Hey Foodies, did you watch jamie Oliver's food revolution last night?

[lupinfarm]

When he asked them to read the ingredient on the frozen boxes, regardless that the first ingredient was "chicken" or "potatoes", none of them showed alarm that after the first main ingredient, was followed by 20 other ingreients of words not one of them could pronounce. But they thought it was good food.

as Michael Pollan says "if your grandmother wouldn't recognize it as food, don't eat it!"

yeah, the edible schoolyards seem to be much more successful than simply changing the cafeteria menu. kids will get on board when they get their hands dirty and learn WHY it's important all around. not that i think what Jamie is trying to do is bad, i think it's a noble attempt. i just don't see it being super successful.

The lady on my street who does this offers healthy foods, and it is delivered to the schools daily. Its really super helpful in a farming community where students may or may not have the time to prepare a lunch in the morning.

like tiffin! there are a lot of companies switching to this kind of lunch service, catered by various restaurants. i like the idea of it in schools!

This is what we had in the GTA, apparently they serve Belleville and Trenton too, but I don't believe they serve north of the city in the smaller areas. My neighbour works the same way as the lunch lady, but she doesn't just serve schools she also serves local businesses. Most of the larger villages, like Madoc, Campbellford, and Tweed have a Tim Hortons in them which is this big thing here because its our only "luxury". I like going for a coffee and that, but its kind of far for us most of the time (22km to the nearest Timmies).

The lunch lady provides kids with menu choices like homemade pizza with fresh veggie toppings, whole grain pancakes, etc.

http://www.thelunchlady.ca/our_food.html

The program is *only* available to elementary schools, which do need it, but High schools are following suite with new healthier choices in the cafeteria. My brothers high school is taking on the Healthier Schools program this year. I think the only thing he'll miss is the yummy chocolate chip cookies, but we can make those at home for him. WHats cool about the Lunch Lady program is that now the company is cross-Canada and now parents can order online which as not something available to us at the time. We never knew if Kevin would actually give the teacher the money and form for the program. Being able to order online makes it even EASIER for parents to do the right thing, and purchase Lunch Lady meals for their kids.

 

[ChikeeMomma]

My daughter is in kindergarten. It makes me sick what these children are fed. Needless to say, she takes a packed lunch. Once in a great while she does get hot lunch, but like I said once in a very great while. And, thankfully, I think she's decided she really doesn't like what they serve. I know that for some children, the breakfast and lunch that is served at school are the only "meals" they are really served. I just wish the schools could serve them good, healthy food. Our motto at home is -- if you can't pronounce what's in it then we don't eat it. I like making our food from scratch. I know exactly what's in it then.

ETA -- forgot to say that I watched some of the program last night -- that was before I zonked out.

 

[Woodland Woman]

I wanted to watch this but I forgot. It seems logical to me in getting children to change their eating habits to start small. First I would give them a hamburger but instead of fries give them fresh veggies and dip. Of course all this would be made with healthy ingredients. Real beef burgers with no hormones or additives. Buns with no additives and fresh from scratch dip with real ingredients. You can make pizza with healthy ingredients. Some things people consider healthy are just full of artificial ingredients and preservatives.

 

[Dace]

I wanted to watch this but I forgot. It seems logical to me in getting children to change their eating habits to start small. First I would give them a hamburger but instead of fries give them fresh veggies and dip. Of course all this would be made with healthy ingredients. Real beef burgers with no hormones or additives. Buns with no additives and fresh from scratch dip with real ingredients. You can make pizza with healthy ingredients. Some things people consider healthy are just full of artificial ingredients and preservatives.

I agree....I think most of what the typical american considers healthy is not. What they have been brainwashed to consider 'bad' for them is not.

Boy are we screwed up.

 

[bibliophile birds]

like breakfast bars. my aunt was saying the other day that's it's all she has for breakfast because everything else is just so "bad for you"- by which i think she meant fattening since we'd been talking about sausages and pancakes. when i pointed out that breakfast bars are actually really unhealthy because they contain tons of HFCS and soy she got upset with me. she seemed to be personally insulted that i said they weren't healthy alternatives, which is ridiculous because it's not like she made them and i dogged her about it...

people are uninformed AND defensive, and it's a dangerous combination.

