Food Changes in Schools.

[babylonsister]

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=12&year=2010&base_name=food_changes_in_schools

Food Changes in Schools.
Monica Potts



Via Obama Foodorama, the Obama administration released the above sample menu of the changes that will be made to school lunches under the Childhood Nutrition Act, which Obama signed into law yesterday. These are simple and sensible; it's only disappointing that it took an act of Congress to stop serving something called pizza sticks in favor of chef salad.

[NYCGirl]

1. Oops! Unrecced by mistake.

The "after" menu sounds much better.

[DCKit]

5. I've got you covered, and agree.

What a great way to teach kids to eat better while supporting someone besides corn farmers.

[NYCGirl]

6. Thank you! NT

[texastoast]

2. WHAT an improvement!

And Sarah Palin says this is a bad idea. "Too much government control." I guess she would rather everyone get fat early in life, develop life-long diseases, and help out the bottom lines of the health insurance folks because they are "free" to do it. Thing about Sarah's logic, though, is that we ALL end up paying those higher premiums to cover the health care for the "free" people who make bad food choices. Now, I want my pony too. I want to be "free" of people who make bad food choices. How does the Tundra Tart balance that?

Go, Michelle!

[Whisp]

3. Thank you, Michelle and Barack. *claps

waiting to see how awful this is, because Obama is really trying to poison kids and take away their education and such. And it's none of his fucking business what kids eat. I'm so sick of this.

and sorry to bring sadness and disgust into this thread.

[Exilednight]

4. Not too bad. I remember hot school lunches when I was a kid. God were they horrible n/t

[frazzled]

7. Remember what we used to call "tuna wiggle"?

A gelatinous, unidentified mass of noodles and gray tuna fish in a gallon of white sauce.

By the time my kids were in school, cafeterias no longer even had a kitchen or cooks: the food was all brought in from a central source and the industrial food was reheated. Neither of my kids would take it. We spent many years packing PBJ or turkey sandwiches and cutting carrot sticks to brown bag for them.

[PSzymeczek]

11. Or what we used to refer to

as Turkey Tetrachloride. And the government surplus raisins. My high school actually put raisins in mashed potatoes.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

19. School lunches when I was a kid were AWESOME

This was in the 70's in a small town. My Grandma was one of the cooks, and almost everything was edible, some of it was damn good. Even the Chicken and biscuits.
Chili and Cinnamon roll day was my favorite. All the breads were made from scratch, mom used to drop us off early because she had to be at work at 6. We'd watch the dough mixer, help ball the dough, get supplies from the pantry. I know we never had fresh vegies, the shelves of the pantry were stacked full of cans from the USDA.

It all changed in the early 80's when they reclassified ketchup as a vegetable, and reduced the amount of fat that was allowed. And the food stopped showing up so they had to buy commercial stuff that wasn't half the quality.

By the time my kids went to the same school it was all commercial prepared CRAP.

I'm so glad things are finally improving. :)

[Mimosa]

23. Same here in the South

I attended both parochial and public schools the late 50s, and 1960s in both GA and Louisiana.

The cafeteria lunches were more 'Creole-ish' in Louisiana (rice, yay!) and more 'soul food' Southern in GA (mac and cheese, mashed potatoes). But they were varied, nutritious and delicious. School cafeterias then didn't have deep fryers. Using lots of oil would have been considered messy as well as unnecessarilly expensive.

Fish products (like fish sticks and cod cakes), tuna casserole were also common in both parochial and public schools. The fed food program had provided public schools with those Agricultural dept products including big cans of good quality pure butter, turkey and chicken. And that good 'government mild cheddar cheese.'

I think one thing which has happened in schools is that 'dictates' from federalism have helped lead to homogeonised menu approach which may help destroy regional cuisines.

I loved the baked chicken, greens, blackeyed peas and rice and gravy. Corn muffins instead of white bread rolls. Corn, okra, tomato combo. Pulled pork BBQ sandwiches and slaw. In Louisiana I used to get a kick of reading the school menus in the 1990s. Gumbo, jambalaya, pizza, lasagna, steamed spinach with garlic bread. (Most people don't realise how Italian South Louisiana is.)

But with mandates from above it's more likely that kids will grow up with the bland commonality of an 'Applebee's' menu'.

[awoke_in_2003]

27. I went to public schools...

and they always served fish on fridays- I would expect that at a catholic school, but public?. To this day I absolutely refuse to eat fish on Friday. I know it is silly, but I just cannot do it.

[lamp_shade]

8. This. Is. Wonderful. Thanks for posting it and can I add... Thank you Michelle.

:hi:

[PSzymeczek]

12. The military is following suit,

because the new enlistees are woefully out of shape. The dining halls on the post here are actually removing the deep fryers.

[Mimosa]

26. Our young people must be in shape to kill *their* young men!

Ever notice how leanly muscular those Afghani, Yemeni and other Middle Eastern fighters look? No lard butts there.

[DoBotherMe]

9. Excellent!

Watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution was an eye-opener for me. I had no idea that none of the food was fresh or freshly cooked as it had been when I was in public school. My children (who graduated in the 90s)also had fresh food available. This is a fantasic start to get good, whole food to our public school children. Dana ; )

[lunatica]

10. It looks like everything is nutritious too, like wheat bread instead of white bread

And fresh fruit instead of canned and a serving of vegetable. I wonder about the 1% milk though. I think growing bodies need whole milk with all it's fat. But they're probably thinking of the rise in obesity in children, in which case I guess they may have a point.

[Mimosa]

13. These changes have been brewing as people learned about the harm of fast food

I'll happily give Obama credit where and when it's due. But Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress have been working on these changes for years.

And let's not forget Morgan Spurlock's groundbreaking hit documentary of 2004: SUPERSIZE ME:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Spurlock

That woke up a couple of million people.


Honestly, the President and First Lady jumped on a moving bandwagon. People have been learning that cheap processed junk 'foods' aren't good for children or adults. The movement started quite a while back.

[babylonsister]

20. No, you don't 'happily' give Obama credit for anything. If

this was going to get done anyway, idiot son had ample opportunity to do it (SS Me came out in 2004, per your link), but he didn't. It's now done.

[Mimosa]

25. Congress takes time to get things done, incremental change takes time..

Isn't that what we were told about health care reform? Don't expect much, it will take time... :rofl:

Whether health insurance will be affordable for me in *2014* (and I got turned down for affordable premiums because of pre-existing conditions) remains to be seen.

But I believe in giving credit where it's due and there have been people working for healthy food in schools long before Obama was in the Senate.

[KatyaR]

14. self delete

[Inchworm]

15. Hey, wait a minute!

Ain't a breaded beef patty the same as chicken fried steak?!? :P

:thumbsup:

[Mimosa]

24. Sounds like 'mystery meat' to me. n/t

[MikeW]

16. mandatory phsed and recess

[great white snark]

17. Great news! Kick.

[Historic NY]

18. Thats where they put the extra money...for the kids...

sure beats those potato chip & orange soda breakfast's, I saw kids have in the inner city.

[AngryAmish]

21. A word of dissent

Whole wheat pizza SUCKS. suckssuckssuckssuckssucks

[DirkGently]

22. Wow. Sounds a lot more appetizing as well. A step in the right direction.