School Lunches: Where’s the Broccoli?

Posted by Don Carr in Featured Articles, Food on March 11, 2010 | 15 responses

Special to AgMag from EWG Senior Analyst Kari Hamerschlag.

First Lady Michelle Obama’s noble fight against childhood obesity cannot be won unless members of Congress act boldly this spring and vote to give school lunches the healthy makeover that our kids deserve and desperately need.

Reauthorized every 4-5 years, the Child Nutrition Act supports a range of child nutrition programs, including school lunches and breakfasts, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (better known as WIC), summer meals programs and afterschool snacks and meals.

Unfortunately, the reality in too many schools is that the menu too often consists of such things as tater tots, French fries, hot dogs, pizza, and chicken nuggets — foods that do not inspire visions of health and wellness. And they certainly do not help the First Lady meet her goals for combating child obesity.

But they are cheap.

And cheap is the name of the game, given that schools typically spend just one dollar per meal on their food purchases (not including labor and overhead costs).

Not only are these unhealthy foods inexpensive, they are provided in abundance as “entitlements” by USDA’s Commodity Food Program, which purchases and distributes millions of dollars worth of pork, beef and other high-fat, high-cholesterol, and highly processed meat and dairy products to school lunch and other nutrition programs.

In 2008, the USDA spent 43% of its Child Nutrition food procurement “entitlement” budget on meat and poultry products, while just 23% went to fruits and vegetables. And of these, most are canned and frozen: Only 22% were fresh—In other words, just 5% of the total commodity entitlement budget went to fresh fruits and vegetables.

If this country is going to improve kids’ health and turn the obesity epidemic around, it must start by serving more healthful meals in schools, where more than 30 million kids develop eating habits that will last a lifetime. That means scaling back high-fat, high- cholesterol foods linked to type 2 diabetes, obesity and heart disease and increasing consumption of higher fiber and nutrient-rich fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes.

How do we get more fruits and vegetables into school cafeterias?

  1. Congress must provide enough money to buy healthier foods. Schools must be able to afford nutritious meals. As part of his commitment to eliminate childhood hunger by 2015, President Obama proposed a $1 billion per year increase in these programs in his 2011 budget. This is a good start, but a few cents more per meal is not nearly enough to meet the need for healthier, more nutritious food for the 30 million kids who eat school lunches.
  2. Require healthy foods. Congress should tie increased funding for school meals directly to guidelines proposed by the Institute of Medicine (IOM). These will ensure that schools provide more servings of fresh fruit, vegetables and whole grains. Otherwise there will be no guarantee that the increased reimbursement will actually pay for healthier food.
  3. Prevent subsidies from indirectly supporting unhealthy foods. A recent report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that federally subsidized meal programs are often underwriting the expenses of unhealthy food items that are available on a la carte menus and in vending machines. Better yet, Congress should keep schools from serving unhealthy foods altogether by increasing federal nutrition standards for all foods served in schools, including from vending machines.
  4. Support a robust farm-to-school program. This month (March), Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) introduced the Farm to School Improvement Act that would provide $10 million a year in mandatory funds under the Child Nutrition Act for grants to help schools buy healthy, fresh products directly from local farmers.

Farm-to-school programs are a huge win-win for kids, farmers, teachers, parents and the community.  Kids get to experience the joys of eating fresh, tasty fruits and vegetables and develop healthy eating habits that will pay health and wellness dividends far into in the future. Farm-to-school programs also give children a greater appreciation of where their food comes from.

Farmers also benefit. By cutting out middlemen and selling directly to schools, they can earn a higher return and keep more money in the local economy. While most farmers earn just 20 cents of every food dollar America spends, a farm-to-school farmer might earn as much as 60 to 70 cents of that procurement dollar.

Invest now, save later.

Amidst the current frenzy for fiscal restraint, we should tell Congress that we don’t want them to rein in spending on child nutrition programs, especially when increased funding is clearly linked to better nutrition and healthier food. Investing NOW in these programs will save billions of dollars down the road in avoided health care costs from diet-related diseases that are seeded early in the lives of our children.

