Posts Tagged ‘government reform in food system’

Posted on December 7, 2009 - by Lisa Madison

School Lunch – A Sad Reflection of Our Nation’s Screwed Up Priorities

By: Jill Richardson
Author of: Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do To Fix It
Website: www.lavidaloavore.org

With the epidemic rise in diet-related chronic illnesses in the past few decades, many are looking to school lunch as a way to nourish children while simultaneously teaching them healthy dietary habits. It makes perfect sense, right? In fact, why would we choose to serve children anything BUT healthy food for school breakfasts and lunches? Healthy food costs more than junk food, but it’s money well spent because it’s an investment.

First off, it’s an investment in the children’s immediate health as it provides them with the nutrients they need to grow strong and healthy. Second, it’s an investment in their future health, as it teaches them what it means to eat healthy food. Third, it’s an investment in their education, as children are better able to learn when they have a belly full of good-for-you food instead of a bellyache from junk. (This is especially true when you consider that artificial food dyes are proven to cause behavioral problems in children, yet they are still legal to serve in school breakfasts and lunches. Why on earth would you purposefully make a child prone to behavioral problems and then send them back to class for their teacher to deal with them?)

Yet, in too many schools, healthy school lunch is NOT the reality. I asked the second grader in my life what she eats for lunch and she told me cheeseburgers, sliders, corn dogs, and hot dogs. These are the most processed forms of meat you can get – the cheapest, least healthy, and most risky. (In fact, this week USA Today came out with a story about meat tainted with salmonella that was served in schools and was not recalled even after it was known to be tainted.)

Why do we feed our kids such crap? Money, plain and simple. Let me explain.

School lunch food can be separated into two categories – the federally reimbursable school lunch (the food given to children who receive free and reduced cost lunch) and everything else. Everything else is called “competitive food” because it competes with the school lunch for children’s money and appetites. The two categories are regulated and paid for differently.

The USDA does regulate the nutrition of the school lunch. The regulations are out of date – the Institute of Medicine just came out with brand new recommendations to update school lunch nutrition regulations – but at least it’s better than nothing. Perhaps more powerful than the USDA’s nutrition regulations are Congress’s funding. Congress sets how much a school is reimbursed for every free lunch given away to students, and that basically sets how much schools spend on each lunch. Schools receive a certain amount in cash, supplemented by free commodities from the USDA. These commodities are given away as a subsidy to agribusiness. Right now the pork and dairy industries are in trouble so schools are getting a lot of free pork and dairy. Altogether (including cash and commodities), schools get about $2.60 or so per kid per meal. Of that, only about one dollar goes to purchase food and the rest pays for supplies, equipment, and labor.

There are a few reasons why school lunch food is so bad. First of all, it’s hard to buy an entire meal of healthy food for a dollar. Second, because each meal contributes so little to covering the overhead costs of the lunch program, schools must sell as many lunches as possible. To do so, they often have to appeal to the lowest common denominator. In other words, junk sells better than healthy stuff. Last, many schools simply lack equipment and staff to cook healthy food. They aren’t equipped for any food prep beyond heating meals up, and that severely limits the food they can serve.

The best thing Congress can do in the upcoming Child Nutrition Reauthorization bill to improve school lunch would be to substantially increase the reimbursement rate – the amount given to schools to cover the cost of each lunch given out to students who qualify for free or reduced cost lunch. The amount needed is subject to debate, but clearly $2.60 ain’t enough. The School Nutrition Association is only asking for a paltry additional $.35. Others say the reimbursement rate should be raised as high as $5. In addition to raising the reimbursement rate, Congress should also set aside money for grants for schools that wish to upgrade kitchen equipment or train staff so they are better able to provide healthy meals.

Then there’s competitive foods, the a la carte items sold in the lunch line. Currently, there are technically some rules governing the nutrition of these foods, but in practice it’s a free-for-all. There is no food too junky to serve in schools. This is going to be changed (most likely) in the upcoming Child Nutrition Reauthorization. There’s already a bill in Congress for this – “The Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act” (S.934 in the Senate and H.R.1324 in the House) – and it will hopefully be added as an amendment to the Child Nutrition Reauthorization and then passed. Congress won’t set the actual nutrition standards themselves – their bill will direct the USDA to do so.

The cost of competitive foods is not regulated by the federal government because competitive foods are purchased by children, not given away to recipients of free or reduced cost lunch. However, in many cases schools use profits from sales of competitive foods to cover the costs of the entire lunch program. For this reason, they often choose to sell foods that kids like and are likely to buy – junk.

