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Chicken fajitas. Cuban black beans. Sauteed corn and summer squash.
These are just some of the dishes you’ll find at The Lunch Box Project, an online guidebook to help schools serve healthier meals to our children.
The website is part of the “School Food Revolution,” a movement that began with Chef Ann Cooper and supported by organizations and businesses such as the Chez Panisse Foundation and Whole Foods Market. Their goal is to encourage schools to steer away from the usual lunch fare of hotdogs, chicken nuggets and cheeseburgers and to start offering locally grown fruits and vegetables, whole foods and other healthier alternatives.
“The way we feed our kids is a reflection of our values,” Josh Viertel, president of Slow Food USA, said in a press release. “We cannot, in good conscience, continue to make our kids sick by feeding them cheap byproducts of an industrial food system. It is time to give kids real food: food that tastes good, is good for them, is good for the people who grow and prepare it, and is good for the planet.”
This year, Slow Food – an educational non-profit dedicated to promoting sustainability and connecting farmers, cooks, educators, students and others who care about food and the environment — launched “Time for Lunch,” a national campaign to provide kids with real, healthy food. Locally, members of Slow Food Spokane River have organized an Eat-In next Monday, on Labor Day. The gathering is designed to raise awareness of the kinds of meals served to the more than 30 million children who take part in the National School Lunch Program, according to this story from Down to Earth Northwest.
The Eat-In also will give participants the chance to learn more about the Child Nutrition Act, which Congress is expected to reauthorize this year. Slow Food is asking lawmakers to allocate more money toward school meals. Schools receive a cash reimbursement for every meal that’s served, but less than $1 of each meal is spent on actual ingredients, according to Slow Food USA. Instead, the money pays for labor, equipment and overhead costs. A petition from The Time for Lunch campaign wants Congress to allocate $1 more per day per child for lunch. It also wants the government to establish standards for all food sold at school, including vending machines as well as provide funding to teach children healthy eating habits through farm-to-school programs and school gardens.
Here’s some info about the local Eat-In:
englishsunset on August 31 at 5:19 p.m.
That's right, just keep standing there with you hand out for a handout. School luch money might seem like a little thing but it is just one more thing that enables the clowns in Washington to hold something else over our heads.
Come on parents, poor or otherwise, the kids are there for what 6 hours? Surely even the poorest can afford a peanut butter and jelly or a bologna sandwich. I think any kid can survive on that until 3:00 p.m..
We have to learn to do without the fed supportting us for every little thing that we want.
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je9je9 on September 06 at 9:00 a.m.
I think if there are going to be school lunches, then they should be healthy. My kids used to come through the door ravenous after a school lunch, not so much after one I'd packed. We can argue all day about whether lunches should be provided, but since they are, I think it's terrible that we carry on about childhood obesity, take vending machines out of the schools, and then feed them fried cardboard.
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James Mahoney on September 06 at 1:22 p.m.
What Do Our Kids Eat?
Thinking about what our kids eat for lunch at school reminded me of another question, “What do our parents eat?”
My children had friends over on a recent summer evening. I barbecued beef and supplied beans and buttery baked potatoes. The kids were ravenous. At the end of the evening one of the boys exclaimed to my son, “Your dad’s cooking is so great! Would he mind if I took some home for my mom to try?”
Overhearing this and puffed up with pride, I exclaimed, “Of course!” and piled a paper plate high with barbecued meat, beans, baked potato and salad covered with aluminum foil. Well, the next several times, in response to his praise of my cookery, I piled the plates higher.
Later, my son told us that his friend’s single-parent mom was out of a job and the only thing in the fridge was a light bulb.
The fellow has a job; just got his GED and still praises my cooking.
Respectfully,
Jim Mahoney
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