  • Cliff Travis

    How much of the damage is already done and cannot be repaired regardless of dietary changes? Have obese or diabetic children already gone too far to really fix?

    I ask these questions not because I think that all of the above is a bad idea, but rather because I’m wondering how much it will help children that are already badly and systemically damaged. Will these steps act to moderate their conditions extremely effectively or not? And if not – we’re going to have a world of trouble on our hands (in terms of health care dollars spent) when they get older.

    Some of what I’ve read suggests that childhood obesity and diabetes are linked to the parents’ dietary and lifestyle behaviors before and during pregnancy. This implies that when a child is constructed in a compromised way, there’s no way to really fix it once the mold sets. What this says to me is that we might need to take more drastic measures than simply working over the school lunch program if we want people to have children with any significant amount of physical integrity and disease resistance.

    Any thoughts on what I’m saying here?

    RELEVANT LINKS:

    TITLE: “Boys and girls differ in genetic response to what mom eats – Placentas of female fetuses more sensitive to maternal diet”
    http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/57043/title/Boys_and_girls_differ_in_genetic_response_to_what_mom_eats

    Title: “Dad’s hidden influence”
    Subtitle: “A father’s legacy to a child’s health may start before conception and last generations”
    http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/9525/title/Dads_Hidden_Influence

  • Dr.Susan Rubin

    The Farm to School piece is more important than ever. Why?
    Because the planet is running out of cheap fossil fuel. Our current industrial food system is heavily dependent on lots and lots of cheap oil to grow, process and transport food ( and edible food-like substances!).
    Farm to school provides food closer to the source and will be essential to have as a framework for when gas prices hit 5,6 and $7 a gallon in the not too distant future.

    $10 million is a drop in the bucket! We need at least 20% of food to be sourced locally and we need gardens in every school.

  • Jackie

    I don’t think we should request government to just spend…spend…spend to assist schools with healthier school lunches, we need to go to the government to get them to quit subsidizing corn and soy which is an ingredient and most of the time a multiple ingredient in those cafeteria meals. How about the government subsidizing organic and field pastured farms? That could lower the prices of the “real” food.

  • bill jewell

    Real nutrition will allow our greatest asset , our children , to excel in the world to come . The food additives now in use ( excite o toxins } are a source of many learning disabilities and keep our kids “dumbed down “, as well as over medicated on behavior modifying prescriptions . Broccoli is a wonderful food provided it isn’t full of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides . The problem is much broader than what’s on the plate , it comes down to reel nutrition to support genetic building blocks in our children. Gluten , MSG , Pba’s growth hormones steroids and sub clinical antibiotics used in the corporate farms are killing all of us . our children are born “Toxed Out” Our cancer rates are higher than anyplace on earth . We must start today even if it requires us to grow our own food with heirloom seeds ( non GMOed ). We all need real nutrition !!!

  • bill jewell

    Real nutrition will allow our greatest asset , our children , to excel in the world to come . The food additives now in use ( excite o toxins } are a source of many learning disabilities and keep our kids “dumbed down “, as well as over medicated on behavior modifying prescriptions . Broccoli is a wonderful food provided it isn’t full of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides . The problem is much broader than what’s on the plate , it comes down to real nutrition to support genetic building blocks in our children. Gluten , MSG , Pba’s growth hormones steroids and sub clinical antibiotics used in the corporate farms are killing all of us . our children are born “Toxed Out” Our cancer rates are higher than anyplace on earth . We must start today even if it requires us to grow our own food with heirloom seeds ( non GMOed ). We all need real nutrition !!!

  • Patrick Rogers

    I would like to address some of the comments to the article:

    Cliff Travis:

    1. I’m not sure anyone who is interested in solving problems would be interested in your first solution – giving up because our children are too far gone. Of course, there are (we hope) generations to come, wouldn’t they benefit? (And of course we are in trouble when the kids get older.)

    2. Some of what you’ve read suggesting other causes does not suggest that those are the exclusive causes. If more drastic measures are required, wouldn’t this be a good start. (Beside the legislative problems involved in trying to take more drastic measures – see health care reform).

