Sometimes I think nothing can surprise me. Then I start reading. I'm a BIG proponent of healthy eating and processed food makes my skin crawl. So, you can imagine that I was breaking out in a small case of hives reading this story. Reporter Ed Bruske went to his daughter's school and observed what goes on in a school lunchroom for a week. He is putting up a series of six essays on the topic that he entitled Tales from a D. C. School Kitchen. They may as well have been entitled Tales from the Crypt, as far as I'm concerned. ~shudder~
What really makes me all twitchy is the marketing. "Fresh cooked", "whole grains" and other buzzwords insult the intelligence. Don't kid yourself. It's all about the money.
The system is precisely designed for optimum efficiency, convenience and economies of scale. As I discovered during my week in the H.D. Cooke kitchen, “fresh cooked”–the food our children are served here in the nation’s capital every day–is a perfect reflection of the prevailing industrial methods that rule our nation’s food supply. Meal components are highly processed and reconstituted, some with ingredients provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s commodities food program, and come from factories all over the country. Human intervention has been reduced to an absolute minimum. It’s cheap, it’s fast, and it’s easy.
Don't even get me started.
What I quickly learned is that “fresh cooked” does not mean “from scratch” or “fresh ingredients.” Indeed, most meals at H.D. Cooke are constructed around foods that have been heavily processed and reconstituted in distant factories, then shipped pre-cooked and frozen. Meal components have been industrially designed to require the least amount of time and minimal skill to prepare.
Meals sent from home are inferior? Wow. I really don't see how that could be possible unless the nefarious parents are sending their kids with lunchboxes full of Pixy Stix. High fructose corn syrup is the stuff of my nightmares.
Studies have found that meals sent from home are frequently inferior, nutritionally speaking, to food served in schools. But during my week as an observer in the kitchen at H.D. Cooke. I found there’s plenty of sugar in school food as well. School food providers know just as well as parents that a little sugar goes a long way towards enticing kids to eat what’s served.Breakfast is a prime example and could well be described as sugar loading time at school. Standard in the food line, for instance, is the morning display of Kellogg’s Pop Tarts. These iconic, 1.76-ounce pastries, individually wrapped in foil, are advertised as “whole wheat” and “20% fiber.” But the second ingredient in the strawberry Pop Tarts served at H.D. Cooke is high-fructose corn syrup. The 13 grams of sugar, or more than three teaspoons, in each Pop Tart accounts for 27 percent of its 190 calories.
And, why do kids crave them? And, why are our kids obese? And, why is this allowed to go on? Anyone?
Sodas, chips, french fries, white bread, pizza, tater tots–all show up on the list of foods that critics of school meals most love to hate. But kids crave them, which creates a dilemma for schools, since they depend on federal payments to support their food service programs, but only receive the federal subsidies for meals that are actually served. In other words, schools have to sell kids on the idea of eating what’s offered. That’s why a school “meal” can actually consist of pizza and tater tots. Though it’s full of starch and fat, it fulfills government requirements for protein, grain and vegetable–and kids love it.
Let's face it. Parents need to step up on this one. If parents fed their kids better at home, they wouldn't be interested in the junk they are serving and calling food. If all parents packed their kids a healthy lunch, the government would be scrambling to figure out how to entice them back to the school lunchroom, which might actually include bringing in real food and not the mashed up chemicals with fake grill marks "food product" they serve now. Then there are the families that have little money and rely on the schools to feed their kids. They don't have many options. That's why it's up to those of us with options to make some noise.
This is our tax dollars at work, folks. It would be nice if we had a say in how it is spent.
