You Read it Here First: School Lunch Controversy on TV

April 10th, 2008

This post about school lunch attracted the attention of a TV reporter, who came out to interview OrganicMania about the state of school lunches. You can see the results here. (Just go to the segment filmed on 8 April, 16:05 minute mark.)

At the close, the reporter notes that school officials said they will not introduce organic food because of the expense.

I don’t know of a single parent who approves of the school lunch program. Why won’t school officials consider creative ways to improve school lunch, rather than dismissing suggestions because of cost?

Here are some ideas:

– What about getting “Big Organics” companies to subsidize organic milk? Other companies subsidize their products in an effort to target a growing market, so why not engage the dairies in an attempt to get hormone-free milk in the schools?

– How about charging a subsidy on top of the organic lunch to subsidize the Free and Reduced Price Lunch Program? Parents who disapprove of the nutritional content in school lunch are already paying a premium to make lunch at home. The school system could use its purchasing power to negotiate discounts on higher quality ingredients that would match what parents are making at home. Not only would parents pay less, but they would gladly save themselves the time and trouble of making lunch at home if their children were assured of healthy, nutritious, fresh meals with organic ingredients where they count most (the Environmental Working Group’s “Dirty Dozen” plus milk and carrots would be a great start!)

– What about rallying behind the innovative “Farm to School” program, which connects schools with local farms to deliver farm-fresh food to the public schools?

If you live in Montgomery County, Maryland and would like to learn more about nutrition in the schools, please attend a Montgomery County Council of PTAs meeting on nutrition and physical activity, to be held April 22nd from 7 pm to 8 pm in the auditorium at the Carver Educational Services Center, 850 Hungerford Drive, Rockville. Kathy Lazor, MCPS Director of Food and Nutrition Services, will talk about nutrition issues and MCPS initiatives. (She is the official interviewed in the TV segment).

OrganicMania will report on this meeting, because the issues discussed there will be relevant not only to Montgomery County, but also to parents facing these issues in their local schools.

What do you think of school lunch? Please leave a comment and share!

And for more info, check out these older OrganicMania posts here, here and here and this great post from Expatriate’s Kitchen.

(And speaking of Expat, she’s running a great carnival at Eat.Drink.Better).

— Lynn

Copyright OrganicMania 2008