Philadelphia and its Universal Feeding Program

A few weeks ago it was reported that the feds planned to discontinue Philadelphia’s universal lunch program.  For some of us, this was news--all kids in public school in Philadelphia qualify for a free lunch?  With no paperwork needing to be filed?  Amazing!  In many areas the families of children who should qualify never fill out the paper work, and hungry kids miss out.  Apparently it started as a pilot program there 20 years ago, and never left.

Well, the good news reported on all of the school food blogs this morning is that the program is thankfully safe, for the time being.  The USDA has wisely decided to wait until the Child Nutrition Act is reauthorized this fall before making a final decision.  In the meantime, many are calling for “Universal Feeding” to be expanded, if anything, into a national program.

Some are doubting: a commenter on La Vida Locavore warned us “not to get too excited,” since “the motivation has less to do with feeding children healthy meals than it does their ability get more federal funds.” And a commenter on School Lunch Talk rightfully wondered “How does making the same drek universally free improve nutrition?”

Turns out, kids love pizza

Deborah Lehmann is an editor of School Lunch Talk, a blog about school food. She is currently studying economics and public policy at Brown University.

They say you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Cafeteria directors say you can lead a child to healthy food, but you can’t make him eat it. Well, at least when he has the option of eating pizza and fries instead.

I’m on the road this week visiting cafeterias in Ohio and Massachusetts, and I’ve been continually struck by the difference between what’s offered to students and what actually ends up on their trays. All the high school cafeterias I’ve seen on this trip have offered dozens of choices, including healthy items like fresh sandwiches and salads. Yet probably 75 percent of students buy the same two or three items: pizza, chicken patty sandwiches and fries. ”It’s great that they have all that healthy stuff,” one high school student told me. “But nobody eats it. It’s a shelf-filler.”

At a high school in Massachusetts today, students could choose from sandwiches, salads, home-made shepherd’s pie, a hot sausage and pepper sub, turkey a la king with brown rice or pizza and tater tots. The adults buy the shepherd’s pie and the turkey, the director told me. About 80 percent of the students would opt for pizza and tater tots, she said.

At the high school I visited in Ohio, the cafeteria dishes out about 1,100 servings of french fries each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It sells about 60 salads.

Cafeteria directors always show me all the healthy options available to students, telling me how hard they work to give students the opportunity to eat a healthy meal. But that’s just what it is: an opportunity. The healthy choices are there, but they’re sitting right next to those oh-so-tempting junk foods. And when you lead a student to pizza and fries, he’s almost certain to choose that over a salad or turkey a la king with brown rice.

If we’re serious about student wellness, we’re going to have to stop approaching nutrition as an opportunity. Schools have a responsibility to make healthy eating the norm, not just an option for a few students who are already health-conscious.

photo courtesy of Adam Kuban, via flickr creative commons.

Summer Reading

One of the great advents of the past few years has been “The Food Issue.” I’ve really enjoyed seeing magazines like The Nation, The New York Times, Yes magazine, Mother Jones, and The New Yorker devote an entire issue to stories around food. The Atlantic Monthly upped the ante by creating an entire website for food stories.  I mean, it’s a pretty lefty bunch, but I guess that’s not a huge surprise.

Now we’ve got Slate’s food issue, with a few choice nuggets including Tom Laskawy’s piece on how Mother Nature’s gonna bite big Ag in the butt, and a review of Mark Kurlansky’s new book The Food of a Younger Land, about America Eats, the 1930s Federal Writers Project, and how it created a new genre: food writing.  Reading this piece, I thought--this would be a great partner book for Jane and Michael Stern’s new book 500 Things to Eat Before They’re Gone!  Turns out the folks at the San Francisco Chronicle are more clever than I and they had the Sterns review the book just last week. They had issues with it--mostly that they are more hopeful than Kurlansky about the state of American food. 

No doubt the Sterns will be roadtripping this summer.  I hope I get to roadtrip too, but I’ll also be reading--probably their book, probably Kurlansky’s.  What will you be reading this summer?

Cooking for Dummies

Interesting NY Times Op-Ed from Amanda Hesser last Sunday about Michelle Obama missing an opportunity to talk up cooking. 

Our first lady has been an outstanding champion of fresh fruits and vegetables, of teaching our kids healthy eating habits that last through life by connecting them to food and where it comes from.  Surpassing any and all hopes and expectations, she has planted an organic garden on the White House lawn.  She has knelt in the dirt with her kids, and others’ and helped to grow her own food.  She has visited soup kitchens, and elementary schools.  Last week, she visited her young friends at Bancroft Elementary School. 

As reported on School Lunch Talk Michelle O. said that: “’kids can lead the way for us.’ And school lunch can help them do that. We need to make sure that “the food that our kids are getting in school each and every day is as healthy as it can be, so that we’re bringing some of these lessons home and we’re also expanding them in the classrooms and in the schools.”

What more could we ask for?!  Well, Hesser points out that Obama still hasn’t stood up and supported home cooking, thereby supporting common public perception that cooking is too time consuming, too complicated, and--that old chestnut--too expensive to be worth anyone’s time.  As Hesser says, “Because terrific local ingredients aren’t much use if people are cooking less and less; cooking is to gardening what parenting is to childbirth.”

