Perspective: Kate Adamick on Food Service
By WorldLink Staff | October 31, 2011 | 1 Comment
Co-founder of Cook for America® Kate Adamick discusses the vital role food service workers play in creating a healthier school food system, and feeding and educating the next generation.
Kate Adamick, JD, is a nationally recognized expert in food systems who combines her skills as a both a lawyer and a professional chef to integrate operational changes, school-based programming, and public-private partnerships to implement, reinforce and support the healthful transformation of school meals programs to scratch-cooked meals.
Learn more in Michael Pollan’s School Lunch, Ann Cooper’s Healthy School Food, and Amy Kalafa’s Parents Taking Action.
What’s the relationship between the cafeteria and the classroom?
Kate Adamick: Sadly, the relationship between the cafeteria and the classroom is often nonexistent. All too frequently, school administrators appear to have forgotten that students don’t stop learning just because it’s lunchtime. At Cook for America, we deliberately call the school food service workers Lunch Teachers as a reminder to everyone that what students are fed at school teaches them how to think about food, what to think of as food, and how to behave while consuming it—all lessons that they will carry with them for the remainder of their lives.
What challenges do food service workers face in providing healthy, from-scratch meals?
Kate Adamick: Lunch Teachers, like the rest of us, are victims of a widespread, corporate-sponsored misinformation campaign designed to convince us that school food reform is too expensive, that kids won’t eat real food, and that preparing meals using raw meat products is dangerous. In reality, none of these perceived challenges turn out to be actual obstacles for most school districts.
One of the genuine challenges, however, is that Lunch Teachers have become easy and obvious scapegoats for the high rates of childhood obesity. When the people who are responsible for feeding our children feel blamed rather than empowered, the path to school food reform can be a long one. The national obesity crisis and the poor quality of the average school meal are merely symptoms of America’s broken food system, the myriad causes of which include campaign finance laws, farm subsidies favoring corporate agriculture, and ubiquitous marketing campaigns targeting children. Simply blaming Lunch Teachers for those greater societal maladies will not improve the quality of school food or the health of our children.
Celebrate Food Day
By WorldLink Staff | October 24, 2011 | Leave a Comment
Today and throughout the week, thousands of individuals and groups across the country are celebrating the first national Food Day, organized by Center for Science in the Public Interest.
We’re proud to support educators in opening conversations about good food and catalyzing meaningful change. How are you celebrating Food Day? Share your activities with the Nourish community.
Here are a few ways that communities and schools are using Nourish to enrich their Food Day activities:
- In Natchitoches, Louisiana, NSU Middle Lab School students will watch Nourish Short Films and engage in food-related activities. Northwestern State University Education, Health & Human Performance, and Nutrition majors will support teachers in educating students about better food choices. Cane River Green Market is providing fresh produce samples, and students will take home health information to share with their families.
- In Klickitat County, Washington, the Healthy People Alliance is organizing series of Food Day Harvest Exchanges. Each event will include a Nourish screening, information tables, guest speakers, and local food producers.
- At Clemson University, South Carolina, Healthy Campus, Slow Food, and Students for Environmental Action are offering games, complimentary food from local farmers, educational booths, and a Nourish screening.
- In Tallahassee, Florida, the Brogan Museum is celebrating Food Day with a free screening of Nourish Short Films, educational activities, and food giveaways.
- In San Diego, California, Healthy Works hosted a farmers market, health and nutrition information tables, and a free outdoor screening of Nourish, followed by a panel discussion on local food and nutrition.
- In Dallas, Texas, Net Impact DFW, SlowMoney DFW, and CitySquare held a Nourish screening at the KERA Community Room. Afterward, they held a discussion featuring leaders from Dallas’s growing local food community. KERA Public Media is airing Nourish as part of their Food Day programming.
Honoring good food is a year-round effort that doesn’t end with Food Day. Plan an event or activity in your community, school, or home.
Discover more ideas for taking action in Be the Difference.
Perspective: Amy Kalafa on Parents Taking Action
By WorldLink Staff | October 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment
Parents play a crucial role in educating children about good food. Mother and food activist Amy Kalafa shares how parents, kids, and educators can join forces to create a school food revolution.
