Posted on December 28, 2009 - by Lisa Madison

School Breakfast Initiatives First Please!

By: Jan Katzen-Luchenta, author of Nutrition for Learning

“There must be thousands – very likely sixty or seventy thousand children – in New York City alone who often arrive at school hungry and unfitted to do well the work required. It is utter folly, from the point of view of learning, to have a compulsory school law which compels children, in that weak physical and mental state which results from poverty, to drag themselves to school and to sit at their desks, day in and day out, for several years, learning little or nothing.” … an excerpt from Poverty, a 1904 book by Robert Hunter. In response to this guttural plea, educational communities across the U.S. began the school lunch program.  Early school lunch programs in Boston led by The Women’s Educational and Industrial Union began serving hot lunches to high school students.

In 1909 lunchrooms were installed in schools in Cleveland to replace the ‘lunch wagons” and “lunch baskets” arriving at school by noon providing hot meals to students. Despite the fact that children were still coming to school hungry, school lunch programs continued to be the moral and nutritional focal point of subsequent school initiatives including The National School Lunch Act, a federally assisted program signed into legislation by President Harry S. Truman in 1946.

Today, we have world renowned chefs from across the globe rolling up their sleeves and revolutionizing school lunch programs with healthier, fresher food items. TV shows are being launched with the intent of remaking and redefining the school lunch menu. Grass root movements including The School Lunch Revolution, School Lunch Initiative, and School Lunchbox Project are sprouting up everywhere. Health conscious food markets, chefs, and local farmers are uniting to make sure that children are getting the most bang for the buck at lunchtime.

Eating from the garden

But what about the most important meal of the day for children? BREAKFAST? I don’t understand why the main focus for many rebel-rousing school wellness advocates is lunch. On second thought, I do know why. THEY ARE NOT TEACHERS!

One thing is for sure – not only is feeding children in the morning important but the composition of what they are fed matters. Take protein for instance. Protein is made up of amino acids that build and rebuild neurotransmitters that effect brain performance.
 There are approximately 60 neurotransmitters that have been identified.

Meet four that are of extreme importance to any child who is expected to focus and learn.

1. Acetylcholine – responsible for controlling areas in the brain responsible for attention, learning, and memory. (Deficiencies in the brain are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.)
2. Glutamate – vital for forging the links between neurons that are the basis of learning and memory.
3. Norepinephrine – plays a large role in attention and focus.
4. Dopamine – controls arousal and motor control in many parts of the brain. (Dopamine disorders can cause a decline in attention, memory, and problem solving abilities.)

Complete proteins contain all of the necessary amino acids to make all of these wonderful neurotransmitters that the child needs most – in the AM! Animal protein, cottage cheese, yogurt, tofu (fermented), milk, eggs are all complete proteins. All from grass-fed and healthy animals! Wild fatty fish (lox) is fabulous before school (you get the essential amino acids from the protein and brain enhancing essential fatty acids (omega-3s; DHA/EPA) from the fish.

Though I will be the first one to applaud any school initiative intended to improve the nutritional quality of foods and snacks being served to children I still have to kvetch and say it again:   BREAKFAST IS THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY FOR CHILDREN!

Learner’s Fact: The impact of carbohydrates with protein on learning.
Fischer et al tested carbohydrate to protein ratio in foods and subsequent cognitive performance. Their findings suggest that the carbohydrate to protein ratio in food specifically influences higher cognitive functions in the morning.
”Except for a transient positive effect of rising blood glucose after a carbohydrate-rich meal, a protein-rich or balanced meal seems to result in better overall cognitive performance presumably because of less variation in glucose.”

Asher washing a rutabaga

And to add to the juiciness of this topic:
 recent scientific literature supports my personal experience as a Montessori educator that a child’s cognitive ability improves dramatically if fed 30 minutes prior to the work or testing cycle (as opposed to no breakfast at all or eating breakfast 2 hours prior).
 That is why our classroom hummed after the children ate steel cut oatmeal with walnuts or beans with sunflower seeds.
 An hour and a half later (approximately 45 minutes before lunch) the children served each other fresh vegetables they prepared themselves.

So you can try to camouflage vegetables in pizza sauce served at lunch or teach a child how to snap beans, grate carrots, and seed, pick, wash, and eat plants and vegetables. Nothing tastes as good as the experience of shared community in the garden and kitchen where all defenses against fresh VEGETABLES seem to be left at the kitchen door. 
Since the children have their nutrient quotients raised in the AM, their IQS are amped up, so they will walk into the lunchroom happier, healthier, and wiser. (And in a much better mood to try new food items.)

Okay, now its time to tackle the school lunch issue. And to think downer cows – prodded to stand up to pass USDA inspection, are on the menu. Yes, Robert Hunter, much work still needs to be done – children are still coming to school hungry!  And they don’t necessarily come from impoverished families.