School Lunch: Where the Real Weapons of Mass Destruction Lie (Opinion)

[Guest guest]

http://www.naturalnews.com/027021_food_foods_health.htmlSchool Lunch: Where the Real Weapons of Mass Destruction Lie (Opinion) Monday, September 14, 2009 by: Hesh Goldstein, citizen journalist(NaturalNews) Mike Adams wrote a great piece on how the public is kept nutritionally uneducated. Unfortunately, the best place to start with this is the youngest members of society through the school lunch program. In this era of government bailouts and concern over wasteful spending, an opportunity presents itself to take a hard look at the National School Lunch Program. It was started in 1946 as a public safety measure, and it certainly turned out to be a disaster.Under the program, the USDA gives public schools cash for every meal served - $2.57 for a free lunch, $2.17 for a reduced-price lunch and 24 cents for a paid lunch.In 2007, the program cost around $9 billion. This figure is acknowledged as inadequate to cover food costs. What people don`t realize is that very little of this money even goes toward food. Why, because the schools have to use it to pay for everything from the custodial services to heating the cafeteria.On top of these reimbursements, the schools are entitled to receive commodity foods that are valued at a little over 20 cents per meal. The list includes such highly nutritious foods as high fat, low grade meats and cheeses, processed foods like chicken nuggets, and pizza.Since many schools do not have kitchens, many of these delectable morsels are ready to be thawed, heated or simply unwrapped. Also, as an additional treat, the schools get "bonuses" from the USDA, which essentially throw good money after bad for leftovers from the big food producers.When the schools allow fast-food snacks that contain the same ingredients found in fast foods and the resulting meals routinely fail to meet nutritional standards, only a handful of people in our nutritionally illiterate society protest. Our government, caring little about this, justifies it by saying that they are "helping" to feed millions of American schoolchildren, with a great many of them from low-income households. And here we thought the "weapons of mass destruction" were in Iraq.But those that are not nutritionally illiterate are demanding better. Parent advocacy groups like Better School Food have rejected the National School Lunch Program and have turned instead to local farmers for fresh alternatives. Even though they face heavy budget obstacles, these groups are demonstrating that the schools can be in control of their own menus. Schools, for example, in Berkley, Ca. and Hawaii, while continuing to use USDA commodities, cook food from scratch and add organic fruits and vegetables from local farms.By adopting more efficient accounting software and different bulk options, like choosing milk dispensers over individual cartons, and working with farmers to identify crops, they can grow in volume and sell for reasonable prices; they have cut costs. It`s just too bad that our nutritionally illiterate society has not yet discovered that most of us are lactose intolerant and that switching to dairy alternatives like non-GMO soy milk or rice milk or various nut milks would provide a far more nutritious venue.A lot of the so-called "nutrition experts" believe that to fix the National School Lunch Program you have to throw more money at it. But without healthy, nutritious food, cooks, and kitchens to prepare meals in, increased financing will only create a larger junk-food distribution system.What we need to do is to scrap the current system and start from scratch. The bureaucrats in Washington need to give schools enough money to cook and serve unprocessed foods that are produced without pesticides, chemical fertilizers or any other synthetic chemicals and that are GMO free. When possible, these foods should be locally grown.How much would it cost to feed 30 million American school kids a wholesome meal? It could be done for about $5.00 per child or roughly $27 billion a year plus a one-time investment in real kitchens. It may sound expensive but a healthy school lunch program would bring about long-term savings and benefits in the areas of hunger, children`s health and dietary habits, food safety, environmental preservation and energy conservation.But the USDA would have to do its part as well (good luck!) by making good on its lame commitment to back environmentally sound farming practices. They also need to realize that there needs to be a sound program to deliver food, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, from farm to school. They would also need to provide support for kitchens and healthy meal planning and they definitely should cut all connection with Monsanto and the GMO travesty.Actually, Congress has an opportunity to accomplish this when it looks at the Child Nutrition and Women, Infants, and Child Reauthorization Act, which is due to expire in September.What about the Department of Education? Doesn`t eating well require education? Shouldn`t students learn what foods are good, what foods to choose, and what foods affect their health and their environment? That`s why this new school lunch program should be partly financed by the DOE. Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, should oversee it, with VP Joe Biden stepping up to the plate by making school lunch a priority of his White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families.Every public school child in America deserves good nutrition coming from fresh ingredients. Parents that are cash-strapped should be able to rely on the government to contribute to their kid`s physical well-being and not to the continued spread of youth obesity, type-2 diabetes and other diet related problems. Let`s eliminate the American public schools from harboring the real weapons of mass destruction! =====In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

[Guest guest]

I love Mike Adams and Natural News and think that Hesch Goldstein has done an excellent job on the article referenced here. But he needs to sharpen his pencil a bit.

 

Cooking for a small family, I can put a nutritious lunch on the table for under $4.00 per meal. There is no good reason, if politics were removed from the equation, that a healthy meal cannot be provided for elementary school children for less than $3.00 per meal.

