Alice Waters: No Lunch Left Behind

[Guest guest]

February 20, 2009

Op-Ed Contributors

No Lunch Left Behind

By ALICE WATERS and KATRINA HERON

Berkeley, Calif.

THIS new era of government bailouts and widespread concern over

wasteful spending offers an opportunity to take a hard look at the

National School Lunch Program. Launched in 1946 as a public safety

net, it has turned out to be a poor investment. It should be

redesigned to make our children healthier.

Under the program, the United States Department of Agriculture gives

public schools cash for every meal they serve — $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, a figure widely

acknowledged as inadequate to cover food costs. But what most people

don't realize is that very little of this money even goes toward

food. Schools have to use it to pay for everything from custodial

services to heating in the cafeteria.

On top of these reimbursements, schools are entitled to receive

commodity foods that are valued at a little over 20 cents per meal.

The long list of options includes high-fat, low-grade meats and

cheeses and processed foods like chicken nuggets and pizza. Many of

the items selected are ready to be thawed, heated or just unwrapped —

a necessity for schools without kitchens. Schools also get

periodic, additional " bonus " commodities from the U.S.D.A., which

pays good money for what are essentially leftovers from big American

food producers.

When school districts allow fast-food snacks in the lunchroom they

provoke widespread ire, and rightfully so. But food distributed by

the National School Lunch Program contains some of the same

ingredients found in fast food, and the resulting meals routinely

fail to meet basic nutritional standards. Yet this is how the

government continues to " help " feed millions of American

schoolchildren, a great many of them from low-income households.

Some Americans 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.

Amid steep budgetary challenges, these community-supported

coalitions are demonstrating that schools can be the masters of

their own menus. Schools here in Berkeley, for example, continue to

use U.S.D.A. commodities, but cook food from scratch and have added

organic fruits and vegetables from area farms. They have cut costs

by adopting more efficient accounting software and smart-bulk

policies (like choosing milk dispensers over individual cartons),

and by working with farmers to identify crops that they can grow in

volume and sell for reasonable prices.

Many nutrition experts believe that it is possible to fix the

National School Lunch Program by throwing a little more money at it.

But without healthy food (and cooks and kitchens to prepare it),

increased financing will only create a larger junk-food distribution

system. We need to scrap the current system and start from scratch.

Washington needs to give schools enough money to cook and serve

unprocessed foods that are produced without pesticides or chemical

fertilizers. When possible, these foods should be locally grown.

How much would it cost to feed 30 million American schoolchildren a

wholesome meal? It could be done for about $5 per child, or roughly

$27 billion a year, plus a one-time investment in real kitchens.

Yes, that sounds expensive. But a healthy school lunch program would

bring long-term savings and benefits in the areas of hunger,

children's health and dietary habits, food safety (contaminated

peanuts have recently found their way into school lunches),

environmental preservation and energy conservation.

The Agriculture Department will have to do its part, by making good

on its fledgling commitment to back environmentally sound farming

practices and by realizing a separate program to deliver food,

especially fresh fruits and vegetables, from farms to schools. It

will also need to provide adequate support for kitchens and healthy

meal planning. Congress has an opportunity to accomplish some of

these goals when it takes up the Child Nutrition and Women Infants

and Children Reauthorization Act, which is set to expire in

September.

But the Department of Education should take some initiative, too.

After all, eating well requires education. We can teach students to

choose good food and to understand how their choices affect their

health and the environment. The new school lunch program should be

partly financed by the Department of Education, and Arne Duncan, the

secretary of education, should oversee it. Vice President Joseph

Biden should also come to the table by making school lunch a

priority of his White House Task Force on Middle Class Working

Families.

Every public school child in America deserves a healthful and

delicious lunch that is prepared with fresh ingredients. Cash-

strapped parents should be able to rely on the government to

contribute to their children's physical well-being, not to the

continued spread of youth obesity, Type 2 diabetes and other diet-

related problems. Let's prove that there is such a thing as a good,

free lunch.

Alice Waters is the president of The Chez Panisse Foundation.

Katrina Heron is a director of the foundation and a co-producer of

civileats.com.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/opinion/20waters.html?th & emc=th