Drink your milk! (or not, more discussion)

@boomerang,

Pie.

they will need pie..

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Quote:

As it turns out, removing chocolate milk from the menu was only the beginning for Los Angeles government schools. Who here thinks that kids are going to eat spinach tortellini in butternut squash after their chicken nuggets are taken away? Apparently the Food Service Director does, because that was listed on the new menu, along with sushi rolls:

A menu overhaul is underway that will mean fewer meals that resemble fast food and more vegetarian offerings. Spinach tortellini in butternut squash sauce and California sushi rolls, along with many ethnic foods, are to be added.

Corn dogs, chicken nuggets and other breaded items are out, said Dennis Barrett, food services director.

Megan Bomba, a project coordinator with Occidental College's Urban and Environmental Policy Institute, agreed with the move, saying "the meal needs to be better, not [that] we need to keep chocolate milk" to attract students to the cafeteria, she said.

The menu proposed for fall sounds more appealing and sophisticated, she added.

Sophistication? In an elementary school lunch menu? If I were a parent, I wouldn't want my kids going anywhere near sushi rolls in a school cafeteria. One more example of (likely well-intentioned) top down planning that can't go anywhere good.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/helenwhalencohen/2011/06/15/the_new_menu_at_la_schools

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Knowing many kids is that these lunches will end up in the trash. They won't eat it - many kids are very visual in their foods. If there is a speck of green in spaghetti sauce for example suddenly the same sauce they loved last week is terrible.

Changing their food so dramastically could pose a problem of the food just being thrown away rather than being eaten - well I can then see how this could cause the children to lose alot of weight.

1 Reply

@boomerang,

Great stuff happening in Detroit with schools and gardens.

http://www.grist.org/sustainable-food/2011-04-26-students-fight-to-save-innovative-garden-based-public-school-in-

http://www.grist.org/list/2011-06-16-detroit-farm-school-for-teen-moms-has-been-saved

I recommend the http://www.grownindetroitmovie.com/ documentary if you have an opportunity to view it.

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@ehBeth,

Thanks, ehBeth, that looks great. I will definitely be watching it as soon as I know I won't be interrupted.

The articles on the Ferguson school remind me of something I came across the other day -- a handbook directed at kids that don't feel served by the traditional school system that urged them to "opt out, don't drop out" (http://www.scribd.com/doc/55366959/The-Teenagers-Guide-to-Opting-Out-Not-Dropping-Out-of-School), Pretty interesting.

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@Linkat,

My limited experience tells me that Mo will eat just about anything he's had a hand in growing or cooking and that he has to be exposed to unfamiliar foods several times before giving them a try.

He's also discovered new foods at school (kiwi, beets, fresh salsa) that he really likes. He sees the other kids eating them and gives them a try.

Cooking is a great way to learn both math and science.

All this talk of "kids won't eat it" reminds me of this video:

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@boomerang,

Of course it depends on the kid. Just this week, my younger daughter had a McDonald's picnic day - imagine the horror that CA would have - yes they allowed the kids with parent's permission to buy a McDonald's Happy Meal. Well my daughter would not eat her cheeseburger because it had the ketchup and fake onions and pickle on it - even when the teacher took these items off. She would go hungry first than have her lips touch ketchup or even the chance there is ketchup on it.

Yes she is the one that sees a speck of green (which I explain is just parsley) in spaghetti sauce and will not eat it.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

There is an 8 minute radio interview with one of the students at the Ferguson school at this link (part 2 of the program).

http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/episode/2010/03/17/march-17-2010/

Hard to believe that's from over a year ago. I guess it made a big impression on me at the time.

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@boomerang,

I sooooo agree with you.

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@boomerang,

I think I've seen that video before, probably you posted it, and I cried/teared the first time too.

More on chocolate milk, jamie oliver was involved in that - http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/06/jamie-olivers-milk-war.html

Goodly argumentative article to my point of view.