 

This would best be done by small,private kithchens an an agressive staff dietitian at the schools to evaluate consumption and waste. Leftovers could then be picked up at each area school by those who provide homeless shelters homeless shelters. (I have run a low-cost kitchen and there is very little that can't be re-served the same day or made into a nutritious stew or soup for the next day.)

 

The $2.57 price they now pay is a fair price to pay for a lunch, what with all the freebies that are available to schools. My first cost-cutting move for the schools would be to stop providing milk and processed cheeses. Secondly, I would limit the number of choices for the day, increase egg dishes, and reduce the use of animal products slowly, over several years. Our schools are not doing well at educating students minds but even this would improve if we improve the children's palates.

 

-- On Tue, 9/15/09, Viviane Lerner <vivlerner wrote:

Viviane Lerner <vivlerner School Lunch: Where the Real Weapons of Mass Destruction Lie (Opinion)"PROGRESSIVE REVIEW" <newsCc: "COMMON DREAMS" <commondreams, "RADTIMES" <resist, "HEALTH & HEALING" Tuesday, September 15, 2009, 5:34 AM

 

http://www.naturalnews.com/027021_food_foods_health.html

School Lunch: Where the Real Weapons of Mass Destruction Lie (Opinion) Monday, September 14, 2009 by: Hesh Goldstein, citizen journalist

 

(NaturalNews) Mike Adams wrote a great piece on how the public is kept nutritionally uneducated. Unfortunately, the best place to start with this is the youngest members of society through the school lunch program. In this era of government bailouts and concern over wasteful spending, an opportunity presents itself to take a hard look at the National School Lunch Program. It was started in 1946 as a public safety measure, and it certainly turned out to be a disaster.

 

Under the program, the USDA gives public schools cash for every meal served - $2.57 for a free lunch, $2.17 for a reduced-price lunch and 24 cents for a paid lunch.

 

In 2007, the program cost around $9 billion. This figure is acknowledged as inadequate to cover food costs. What people don`t realize is that very little of this money even goes toward food. Why, because the schools have to use it to pay for everything from the custodial services to heating the cafeteria.

 

On top of these reimbursements, the schools are entitled to receive commodity foods that are valued at a little over 20 cents per meal. The list includes such highly nutritious foods as high fat, low grade meats and cheeses, processed foods like chicken nuggets, and pizza.

 

Since many schools do not have kitchens, many of these delectable morsels are ready to be thawed, heated or simply unwrapped. Also, as an additional treat, the schools get "bonuses" from the USDA, which essentially throw good money after bad for leftovers from the big food producers.

 

When the schools allow fast-food snacks that contain the same ingredients found in fast foods and the resulting meals routinely fail to meet nutritional standards, only a handful of people in our nutritionally illiterate society protest. Our government, caring little about this, justifies it by saying that they are "helping" to feed millions of American schoolchildren, with a great many of them from low-income households. And here we thought the "weapons of mass destruction" were in Iraq.

 

But those that are not nutritionally illiterate are demanding better. Parent advocacy groups like Better School Food have rejected the National School Lunch Program and have turned instead to local farmers for fresh alternatives. Even though they face heavy budget obstacles, these groups are demonstrating that the schools can be in control of their own menus. Schools, for example, in Berkley, Ca. and Hawaii, while continuing to use USDA commodities, cook food from scratch and add organic fruits and vegetables from local farms.

 

By adopting more efficient accounting software and different bulk options, like choosing milk dispensers over individual cartons, and working with farmers to identify crops, they can grow in volume and sell for reasonable prices; they have cut costs. It`s just too bad that our nutritionally illiterate society has not yet discovered that most of us are lactose intolerant and that switching to dairy alternatives like non-GMO soy milk or rice milk or various nut milks would provide a far more nutritious venue

[Guest guest]



Kind of wondering why it is that (is it all USA schools) have the school lunch programme for all students?

 

I know there are many disadvantaged kids in the schools world wide, and that this is one way of seeing (supposedly) that every child gets at least one nutritious meal per day five days a week....... and that is/was admirable in the beginning of course, but surely NOT every child that attend a school campus requires a subsidised meal. Many parents could if they chose to, prepare a packed lunch ... a healthy one to send with the child for a noon meal....... Could children be taught how to eat healthy as part of their national education programme....... ah but I suppose the BIG multinationals still push the fast and unhealthy foods to the detriment of what is really healthy. Bann fast foods, bann sodas and diet drink machines, bann flavoured low fat milks and candy bars and fries and chips and cookies. It can be done by school boards can it not?

 

My kids have never been part of a generation where hot meals were provided by the schools...... I WAS, as I attended school in post war Britain. I had a responsibility to prepare school lunches for my children, or allow them to choose something from the school canteen...... meat pies, sausage rolls or meat and salad sandwiches......... NOT A GOOD IDEA...... but if schools ONLY sold healthy foods, ahhhhh yes I dream on here...... then limiting the choices and educating about healthy nutrition would be wonderful and would pay off too, with healthier bodies and minds.

 

THOUGHTS and dreams............... Clare in Tassie