include reform of the school lunch program as a key item in his task force on Middle Class Working Families.
We face a severe economic crisis. There is a temptation on the part of some to reject any spending that does not lead to immediate stimulus. That is part of the argument offered against some of the items in ARRA, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, signed into law in Denver on Tuesday. It certainly is why some items in the original proposal were removed, in the hope of drawing more (and perhaps bipartisan) support.
And yet, is not an economic crisis the time we should rethink how we do things? Is it not an opportunity to simultaneously restructure for the long term health of both our economy and our populace? Is not that part of the justification for addressing health care, both in terms of its cost economically (think competitive disadvantages as illustrated by the auto industry) and the impact on people's health, and thus their contributions to our economic wellbeing as producers and consumers and taxpayers.
Food habits tend to life-long patterns, and are often well-established in childhood. Using the school lunch program to establish and support healthier food patters can have effects that are not only beneficial in the immediate health of our children, but whose long-term positive economic impact well outweighs the costs of doing things right.
Shortly I will dress and head to school. If I wander into the cafeteria during my lunch period, I will pass the students queued up at the soda and junk food machines, I will see them eating relatively low-quality food not only in the main meals, but in the snacks and desserts they can purchase within the cafeteria itself. I will see too many well overweight in their teens. By the final few periods of the day I will be seeing students whose energy is fueledby High Fructose Corn Syrup that is omnipresent in the packaged and processed foods they are consuming.
Waters had demonstrated, first in her restaurant, now in its 4th decade, and in her work with local schools, that things do not have to be like this. I urge you to read the op ed, and use it as a starting point to try to persuade policy makers at all levels that it is time for a different approach. And as the authors note in concluding their piece:
Every public school child in America deserves a healthful and delicious lunch that is prepared with fresh ingredients. Cash-strapped parents should be able to rely on the government to contribute to their children’s physical well-being, not to the continued spread of youth obesity, Type 2 diabetes and other diet-related problems. Let’s prove that there is such a thing as a good, free lunch.
Peace.