The Washington Post reports the disturbing news that rising commodity prices are causing bad changes in school lunch programs. The really disturbing part of all this are the choices the schools are making to react. One school district has replaced "healthier options" (presumably milk) with Yoo-hoo. Another school has removed tomato slices (inappropriate given the season anyway) and replaced them with celery. And yet another came up with limiting fruit to twice a week.
I realize that the budgets are stretched. But it seems obvious to me at least that part of this has just got to be incompetence. Not because they're out of money, but because the apparent solutions have such deleterious effects that they're clearly worse than the disease.
4/14/2008
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2 comments:
Incompetence is right! I am enraged. There are so many alternative schools that are getting it right, working with local farmers and even growing food themselves. How hard is it to cook simple food for children? They need to stop subcontracting food and start building a culinary team within. It might take time but in the long run it is so much cheaper and of course, so much better for our children. This country is going downhill and nobody is doing anything about it. Children need good fuel for their bodies and good fuel for their minds in order to be the generation that will be leading this country and make it competitive in the global market but we are not doing that right now. Poor education and poor food choices. Don't they get it??
I totally agree about school lunches being healthier but anyone who works in a school can tell you that what parents often send into school from home often isnt any healthier. This is the reason that the parents dont promote much change in the school.
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