Even worse, sometimes schools get kickbacks from beverage companies under so-called “pouring rights agreements.” The school signs a contract with Coca-Cola or PepsiCo to only sell products from their company (water, juice, sports drinks, and soda) and in return, the school gets kickbacks. This is a sad reflection on the state of school budgets, and I believe that pouring rights agreements should be banned. While there’s been a nationwide voluntary effort to get caloric sodas out of schools, none of these drinks are great for kids. Water should be free, and all drinks besides 100% juice, water, and milk are basically junk. While 100% juice is good for you, it is only good in very small quantities. Juice is high in sugar and, unlike fruit, it lacks fiber to fill you up.

So that’s the lowdown on school lunch. Mostly the entire issue comes down to money. Schools need money to teach children so they don’t have to turn to pouring rights agreements for extra cash. Schools need money for kitchen equipment and trained staff. And schools need money to buy and serve healthy food for lunch. Schools should not be a dumping ground for cheap commodities that no one else wants to buy. And nutrition standards should be updated according to the Institute of Medicine’s recommendations so that our children are given a healthy start in life, healthy habits, and the best possible chance to learn while they are in class.

Cross posted on FireDogLake.org’s Seminal Food Sunday

Posted on November 18, 2009 - by Lisa Madison

What Does the Local Sustainable Food Movement Need?

By: Zachary Adam Cohen
Originally posted on Farm to Table

In order to break through and become a mainstream movement, the local sustainable food movement needs several things to happen.

1. We need leadership

There are too many disparate leaders in the movement. Michael Pollan is an obvious choice, but he’s made his decision to use journalism and education as his tools. And he’s made great strides in educating so many of us, raising our level of awareness and giving many of us our mission statements in life. That in itself will assure that Pollan will be remembered and revered for a long time to come.

But Michael Pollan cannot do it on his own. And neither can Joel Salatin.

We need leadership at every level. In every city, rural community we need civic leaders who are local sustainable advocates. We need people on both the inside and outside of local and state governments who see the redemptive value of local food sheds and work hard to reform.

We need educators, writers, entertainers, and advocates working in concert to drive the conversation forward. No progress will be made unless the American public can be educated and instructed on how to make the necessary changes. This is happening now, but we need to redouble our efforts, use every opportunity to work together, and put down petty differences. It shocks me to realize how many divisions exist within the local sustainable food movement. These division are already slowing our efforts. They will continue to do so if we cannot find a way to work together. I am amazed at how the most minor differences prevent passionate, driven people from working together.

We need to get organized, and quickly. We need website communities, we need local organizations talking to one another.

2. We Need the Business Community to Get On Board

The local sustainable food movement needs, very badly, for entrepreneurs to lead the way. America is a country built on capitalist principles, and despite the shakiness that form of capitalism currently projects, no serious change happens in America without the business community either supporting or leading.

The local sustainable food movement can also benefit from the inclusion and assistance of America’s vast entrepreneurial and finance networks. There is plenty of money to be made in the local sustainable world: healthy profit margins, impressive return-on-investment, and activity in this sphere has the added benefit of healing the land, nourishing our citizens and strengthening our communities. That is a compelling reason to invest.

Investors need to get out there. They need to meet with the farmers and artisans that will create the opportunities. They need to bring their fantastic ability to identify opportunities into the sustainable food world. They will be amazed at what they see.

But there are quarters within the local sustainable movement that are suspicious of American business. After all, wasn’t it our blind pursuit of profit through industrialized methods that gave us the totally broken food system we have now? The answer is Yes and No. The consciousness level is currently at a place where we understand what works and what doesn’t. We have the history, we have the knowledge. We know what doesn’t work. And it’s time for business to recognize what does work, and support it.

The point remains that the local sustainable food movement remains a niche movement unless the amazing energy and persistence of American investors can be geared towards developing the hundreds, even thousands, of local sustainable food opportunities into successful businesses. This is what the business community can do:

Learn the vocabulary of the local sustainable food movement.

Understand and sympathize with the passion and concerns of the farmers, artisans, chefs and others involved in the production and consumption of good food.

Accept the fact that their return on investment may be lower than they are accustomed to.

This last point is a sticky one. The truth is that there is plenty of money to be made in the local sustainable world, but the manner in which it is going to be made will be quite different than the wealth creation heretofore known in this country. We will need investors who understand that it is better to be a part of a business that grows more slowly but that is sustainable, rather than the quarterly focus on growth to which we are accustomed.

3. Government Needs to Reform or Get Out of The Way

As Dawn Gifford laid out in her essay, 13 Ways to Create a Sustainable Food Tipping Point, massive governmental reform is a necessity. We’ve got to end or scale back agricultural subsidies. Government needs to roll back its “Go big or get out” mentality. And perhaps most of all, government needs to stop impeding small sustainable enterprises. We now know that local and federal government often prevents the emergence of real competition by carving out laws that make it nearly impossible for small new businesses to enter and serve new markets. This has to stop.

What are the other developments need to take place in order to bring the local sustainable food movement into the mainstream? Please join the discussion and leave your comments below!