    Dr. Rubin (physician? just curious): The “Farm to School Piece”? What exactly is that? There are a variety of programs and you are suggesting another reason why we should implement those programs and I agree.

    Bill Jewel:

    1. What the hell is “real nutrition”? You use that term in a question-begging way, as if we all know what “real nutrition is,” but frankly I don’t understand. What exactly is wrong with genetic engineering? You would not be able to eat things like corn or almonds were it not for the “genetic engineering” of those foods hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Hybrid seeds have been around for that long, and all hybrids are “genetically engineered” because the genetic process has been controlled and adjusted by human intervention.

    What is proposed in the article are some good ways to improve nutrition in schools and I am all for that.

  • Wes Rolley

    One of the real problems is the fact that the economy is driving down the revenue available to the schools. Part of their economic solution is to take the kitchen out of the schools, centralize it or outsource it and have it delivered to the schools like military MRE’s. You might get lots of cheap calories, but far from a balanced meal. You lose the ability to do such things as to grow your own food, to prepare it on site so that at least some of it is fresh, or to allow the students to participate in anything other than consumption.

  • courtney

    Hi! I’m from Canada and so I don’t really understand why you have a lunch program, as we don’t have one here. Parents are expected to feed their children, and pack lunches for them. Most schools will have a snack bar, (granola bars/packages of peanuts, small yogurts) or some type of backup foods (apples and donated muffins) for those without enough lunch (or money for snack bar). And it is the Parents Org. that decides what is for sale in the snack bar (there have been candy bars in the past!) None of us (globally) trust our governments explicitly, so why do we trust them with the feeding of children when their bottom line is money and not nutrition, or love. Is it possible for Americans to take back control of their children’s lunches or is the governments hands in there too deep?

  • Sarah

    Courtney, I live in Canada too but I grew up in the U.S. I have a daughter starting kindergarten this year and at first I was surprised that the schools here in Canada don`t all have cafeterias as every school I attended in the U.S. as a child, from elementary through to high school, had cafeterias. I thought it was an inconvenience to expect parents to have to pack a lunch every single day. However after reading this article it makes me feel better about it, because in actuality the school cafeteria lunches are indeed mostly junk food. When I was a child in the 80`s I remember our school lunches consisting of the usual garbage – canned vegetables, pizza, chicken patties or nuggets, chocolate milk, burgers and hot dogs, etc. I see not much has changed in the last 20 years. So I do feel good especially now as an enlightened parent that I can at least control what my child will be eating and provide her with healthy options rather than having someone else decide that for me. It is worth the hassle of planning, preparing, and packing lunches every day.

    And as to your question why there are school lunch programs in the States, I believe it`s because there is more poverty in general in the States than in Canada and a lot of parents can`t afford to pack lunches everyday for their children, let alone healthy and nutritious ones. Without school lunch programs a lot of these kids would probably go hungry and not have a lunch at all. For that I do support the school lunch programs, however there is clearly much room for improvement.

  • Cliff Travis

    Hi Patrick –

    I’m not disagreeing at all. In fact, We’ve got our own little project going in an effort to help our small sphere of friends start making better dietary choices. If our circle of (adult) friends could even do something simple to change their dietary habits, that would go a long way to helping their children and future children to make a successful transition as well. And it would go far to insure that new babies don’t start with an automatic disadvantage since they’d be born healthy to begin with.

    Our simple project to help friends change:
    http://simpossible.wordpress.com/

    The thing is – I’m concerned that changes to the lunch program are not going to be enough (based on the science that’s coming out), and that another significant root of the problem starts with the adults before the babies are even born. What’s the point of having a compromised child the minute it enters the world?

    So don’t get me wrong – this program is absolutely a step in the right direction, but there needs to be a lot more changes on top of this if we’re going to get parents and especially “prospective parents” to start following suit. Having babies born healthy to start with is at least as important (and maybe more so) as/than cleaning up their diet in lunch programs.

    Inspiring work here btw:
    http://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver.html

  • Chef Michael McDermott/Eat Right Internaitonal, Inc.

    Great Article… here’s the but..

