Over at the Yummy Mummy Blog, Kim Foster wrote a great piece on Why We Have to Be Cooking With Our Kids in The Classroom. I whole heartedly agree. So much so I got carried away in my comments & Blogger thought they were too long to post. So here they are, in response to the post, if anyone cares to read my rantings:

Claddagh Farm twins making crackers

At our daughter’s high-school they purchase 40% of the food locally. They recycle the lunch waste & use it in an after school garden program after they compost it. I receive waste from the kitchen to feed to my pigs. This school has an ACTUAL kitchen where “trained” staff prepare meals. On the surface they appear to do everything right.
However….. the proof is in the pudding as they say. 1)The kids–not mine, we send our girls’ to school with packed lunches they make themselves–barely eat the food served in the cafeteria. Common complaints are that the food “sucks”. Granted these are kids from diverse backgrounds, but I think it is telling that my daughter’s friends beg them to bring lunch to school to share….. Much of this food–both parent bought & government supplemented ends up in the compost. 2) I have seen into the buckets of kitchen waste. Mis-prepared foods, unsold Grilled Velveeta Sandwiches by the garbage-bag full, last week there was 10 gallons of very tasty, healthy looking pasta salad which I fed to much pleased pigs….. All of it was untouched, unsold.
Frequently I ask myself why? Why does this school system which is trying so hard, fail in such a big way to get the students to eat healthy food when it is put before them. The answer is manifold…. 1) Education–we need, as you have found and well know, to teach the kids young. To activate them before they get into peer driven clics. I was never so mad as when my eldest go to school and saw that other kids hated & wouldn’t eat the tomatoes she used to devour out of the garden. It too six years to undo one lunch-time’s damage….. 2)We have to get the crappy options out of the cafeteria. It seems innocent enough–cheerios, ritz crackers, or even homemade donuts & goodies which one school system I know of provides. This low-nutrition, empty calorie, garbage food is a treat. The students should not have an option to purchase it until AFTER lunch or school. 3) We need to limit the lunchtime offerings. Students at my daughter’s high school can buy corndogs & pizza for breakfast. There is a vending machine which sells other crap AND apples & other fruit!!! Why not just put the fruit out for the kids to eat–free!! It doesn’t cost that much & then I can stop feeding boxfuls of unsold, uneaten, out-of-season-cost-the-tax-payer-a-lot-of-money fruit to my pigs!!! I’m all for free choice in food & dining. I rarely eat a “traditional” breakfast. But cold corndogs?? Cookies?? For school kids. NO. Heck, I’m not even an advocate of balanced meals….BUT… because there is no guarantee they get fed well at home, I agree we should give them the best possible nutrition at school. 3) I think the task would be easier if there were a TON more education in the schools about food & nutrition. I had the benefit of Home EC classes & good-ish cafeteria food. There were no choices when I ate at school. You brought a lunch or ate what was served. In grade school there were teachers who made sure you ate your lunch. That set my generation up for the freedom of choice in High School. Get the kids young and then there wouldn’t be such an issue in HS. Likewise, use the kids to change how their families eat. My daughter’s friends are amazed that they know how to cook, that we sit down to eat almost every night and often at lunches. AND that we cook almost 100% of our foods from scratch. Most didn’t know you could make granola….. Limiting the number of choices in the lunch line, and using portion control–the serving utensil IS the size of the portion- makes sure the first kid in the line doesn’t load up on all their favorite stuff, and someone doesn’t fill up on croutons. The iconic image of the hair-netted lunch lady “eat your greens, sweetie” is burned into my generation’s psyche for a darned good reason. It worked. She had a job. We got fed some of everything, and my friends & I didn’t fill up on toaster pastry, chocolate milk, frozen pizza & celo-wrapped brownies.
The health benefits will match the social & skill benefits if we get our children cooking in the classroom and eating what they cook & what other students cook in the cafeteria. Expanding their taste buds, educating their palates and sensation memories will produce far more thoughtful individuals. It’s a shame that in less than 30 years things could have gone so far wrong. We need to get this fundamental part of the education system back on track. NOW.

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