Amy Kalafa has produced award-winning films, such as Two Angry Moms: Fighting for the Health of America’s Children, and is the author of the new book Lunch Wars: How to Start a School Food Revolution and Win the Battle for Our Children’s Health.
Discover more perspectives on kids’ health in Michael Pollan’s School Lunch, Chef Ann Cooper’s Healthy School Food, and Laurie David’s Healthy Parenting.
Why should parents be concerned about school lunch?
Amy Kalafa: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicts that this generation of American children will be the first in our nation’s history to live shorter lives than those of their parents. Childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes are at epidemic levels, with 30 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls born in the year 2000 expected to develop type 2 diabetes. The average kid eats 3,000 school meals between kindergarten and the twelfth grade. Even kids who bring their lunch to school often fall prey to the junk food sold in the cafeteria and vending machines. Our schools need to be part of the solution, not the problem.
What role do schools play in teaching healthy eating practices?
Amy Kalafa: Most schools teach kids about good nutrition in health class but don’t practice what they preach at lunchtime. Kids are smart, and those lessons are ineffective if the message isn’t consistent. In districts that take a holistic approach to food education, the cafeteria is integrated with the curriculum and students get connected to their food by growing organic produce in school gardens and classrooms; taking field trips to farms, markets, restaurants, and community gardens; and preparing and tasting meals made from fresh, whole, sustainably farmed ingredients.
Perspective: Ann Cooper on Healthy School Food
By WorldLink Staff | October 12, 2011 | 1 Comment
Young minds need healthy food in order to learn and grow. Chef Ann Cooper discusses the importance of bringing fresh foods and from-scratch cooking back into school meals.
Chef Ann Cooper is a celebrated author, chef, educator, and enduring advocate for better food for all children. In 2009, Ann founded the Food Family Farming Foundation (F3), a nonprofit focusing on solutions to the school food crisis. F3’s pivotal project is The Lunch Box, a web portal that provides free and accessible tools, recipes, and community connections to support school food reform.
Discover more perspectives on changing the school food system in Michael Pollan’s School Lunch and Marion Kalb’s Farm to School.
Why are healthy school lunches a key dimension of learning?
Ann Cooper: Kids cannot learn if they are hungry or malnourished. In Berkeley, I worked under Superintendent Michelle Lawrence, and after years of running the district, she said that if she could push one message nationally, it’s that “schools have a responsibility for the whole child.”
Healthy school lunches mean students are getting the nourishment they need to power their minds and bodies to learn. In some cases, school lunch is a child’s only meal of the day. That one meal should be healthy, filling, and delicious all at the same time. We owe that to our kids.
What does a healthy school lunch program look like?
Ann Cooper: A healthy school kitchen should include basic kitchen equipment, so that from-scratch cooking is possible. The cafeteria should be a nourishing place, where students are offered a variety of fruits and vegetables, healthy proteins, and whole grains. Every school should include a salad bar so fresh fruits and vegetables are available on a daily basis. Take the highly processed foods out, and bring the fresh foods in.
In a healthy school environment, lunch period starts with recess and ends with lunch, so that students work up an appetite. The only place left to go after lunch is class.
Video: Michael Pollan, “School Lunch”
By WorldLink Staff | October 10, 2011 | 4 Comments
This week is National School Lunch Week, a time to celebrate school lunch programs, raise awareness, and take action to create a healthier food culture for the next generation. Throughout October we’re featuring voices from the movement for better school food, such as parents, food service workers, and food activists.
In this new video from Nourish Short Films, food journalist Michael Pollan advocates for a better menu for America’s children.
Better School Food
Schools play a key role in providing wholesome meals for kids and promoting food literacy. Parents, teachers, administrators, and policymakers can work together to ensure healthy school food for our children. Here are a few ways to get involved:
- Eat with your kids. National Take Your Parents to Lunch Day is this Wednesday, October 12. Visit your school’s cafeteria to better understand your child’s mealtime experience. See if you can volunteer in your school’s kitchen to support food service staff and get a behind-the-scenes view of the food prep.
- Have conversations. Talks with students, cafeteria workers, and administrators. Find out what challenges your school faces, from kitchen equipment and staff training to sufficient lunch periods for students. The Lunch Box provides resources and tools to engage stakeholders at your school.