    How is Farm To School going to move the product from the farm to the school…

    Arizona has a law non that schools cannot buy more than $5000 worth of produce from a farm that has not had all its personnel e verified. So now said school district, basically cannot buy from local farms… What does Farm To School have to say in that regards…

    The reality is, where is the money that Farm To School will prospectively receive going to go? They have NO infrastructure in place, to my knowledge, that can move the produce from said local farms to the schools… Also what does the school do if the crop that have contracted for fails…

    Solutions need to be more well thought out, practical solutions.

  • Beth

    Sarah and Courtney,
    I live in the US and I have to agree with you both. Why we expect the government to feed children during the day is beyond me. I pack lunch for my children. We do occasionally buy school lunch but I never feel that my children are getting anything close to nutritious on the rare occasion they do eat cafeteria food.
    The argument can’t be made that the provided lunch is for parents who can’t afford food, the truly poor are already receiving welfare to buy food and I’ll bet lunch is included in their stipend.
    I like the idea of having healthy food available in case someone forgets lunch or parents do not provide. But the disgusting fare that is put on the trays during lunchtime is hardly a value – in taste, cost or nutrition.
    If we insist upon keeping lunch programs in the US, we should have more to say in what is served. The lobbying of the farm industry and the allocation of money for subsidizing is shameful.
    Parents need to become more aware and involved in their children’s diet and nutrition, the importance of and the reality of how it affects behavior, health and academics.

  • Elizabeth B

    My son’s elementary school doesn’t have a full kitchen. The cafeteria manager would love to be able to cook healthier foods but doesn’t have the necessary equipment.

  • Criss

    Beth: “welfare” or food stamp programs do not include sufficient money to purchase healthy food for the family. To eat truly healthy I rely on my son’s school’s breakfast & lunch programs — that takes a burden of 40 meals a month off my plate so that I might eek out a little more healthy food for the rest of the month. I don’t want to spend that money on “cheap foods” but here in NY state I can’t take $200 a month and feed 3 people 3 square healthy preferably organic or whole-grain based meals a month.

    Farm-to-School: most schools and many other institutions across the US contract from a single company — I believe it is Sysco. Many schools have partial kitchens suitable for bulk-heating of essentially TV dinner like meals for the children (inmates, retirees, etc.). One good thing about local farms is that their food doesn’t go to the same big possibly-contaminated processing plants, however there is the possibility of localized contamination of crops, and both windfalls and shortfalls of produce. I think it would be a great idea for schools to contract on several CSA programs (shares of farmer’s crops) throughout their area and at least supplement the foods they get wholesale with some local produce. If you want the children to eat it, though, the best thing I can think of to do is have them prepare it. I think it’s a shame that real life skills are often neglected in schools — most children will eat and enjoy something they prepare themselves.

    Bagged Lunches: this is a problem in addition to the expense as children will often swap their healthy meals for other children’s junk meals. Sending your child to school with food is no guarantee that they’ll eat what you gave them. And that becomes a potential food allergy nightmare in some cases. Just because you’re allergic to nuts doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t trade your bologna & cheese for your friend’s whole-grain nut-containing bread roast beef & cheese sandwich.

    Bagged lunches are a great idea in theory. I guess it works out fine in Canada, but there’s times I can barely manage to feed my children on a weekend, much less all week, and school vacations are a financial nightmare. :(

    [As to why I have internet if I'm struggling with money so much -- I work online, so what money I do make depends on me maintaining my internet connection.]

  • Scari

    I’m sorry but Criss, you have a lot of excuses.

    I have been laid off and my family has been on a tight budget for several months now. You don’t have to buy mangoes and kiwis to give your child fresh food on a budget. Apples and oranges can be found on sale and buying fresh brocoli, carrots and celery is not a hardship. I have learned to clip coupons and look at sales flyers for what I can find on sale.
    It can be a struggle to feed children healthy foods, however a salad can be thrown together for the same cost as a frozen dinner.
    Janie Oliver is starting a show Revolution which shows families and schools how to provide healthier foods. Feeding children shouldnt be a nightmare, the processed foods and preservatives is a nightmare. I can tell you are in a hard time, but take some responsibilty and not make so many excuses. Everything is a choice.