[For more about how cooking from scratch is right for your pocketbook, read Chef Kurt Friese’s article “How I beat KFC’s Family Meal Challenge” on Grist, that also appears in this month’s Snail magazine].

Money for Farmers Ripe for Picking

by Slow Food USA intern Carol Dacey-Charles

The June 12 deadline is fast approaching for farmers and ranchers to apply for funding to support organic farming, as well as, forest and fuel management and energy conservation. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), part of the 2008 Farm Bill, offers “financial and technical assistance to farmers and ranchers who face threats to soil, water, air, and related natural resources on their land.”

So, what does this mean if you are a farmer or rancher following sustainable or organic methods and practicing land conservation?  It could mean a total of $300,000 over a 6-year period in moneys and support—we are not talking small change here! There are also provisions to aid beginning farmers and those who are socially disadvantaged or have limited resources with larger cost-share rates and the possibility of cash advances for purchasing materials and contracting.  The length of EQIP contracts may be from one to ten years, with most lasting two to three years.

So, what does all this mean to non-farming, but food-loving, local food eaters?  It means that there is government support for your cherished food-producers, but if they don’t use it—we all may lose.  That is how government funding works—if no one applies for the grants, our legislators figure that no one needed it, and they put that money somewhere else in the next budget.  We want to make sure that all that money is spent to encourage and support organic and sustainable practices to help conserve healthy farmland and produce more good, clean food.

What can you do to help?  Get the word out now to your local farmers and producers.  Send them to the EQIP website for more information and links to apply for funding in their state.  Email Tom Vilsack(), Secretary for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and let him know you support this funding and local, sustainable farming practices.  If you are a farmer or rancher—bless you—and get filling out forms and putting that money to use.

More info:

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition website offers a grassroots guide to the 2008 Farm Bill in a downloadable format.
For info on the Organic Initiative within EQIP, the ATTRA website has good resources.

Omnivore’s Dilemma, a banned book?

The blogosphere started buzzing last week with the report from the Chronicle of Higher Education that Washington State University had removed a required program for freshmen that included reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Was it politically motivated? Was one more landgrant school succumbing to the pressures of corporate agribusiness? The NY Times reports that the decision was purely financial, and that food safety wonk Bill Marler’s 11th hour check was enough to reinstate the program.

Not so fast, says Tom Laskawy, on Grist, who cites a bad actor on the school’s Board of Regents as the possible culprit in the book’s removal…

Either way, the book is back on the program.  And there’s nothing like a quick book banning scandal--real or imagined, true or false-- to fuel our passion for free speech.

Inside the Jonesboro Cafeteria: Bringing in the Money with Familiar Foods

Deborah Lehmann is an editor of School Lunch Talk, a blog about school food. She is currently studying economics and public policy at Brown University.

A few months ago, Hester Dye received boxes of beautiful, plump blackberries from the USDA. She was delighted — the berries were as big as her thumb — and she hoped her students would enjoy eating them for lunch.

But the kids in Jonesboro Public Schools, where Dye directs the school lunch program, didn’t touch the berries. Determined not to let the fruit go to waste, Dye and her staff made a blackberry cobbler. Still, half of it ended up in the trash. “They didn’t know what it was,” Dye said. “They weren’t familiar with it.”

Students’ familiarity with certain foods has always driven Dye’s menu. When she started working in the Jonesboro cafeteria 37 years ago, students ate home-cooked meals with their families, and that’s what they expected for lunch at school. Dye served soup, lasagna and meatloaf, because that’s what students were used to. Today, Dye serves students who have grown up with heat-and-serve entrees and fast food, and her lunch offerings have changed to accommodate their tastes.

“We’ve taken all the lasagna and meatloaf off the menu because the kids don’t know what that stuff is anymore,” Dye said. “They won’t eat it.”

Instead, Dye offers the items they will eat. Her menu runs heavy on mini corndogs, chicken nuggets and stuffed-crust pizza — the foods students are familiar with from restaurants and TV commercials.

More after the jump

Slow Food USA Volunteers Get Down and Dirty on the Farm

by Slow Food NYC Chapter Leader Sandra McLean

All over the country, Slow Food USA chapters are getting their hands dirty--whether by working on their own farms, or volunteering on other people’s.  On May 16th Slow Food NYC members got together to Dig in the Dirt at East New York Farms! in Brooklyn. East New York Farms! is a collaborative community project that engages kids and adults in order to address food issues in their community.  On this d twenty five volunteers helped the youth farmers kick off their 2009 growing season. We worked together for about 4 hours and proudly accomplished a lot. We weeded, mulched, sifted compost, dug trenches and generally got dirty.

It was uplifting to be part of creating change in a formerly blighted neighborhood that now is working towards having the biggest concentration of community gardens in the city. The change is palpable. All day long, neighborhood residents – adults and children alike - were stopping by the garden asking how they could become a part of it.