 

[Lady Henevere]

I missed this show; I wanted to watch it. I will have to look online or watch for reruns.

FYI, the farm-to-school program (sort of a CSA concept for schools): http://www.farmtoschool.org/

 

[Hattie the Hen]

Your own US chef/cook Alice Waters (of Chez Panisse fame) has been campaigning for a while now on the education of children in gardening & onwards into eating the food grown. She has made a few videos, here's a link:

http://www.epicurious.com/video/chef-profiles/chef-profiles-alice-waters/1915458812

Hattie

 

[freemotion]

I read this quote to my class yesterday to illustrate the value of even ONE meal a day and the impact it can have. If the schools used one meal like this, ditched the vending machines and gave no other choices, can you imagine the impact? This is from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, p. 338:

"Under the stress of the industrial depression, the family dietary of the children we studied was very deficient. They were brought to a mission where we fed them one reinforced meal at noon for six days a week.....It is important to note that the home nutrition, which had been responsible for the tooth decay, was exceedingly low in body building and repairing material while temporarily satisfying the appetite. It usually consisted of highly sweetened strong coffee and white bread, vegetable fat, pancakes made of white flour and eaten with syrup, and doughnuts fried in vegetable fat....The nutrition provided these children in this one meal included the following foods. About four ounces of tomato juice or orange juice and a teaspoonful of a mixture of equal parts of a very high-vitamin natural cod liver oil and an especially high-vitamin butter was given at the beginning of the meal. They then received a bowl containing approximately a pint of very rich vegetable and meat stew made largely from bone marrow and fine cuts of tender meat. The meat was usually broiled separately to retain its juice and then chopped very fine and added to the bone marrow meat soup, which always contained finely chopped vegetables and plenty of very yellow carrots; for the next course they had cooked fruit, with very little sweetening, and rolls made from freshly ground whole wheat, which were spread with the high-vitamin butter. The wheat for the rolls was ground fresh every day in a motor driven coffee mill. Each child was also given two glasses of fresh whole milk. The menu was varied from day to day by substituting for the meat stew, fish chowder or organs of animals....Clinically this program completelly controlled the dental caries of each member of the group.....Several incidents of special interest occurred. Two different teachers came to me to inquire what had been done to make a particular child change from one of the poorest in the class in capacity to learn to one of the best. Dental caries is only one of the many expressions of our modern deficient nutrition. Weston Price, DDS Nutrition and Physical Degeneration"

This meal really should take place in the home, but for most people, it won't and doesn't. It is NOT an expensive meal! That is the real crime. Efforts to change school lunches focus on eliminating good fats and still have far too many carbohydrates. And I'm not really a low-carber. But if all they are eating outside of school is HFCS, white flour, sweets, and white bread, then the school lunch needs to be completely devoid of anything approaching that and contain all nutrient-dense foods.

Powdered broth, even MSG-free, won't do it. IMO.

I'd like to see what the founder of Chipotle's restaurants could do to school lunches!

 

[Dace]

Lady H....the show that aired on Sunday is only a preview. The full two hour show will air on Friday.

We watched it last night.
Yep, an uphill battle all the way!

 

[BeccaOH]

like breakfast bars. my aunt was saying the other day that's it's all she has for breakfast because everything else is just so "bad for you"- by which i think she meant fattening since we'd been talking about sausages and pancakes. when i pointed out that breakfast bars are actually really unhealthy because they contain tons of HFCS and soy she got upset with me. she seemed to be personally insulted that i said they weren't healthy alternatives, which is ridiculous because it's not like she made them and i dogged her about it...

people are uninformed AND defensive, and it's a dangerous combination.

I was eating CLIF bars for a while as breakfast or even meal replacement on the run. There is 26 grams of sugar in the one I love. I might as well have a Snicker bar.