- Activate students. If you’re an educator, work with students to create a questionnaire to evaluate the school lunch program and open a dialogue with administrators. See the School Lunch Survey in the Nourish Middle School Curriculum Guide for activities and ideas.
- Advocate for healthy options. If you’re a parent or teacher, campaign to remove vending machines, processed snacks, fast food, and flavored milk, and make healthy options, like salad bars, available. See Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution for tool kits and ideas.
- Take action. Last December President Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, reauthorizing and raising the bar on the Child Nutrition Act. But the fight for healthy school food doesn’t end there. Write your elected officials to protect and expand healthy school lunch programs.
For examples of positive change, Marion Kalb discusses Farm to School programs and Chef Ann Cooper describes Healthy School Food. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more perspectives.
Perspective: Marion Kalb on Farm to School
By WorldLink Staff | October 3, 2011 | 1 Comment
October is National Farm to School Month, a time to celebrate healthy school lunches, as well as connections between schools and local farmers. In this new Nourish Perspective, Farm to School Network co-founder Marion Kalb describes how school meal programs can support communities and connect students with the story of their food.
For more than 25 years, Marion Kalb has worked on food and farming issues, with an emphasis on state and federal policy. She currently directs the federal Communities Putting Prevention to Work initiative for the Community Food Security Coalition.
For more perspectives, see Michael Pollan and Nadine Burke on School Lunch. Stay tuned this month for more on creating a better school food system.
How does Farm to School benefit both the schools and communities?
Marion Kalb: The number of Farm to School programs has exploded across the country. From just a handful in late nineties, there are now over 2,300 programs in all 50 states.
The major aims of the Farm to School approach are healthy children, healthy farms, and healthy communities. These programs are based on the premise that students will choose healthier foods if products are fresh, locally grown, and picked at the peak of their flavor, and if those choices are reinforced with educational activities.
Farm to School benefits students by introducing them to farm-fresh fruits and vegetables. It benefits communities by providing an additional marketing avenue for farmers and keeping food dollars local.
How does a school or district build relationships with farmers in its region?
Marion Kalb: In starting a Farm to School program, there are a number of ways that schools can build those relationships. By connecting with agricultural organizations, schools can arrange to meet local growers, find out what’s in season, and what products might work with their menus. Visiting local farmers markets and speaking with both the market manager and the farmers can also be very informative. Many farmers markets, as well as state or county agriculture offices, can provide schools with lists of farmers in the region.
Distributors may also have connections with local growers. Meetings with food service staff and growers, where growers bring samples of their products, can be very successful in making the connections necessary for schools to purchase local fruits and vegetables.
Perspective: Raj Patel on Food Sovereignty
By WorldLink Staff | September 26, 2011 | Leave a Comment
How do international food policies shape our food system at home and abroad? Food activist Raj Patel describes how organizing for local change can help improve the health of communities around the world.
Raj Patel is an award-winning writer, activist, and academic. He has testified about the causes of the global food crisis to the US House Financial Services Committee and is an Advisor to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. He is also the author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System.
Discover more perspectives on creating a more democratic and equitable food system in Mark Winne’s Food Policy Councils and Oran Hesterman’s Fair Food.
What is “food sovereignty”? How does it relate to “food security”?
Raj Patel: What does it mean to be free from hunger? Food security is the idea that governments use to talk about citizens not being hungry, and it means that you have access to enough food to live healthily. Sounds like a good definition, except for when you realize that it’s possible to be food secure, say, in prison. You’ve got access, after all, so you’re not going hungry. But food security never talks about power in the food system—just your access to food. Food sovereignty is like food security, except that under food sovereignty, communities actually get to shape their own food policy and shape the terms under which everyone gets to eat.
What’s the connection between food sovereignty and democracy?
Raj Patel: If we’re genuinely to have power over our food system we need to be able to decide the rules of the game, deliberatively and with respect for everyone’s rights. That’s what democracy means. Unfortunately, most of us are still waiting for real democracy and, instead, we’ve been fobbed off with its poor cousin—consumer choice.
Previous
RSS Feed
RSS Feed
