Somewhere along the way schools went to processed foods. When my kids were in elementary I did daycare and was on the state food program. What I served was regulated from food groups to varieties. It bothered me that my daycare kids would eat so well and I'd send my kids to school where they'd eat cookies for breakfast and fried corndogs and french fries for lunch. Finally, someone tried to do something about it. Michelle Obama stepped in and tried to take care of the childhood obesity problem by legislating eating habits.
Her plan was flawed from the beginning. Yep, I just jumped right in there. No matter how much I think schools should be serving healthy foods you can't force people. Her thought was that by forcing kids to take healthy foods they'd learn to eat them. That's not what's happened. Healthy foods are being served, healthy foods are being put on the trays, and healthy foods are going in the garbage. Let me explain what I've seen.
I've been job coaching at a local middle school. I'm helping a couple of awesome special needs adults learn how to work in a job place. They tend the recycling line. The kids bring all their wasted food through this line. The first day I was there I was shocked. When I got home I told Kevin that we could feed a third world country with all the food being wasted. On my way to work I turned on the radio and caught the tail end of a news report saying that Michelle Obama says (paraphrased) that while there used to be a lot of waste there isn't so much anymore because her program is catching on. I literally laughed out loud. When I got to the school I mentioned it to the head of maintenance (who dumps all the food). His name is Tim. (I'll put his last name in tomorrow. I forgot the spelling.) He was appalled and when he found out I was going to blog about the subject he asked me to quote him, saying, "I've worked here for 7 years and in the years that have followed the implementation of the healthy food regulations the waste has never decreased. The only difference is that now the kids realize they don't have to actually try the foods I don't have to pick up bites of apple off of the ground." He also said that he throws away between 150 and 200 lbs. of food per day. That is only food. No containers or other garbage as that's all recycled.
We decided to keep track of a few things today. Here are the results. Tim dumped 7 gallons of milk/chocolate milk. We counted 41 unopened milks (not included in the 7 gallons). We were unable to count all the whole apples and oranges and pears that were put in the garbage, there were too many coming too fast but my guess is a little over 60. They have these wonderful salads made of spinach, bacon, cheese and strawberries, similar to the pre-made large sized salads at Walmart but add a roll. They dumped 11 of them- literally untouched. Only the rolls were eaten. He dumped 6 bags at approximately 30 lbs. each- 180 lbs. (I should mention that he dumped 1 bag a day before the regulations.) As I watched kids throw away almost completely untouched lunches I wanted to ask them why they even bothered to take it. Of course I know the answer. They HAVE to.
Forcing kids to take food they don't want doesn't change their eating habits. My husband remembers "having" to take a helping of the detested peas at the dinner table. He did all sorts of tricks not to eat them. He did everything from hiding them in his underwear (thank heavens for tighty whities, right?) to throwing them under the table hoping the dog would lap them up before his mom found them. He'd still rather eat rocks than peas. Making him take them didn't eventually teach him to love peas.
How about this for a suggestion. Instead of spending 12 billion dollars a year on food that's largely wasted, put out less of the nutritious food and give kids a choice of whether or not to take it. If they really want those strawberries and the lasagna but not the other 2 fruit/veggies and the milk, then let them do that. With the money they save they can provide some fun PE classes so the kids are moving more, still helping the childhood obesity problem.
What frightens me is that we're teaching something and it's not good eating habits. It's that it's okay to waste. Can you imagine what the people of India or Ethiopia would do for that food? How much of it do you think they would waste? Heck, I'd rather send the excess to feed our own hungry than watch this waste happen with no responsibility. On infoplease.com it says we have 98,817 schools in the US. I'm unable to find the average US student enrollment but if I count our local middle school which is approximately 828, as the average size let's see what happens. We'll also go low and say we would only waste 100 lbs. of food each day, for each school. The US state average minimum days of school is 180. So 98,817 schools x 180days x 100 lbs. of food = 1,778,706,000 lbs. of food wasted in the public schools each year. This doesn't include summer school or the waste of the foods thrown out that's not wasted by kids (like the salad bars and all the extra entrees etc.). That's sad! It's infuriating, irresponsible and it shows a lack of gratitude not to mention that it's tainted with a sense of entitlement. I wonder how many pounds of food almost 2 billion pounds could feed?
I'd love to hear you "weigh in" on this matter. I don't mind listening to opposing views but please keep it respectful.
1 comment:
I'm not sure what the law says, our school doesn't seem to follow it. The kids are asked what they want and are able to choose which fruits and veggies they want. I hope this doesn't change.
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