The Saturday farmers market starts in June and there will be a celebratory Harvest festival in September. At the farmers market, in addition to East New York Farms! selling the produce that they grow on the farm, neighborhood residents who grow vegetables in their yard, on their stoop or in a community garden plot can sell their produce. Anyone with a Saturday free, might want to take the trek out there and take part in the fun.

And this is just the beginning for Slow Food NYC (after all the growing season has just begun!)--our next farm volunteer day will be at Queens County Farm and Museum on June 20th.

(For all the details, go to http://www.slowfoodnyc.org).

High School Students Carve out a Future through the Culinary Arts

The first time I saw “Pressure Cooker” was at Slow Food Nation last Labor Day. It left me--and as far as I could tell every single other viewer in the theatre--in tears.  It follows three seniors at a Philadelphia public high school, charting their journey through a culinary arts curriculum under the wing of the hilariously blunt, tough-loving Mrs. Stephenson. The film has been making the film festival circuit for the past 9 months and will now be enjoying a theatrical release in several cities (scroll all the way down for schedule).  Here we sit down for an interview with Co-Directors Mark Becker and Jennifer Grausman:

SFUSA: What do kids get from culinary education that they can’t find elsewhere in their schools/lives?

Jennifer: Culinary education provides hands on training that can engage all of the senses – smell, taste, touch, sight, and sound. It combines creativity with practicality, and is a skill students can use in their lives now and in the future.  Culinary Arts also encompasses many other disciplines: reading, math, science, but presents them in a practical rather than theoretical way that appeals to many students.  In addition, the discipline of the kitchen adds structure to lives that may not have much structure, and teaches teamwork.

Mark: As for the students from Frankford, in Culinary Arts with Mrs. Stephenson, they are gaining access to a classroom unlike any other at their public school. They know that if they can perfect their crepes and tourne potatoes for Mrs. Stephenson, they can get scholarships and get out of Frankford. Mrs. Stephenson, through her irreverent and uncompromising manner, teaches the value of practice and discipline. There are seven sides on a correctly crafted tourne potato: Wilma helps the kids see that there is a serious upside to perfecting that shape. The patience, repetition, and focus necessary to tourne a potato are skills predictive of success inside and outside the kitchen. Wilma makes that abundantly clear.

SFUSA: What do kids gain by developing a relationship with food?

Jennifer: Some students develop a passion for food and cooking, some gain respect and understanding for the products used in the kitchen, and many learn about nutrition as they broaden their palate and modify their eating habits.

Mark: I felt like I witnessed a developing respect for process. The students at Frankford were learning to put time and care into an endeavor. In preparing even something as seemingly straightforward as an omelet there were several variables that could lead to success or disaster. They developed a rigor in their mentality about how to achieve results.

SFUSA: In the movie we see the kids eat home cooked meals and the food they cook in school--do they, like most teenagers, eat fast food?  Or has their culinary training made them less susceptible to the big draw of fast food? Did you learn anything about kids and their relationship to fast food?

Jennifer and Mark: Although Mrs. Stephenson’s students cook gourmet meals at school and often cook at home, they also consume a lot of fast food because of its low price and easy availability.  Also, several students work in fast food chains and often eat there for free.  Money and time are big factors when students are at school, doing sports, taking care of siblings, and working part and full-time jobs.  Mrs. Stephenson does try to broaden her students’ palates. In one of the scenes in the film, Erica (a 17-year-old) even chastises her family for not having a discerning palate: “You haven’t acquired the taste for anything but Fritos and Chitos.” And Erica believes in what she is saying, even though the food economy and culture around her can prove an overwhelming foe.

More after the jump

Agribusiness vs. University Dining Services

by Slow Food USA Intern Melissa Rosenberg

In 2007, Virginia Tech Dining Services (VTDS) was ranked #1 for Best Campus Foods by the Princeton Review, getting high marks for student satisfaction. Recognized for its outstanding work by food industry peers, VTDS received the prestigious 2009 Ivy Award, bestowed each year upon exceptional food service operations.

Hired as the VTDS Sustainability Coordinator in October of 2008, Andy Sarjahani jumpstarted an effort to support sustainable food systems by monitoring every aspect of its food services. In a short time, Andy and his team have implemented a vast array of initiatives: removing trays to decrease food waste, composting, and working with distributors, non-profits and local farmers in a variety of Farm-to-College programs.

In addition, VTDS began growing its own herbs in a garden operated by the Horticulture Department and switched from Pennsylvania-raised factory farm eggs to Virginia-raised organic cage-free eggs. While somewhat more expensive, the food does more than taste delicious: VTDS’ $8 million budget enables the university to significantly impact the state food and agriculture economy as it feeds 34,000 hungry stomachs each day.

In March, statewide attention was drawn to the changes in VTDS buying practices after the Humane Society of the United States issued a press release celebrating the changes. Since then, staff members have come under pressure from such agribusiness groups as the Virginia Farm Bureau and the Virginia Poultry Federation, among several others. The lobbyists are asking the university to scale back or cease its work on promoting awareness and access to sustainable food.

More after the jump