School Food 101: Who is cooking in your school’s cafeteria?

In advocating for Better School Food in the public schools, one of the first things you need to find out is whether your school’s lunch program is self-operated or whether it is run by a Food Service Management Company. What's the difference?

In a self-op situation, those lunch ladies you see in the cafeteria are employees of the school district just like teachers and principals are. Often times, they are members of the community and even have kids in the district. 75% of school lunchrooms across the country are self-operated.

Other school districts outsource lunch by hiring food service management companies (FSMCs). These corporations bring in their own employees and often make a profit by large volumes of packaged snack foods and getting rebates from the manufacturers of those products. Often, many of these snacks are the same junk that you’re working hard to get out of your cafeteria!

A University of Michigan study shows that privatizing school lunch is not always cost effective for a school district and can even impair learning.
Here is the link to the study and the report:
http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=6422

http://www.ilir.umich.edu/LSC/Publications/PrivatizedSchoolFoodServiceAndStudentPerformance.pdf

I’m not an economist but, if you think about it, when food service is self-operated in a school district, that money goes to the cost of food, employee salaries, and overhead costs to run the cafeteria. Any remaining money can go back into the school district or be put towards better quality food.

When you’ve got a FSMC running the show, whatever money remains after paying the expenses goes into the corporation’s pockets rather than staying in your school district and community to benefit your children. Because corporations must make a profit, their priority is their shareholders, not your kids.

As a parent, my priority is the health, well-being and education of my kids. It seems to me that a self-operated school lunch program can do a better job of providing this than a FSMC.

Better School Food Video

Back to School Night Brings Hope

After 13 years of being a public school parent, back to school night is not so new to me.

Despite years of coalition building, wellness policy meetings, loads of talk and even controversy, the food in my kid's school still isn't what I would feel good about them eating on a regular basis to support their health. I've been advocating for better food in my kid's school for over a decade now, I'm in it for the long haul and don't plan on giving up anytime soon.

Yet, this year, I'm filled with a glimmer of hope. First thing I did was go and ask the principal why there is still a Coke machine in the cafeteria. This poor guy is still a bit scared of me ever since I dumped a huge bag of candy on his desk a few years ago. (Candy that I waited in line at 7am to buy from the vending machine, but that's another story!)

The principal assured me that the soda machine was not functional and was still owned by the student government organization. (How about they sell that machine on eBay?). Then he told me that he had just viewed The Future of Food and he was now deeply concerned about GMO foods. Now that the head of my child's middle school has connected the dots to more than just obesity, I'm hopeful that the culture of food in our district will really start to shift.

He asked me, "Did you see the new garden outside?"
"OH YEAH!" I replied. A social studies teacher who taught my middle daughter 5 years ago had been building her Food IQ over the years and went above and beyond the call of duty to get training and funding to bring a garden project to the school. I'm a huge advocate of school gardens as a highly effective way to build Food IQ.

A big THANK YOU goes out to the Family and Consumer Sciences teacher who gave my principal her copy of Future of Food to view and also to the dedicated Social Studies teacher who spent countless hours outside of school attending classes and writing grants for our school garden. These two teachers will end up impacting the culture of food in our community more than they might realize.

Changing school food is more than switching to low fat snacks in the vending machines. Baked chips aren't going to change our kids future in the same way that a principal with a higher Food IQ can.

Even though I sometimes feel exhausted from 13+ years of advocating for a better food environment, this year I'm starting the year with hope that things just might change. Hope it's not too late.

Follow the Money

Watergate had a big impact on my childhood. I remember like it was yesterday. Regular TV programming was interrupted to bring the Watergate Congressional hearings, many people were rivited to their TV screens. In 1976, All the President's Men starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman told the story for all of us. The famous quote in the movie by DeepThroat to "follow the money" remains a memorable phrase 30+ years later.

So what does "follow the money" have to do with school food? Just last week, the School Nutrition Association with the support of the International Food Information Council Foundation held a free webinar on High Fructose Corn Syrup. If you follow the money and look to see who funds the SNA and the IFICF, you'll see a host of food industry and big agribusiness corporations who benefit from the use of refined corn products.