1 Reply

@Linkat,

Linkat, CA is not San Francisco and Santa Monica, stop with the dumps. We will have to have a punch out and you will win, which would be embarrassing. (Friend of a woman who made her own ketchup something like twenty years ago. She's a brat and so am I, but we're not all evil) Anyway, we could resolve this by visiting at the ocean.

Uh oh, green fear............................

This brings up bitterness. There are said to be taste buds about bitter, and some don't really taste it. Some of us do and like it. I happen to like it and don't understand friends who don't. I probably wouldn't have as a picky child, brat of the block, but I don't understand not liking it now.

Wondering if enjoying bitterness is age related.

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@ossobuco,

Link to the Jamie Oliver TED wish.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver.html

from youtube if that works better for you

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@ehBeth,

I read the LA Times but cursorily - there has been a whale of sturm and drang about him, with batches of comments about arrogance.

I'm just speaking as a kid, I would have liked chocolate milk. I don't think I ran across it until high school (was skinny then too).

As I intimated, I'd be fine, adult now, with almond milk, blady blady blah.

I don't think the milk is the problem, while I get the instinct to curtail it - it's all the rest of the horrid food.

Why is there horrid food? institutionalization but also a combo of low expectation and low funding, boosted with low knowledge that I don't blame the immediate people for.

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@ehBeth,

Quote:

Jamie Oliver's lecture-centric approach to improving the diets of British schoolchildren won't work, and might actually be making the country's health problem worse.

That's the harsh bottom line on the celebrity chef's renowned "School Lunch" program, in the opinion of the U.K.'s new health minister, Andrew Lansley.

It's a statement that extends beyond Oliver's advocacy efforts, and signals a move toward less intervention on the part of the new British government.

"Jamie Oliver, quite rightly, was talking about trying to improve the diet of children in schools and improving school meals," Lansley said in a speech today to members of the British Medical Association. "What was the net effect? Actually the number of children eating school meals in many of these places didn't go up, it went down."

Since 2004, Oliver has been waging a food revolution in U.K. schools. His televised endeavor led the Labor government to introduce a revised school lunch program.

But according to Lansley, that intervention led to more kids spending money on junk food off school grounds.

"The net result of that is, somebody says the next thing we must do is we must ban shops near schools," he said. "Where do we end up with this?"

http://www.aolnews.com/2010/06/30/uk-health-minister-gives-jamie-olivers-lunch-program-an-f/

I have seen several accounts that say the Brits have had quite enough of Olivers preaching, and last month is American show was canceled after only a year. I liked him back pre crusade days, when he was the "naked chef". Jamie certain had bad timing, trying to drastically increase the cost of school lunch programs just as school budgets were getting crushed by the Great Recession.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

Quote:

Why is there horrid food?

Because everyone who controls the lunch program only cares about the food analysis of the plate given to the kid, nobody cares how it tastes and if it gets eaten. The problem starts at the top, because the federal government effectively took over school lunch programs, and then ran them into the ground. Back in the late 70's a kid could still get some decent food from the lunch ladies, but I dont think that was possible much after that.

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@ossobuco,

The wheelbarrow of sugar from 5 years of chocolate milk at school was an eye-opener for me.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

The wheelbarrow of sugar from 5 years of chocolate milk at school was an eye-opener for me.

And you still get half a wheelbarrow if all you drink is the demanded white milk.

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@hawkeye10,

He was also not loved in west virginia (no links).

I'm more of an alice waters person, though if I had to pick, I'd pick that guy I mentioned who taught gardening in high schools in the SF Valley. Scott Wilson, I think was his name, and I'll add his wife for the major soup.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

That was truly excellent. Thank you for posting it.

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@ossobuco,

On chocolate milk, I figure sugar could be cut.
I've been plotzed by how sweet bakery stuff is here.
I don't understand it. I sometimes cut recipes by 2/3rds.

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Drink your milk! (or not, more discussion)

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