If companies like Kraft Foods, McDonalds, Frito Lay and Monsanto are providing funding for "nutrition information" how can you be sure it's not biased in favor of their products? The truth is that you can't. The revolving door between food industry and nutrition education was well exposed in Marion Nestle's book, Food Politics. The sad fact is that whenever you read food or nutrition information, you always must ask yourself to follow the money.

This is why Better School Food has worked hard to maintain our integrity and be very cautious as to who we "partner" with. We are slowly and carefully building an advisory board of the best and brightest food and health experts in the country. This way we can bring you accurate and unbiased information so that you can make informed choices on what to advocate for in your child's school environment. Whan it comes to Better School Food, when you follow the money, you'll find health professionals, educators and concerned parents whose bottom line is the health and well being of our children.

What are you really eating?

Many concerned parents and school food advocates across the country tell me that they have a tough time obtaining ingredient lists for what is being served in their school cafeterias. For parents of children with allergies and other health issues, this can be a huge concern. Why are ingredients such top secret information?

I've got an idea why this might be so. Take this little pop quiz and I'll explain.

Can you name this product by looking at the ingredients list?
Sugar, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (soybean, cottonseed, coconut, palm and/or palm kernel oils, TBHQ and citric acid to preserve freshness), enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin, mononitrate (Vitamin B1), riboflavin (Vitamin B2), folic acid), corn syrup, coconut sweetened condensed whole milk (whole milk, sucrose), sorbitol, contains two percent or less of cocoa, glycerin, salt, dextrose, invert sugar, cocoa powder (processed with alkali), cornstarch, natural and artificial flavors, soy lecithin, carrageenan, leavening (baking soda, monocalcium phosphate).


Answer: Samoas Girl Scout cookies

If you take a look on the Nutrition Information on the side of the box of Samoas, you’ll see 0 grams Trans Fat. Yet the second ingredient is partially hydrogenated oil, which is the industrial product that contains trans fat. Many health professionals agree that hydrogenated oils are unsafe at ANY level and suggest consumers have zero tolerance for products containing hydrogenated oils.

The FDA allowed the food industry to create a loophole so they can say zero trans fat on the nutrition label if it contains less than .5 gram of trans fat per serving. This reminds me of back when the tobacco companies labeled tar and nicotine levels implying safer cigarettes had lower numbers. We now know that wasn't the case.

Besides, how many kids do you know that only eat "1 serving" of these cookies? Who set the serving size? You guessed it, the food industry.

Another questionable ingredient on this ingredient label is TBHQ, (tertiary butylhydroquinone) is a petroleum derivative which has been shown to damage DNA and cause tumors in animals in high doses. Since children are pound for pound more exquisitely sensitive to chemicals than adults or adult animals are, I'm not so sure we can say without a doubt that it is safe for our kids to ingest.

Retail food products are required to list ingredients, although they play word games with words like "natural flavors" and "whole grains" and number games with serving size and transfat grams.

So how do Girl Scout Cookies connect to school food? The Girl Scout Cookie ingredient list is a great illustration of why it is essential to know the ingredients of what you and your kids are eating.
One of the most important steps in assessing the food in your school is to audit the ingredients.

Chicken fingers, peanut butters and other ingredients in school cafeterias are boasting "zero grams trans fat" and may have other questionable ingredients lurking within. We must insist that we have full disclosure of ingredients!

The Better School Food website has lots of information on what steps you can take to make a positive difference in your child's food environment. Click here for more information

Playing the calorie game.

While childhood obesity grabs headlines every day, its important to consider other complications that result from junk food and drinks in our schools. As I've always said, obesity is the tip of the iceberg, it's easy to see and measure. Beneath the surface lurks many other examples of declining children's health. Many pediatricians will agree that asthma, allergies and ADD/ ADHD are health issues that can be connected the quality of food our kids are eating. And that is just the A's!

When it comes to junk food in schools, the food and beverage industry wants to keep the conversation on obesity. That way, they can play the calorie game. It's easty to lower the calorie count in a food product by changing the serving size, creating lower calorie "enhanced water" products or by adding artificial sweeteners. They make even more money packaging up those "100 calorie" food products. Are they really healthier because they are 100 calories or are they just less junk for more money?

What the food industry does not want us to do is look beyond calories at the questionable chemicals in these products.

Reseach shows that many of the colors found in sports drinks and other beverages are directly connected to hyperactivity and other behavior issues. Lancet, a highly respected medical journal recently published a study that clearly backs this up. http://www.wnho.net/food_additives_and_hyperactive_behavior.htm

When a teacher has even one child with a behavior issue, all kids in the class are affected as a result. Just another example of "second hand smoke" in the toxic food environment. Your kid might not be swilling the windex blue or neon green colored "electrolyte enhanced" sugar water, but he or she will still be negatively impacted in the classroom when another child is bouncing off the walls from sugar or food dyes.

Let's not forget that sports drinks and sugary waters are a significant source of tooth decay. Some studies show that sports drinks may even be more cariogenic than soda. It's really lots of fun to take your kid to the dentist. Doesn't everyone enjoy taking time out of their busy day to do that? The food industry argues that these beverages have less calories than soda but when your teeth are washed in frequent sips of liquid sugar, they rot- whether it's low-cal or not!

The beverage industry has been working very hard to get diet sodas into schools. By playing the calorie game, they argue that these beverages are better for our kids than soda. Anecdotal reports show diet soda to be even more addictive than regular soda. Neurological and behavioral problems have been reported in both children and adults. Some studies show that diet soda drinkers are likely to gain more weight! Also, solid evidence points to weak bones due to the phosphoric acid in diet sodas. The bottom line is no doctor, government agency or scientist is 100% sure that artificial sweeteners are safe for human consumption, especially for consumption by our children. If someone told you that a product or a toy or a piece of clothing for your child cannot be guaranteed to be safe, wouldn't you put it back on the shelf?

Why not set legislation to protect our kids instead of protecting the profits of the food and beverage industry?

Make it really simple:

1.Water - the kind that comes from a tap or drinking fountain. Not "water beverages" with added colors and chemicals.

2.Milk- the kind that comes from healthy cows. Not "milk beverages" with added sugar and chemicals.

Keep all other beverages out of schools.

Eat fruit and drink water instead of drinking juice.

Check out the Better School Food top 10 list for other really great ideas for food standards in schools. http://www.betterschoolfood.org/what_you_can_do/top10list.cfm

Menus are meaningless!

In the 12 years I've been advocating for better foods in my kid's school, I've learned loads. For one thing, menus are meaningless! Recently I took a look at my middle schooler's menu, saw a stir fry that seemed harmless and sent my child off to school with lunch money. She tells me that she had a giant pretzel, some noodles and a flavored water. Not exactly what I was hoping she'd have for lunch that day.

The week of October 15-19 is National School Lunch Week, sponsored by the School Nutrition Association. We'd like to encourage you to join us for a Lunch In during that week. Experience with your own eyes, ears and taste buds what your kids are doing for lunch 180 days a year. Click here for a check list and a humorous essay written by BSF Advisory board member, Kate Adamick.

Common sense will tell you that menus don't mean much in any dining establishment. What matters is what the food is like when you sit down to eat it. As parents and advocates, we need to sit down and eat the food our kids are eating in school to truly assess whether it supports their health.

Last March, BSF board member Geri Brewster and I attended the Mayo Clinic's Obesity Summit. We learned that most parents across the country have no idea what is being served in the cafeteria. The USDA encourages parents to visit the cafeteria and have lunch with their kids. This is truly the only way that parents can know for sure what their kids are eating.

You don't need a degree in biochemistry or nutrition to know if the food being served in your child's cafeteria is good to be eating on a daily basis. It's really about common sense. Parents are the real customers in the cafeteria. We're the ones who pay for lunch. Our bottom line is the health and well being of our kids.

We hope you'll join us for the LUNCH-IN and tell your neighbors too.
Please send your stories and digital photos of lunch, both good and bad to photos@angrymoms.org As our kids get sicker and fatter, it's time to start a national dialog about what is going on our school cafeterias. Parents hold the power to make a difference. See you at lunch!