This guy wants to give Texas schools the "freedom and liberty" to ignore nutrition science and obesity

"This guy" is the Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Sid Miller, a Tea Party Conservative and staunch advocate of "freedom" and "liberty."  He wants Texas schools to be able to choose whether or not they want to allow deep fat fryers back into schools.  And he wants restrictions on sodas removed.  And he wants to double the number of days that schools are allowed to sell junk food for school fundraisers.  

He believes that it is a local jurisdiction's prerogative to decide what is healthy or not.  Because of course the functioning of the human body varies from locality to locality, right?  Why should we listen to nutrition science, when all we really need to know about health can be found in the treatises of Hayek and the party platforms of the Tea Party?  Of course, most schools don't give students the "freedom" and "liberty" to not go to school, nor is there generally other options for food, but really, why should we be concerned about making all the kids of Texas a captive audience for Mr. Miller's fried fare?

Perhaps the one consolation one can take is that this is really more political stunt than serious policy proposal.  Because of the federal regulations on school food, there's little chance that such proposals would produce reimbursable meals.  Most sensible adult Americans don't think that fried food and sodas are good for kids, even though they eat such things themselves (as do I).  But school food is different; it's a teaching tool, too.  And, on the financial side, even the Tea Party wouldn't want to do without the many millions of dollars that subsidize actually healthy school meals.  But it got Mr. Miller in the news.  And here I am to helping to spread the word about how principled he's trying to be.  You're welcome, Sid.

More context on the "school lunches around the world" phenomenon

Both The Lunch Tray and Mother Jones (who quotes extensively from Siegel's blog on The Lunch Tray), give a compelling argument for why we need to be cautious about taking at face value the stories and web galleries that purport to show how fantastic other countries' school lunches are compared to those in the US.  I've been guilty of spreading these images, too, but as I have said, I don't really get the fascination.  Perhaps there's some notion that other countries haven't succumbed to processed food, that elsewhere they are holding onto their slow-produced, scratch-cooked meals featuring all sorts of real, organic food.  The two stories I referred to in the first sentence above remind us that this wishful thinking just isn't true.

In my travels looking at school food in Anglophone countries--England, Australia, and South Africa, there's certainly a lot of interest in getting kids better food.  But in all those places they struggle with the same Western diet we do.  Pizza in English cafeterias, even after all of Jamie Oliver's struggles.  Candy in Australian canteens and loads of hungry kids who get no subsidized lunch.  Variations of corn mush in township schools in South Africa.  In the private schools there they eat better, but still lots of access to junk.  That said, I've seen better versions of school food, too.

It's a good reminder that school food is complicated and suffers through local, national, and even transnational politics before it takes the form it does on the plate.  Picture galleries aside, the US has much to be proud of, and it has much to learn, as well.

School Lunches Around the World, but in Video Form

I have to admit, I've never quite understood the fascination in the media about school lunches around the world.  There are slideshows of them all over the place.  Why so much attention?  What do viewers take away from such compilations?  What I tend to take away is how much more real the food is outside of the US.  So much highly processed fare!

This one is interesting in that it is in video form, so you see the components put in place.  A well produced piece.

The New York Times Takes on Domino's Brand Loyalty Campaign

A newspaper article I'm quoted in on the use of school lunch data in the public vs. private school debate

Click here to read the story

School Lunch Identity Politics in a Boy's Backpack Choices

Lunchtime is sometimes just the venue for many other politics playing out in the social world of the school, quite apart from the food.  Here, a young "brony" is bullied and gets blamed for it because he crossed the acceptable bounds of masculinity.



School Bully Concerns - WLOS News13 - Top Stories

Thinking outside processed food in urban schools: What Minneapolis is Doing

Will Ferrell and Michelle Obama do a focus group

A refreshing perspective on controversies over throwing away lunches

I don't have any opinion on the veracity of her claims to why she was fired, but I do very much appreciate this principal's attitude toward what the lunch service is there for.  Particularly good moment when she says that it's about mindset, and that too many people look at these kids as "freeloaders" rather than kids who deserve to be fed.  It's a community problem in loads of communities, and I think she's right that we have to have conversations about how to fix this that aren't only about finances.

I know that the School Nutrition Association has been working hard on so-called "charge policies," and it's time that the USDA and Congress step up and work with them to come up with humane solutions.  Not that I want to give extreme conservatives another opportunity to call poor kids deadbeats, but hopefully the more reasonable voices will carry the day.  We adults need to solve this without involving the kids AT ALL--no hand stamps, no having to carry letters, no trays thrown away, no cheese sandwiches to punish them until the money comes in.  It's not their fault or their responsibility.

Georgia Congressman Kingston and hypocrisy

It's been a while since I posted, part of which I blame on being chair of my department these days.  But this video makes me want to post.  It makes me want to post for a lot of reasons.

First, I think this is good reporting.  Yes, it has a certain gimmicky flavor to it: "You don't like free lunches but you get them yourself!  Gotcha!"  But better than that, this report shines a light on the dealings that go on out of sight of the public for national politicians.  They spend thousands and thousands on lavish meals and get treated to lots more free.  Kingston doesn't want his constituents to know that.  It makes him look privileged, and that's quite different from what he wants to be seen as.

So what does he want to be seen as?  Well, I grew up white in the South myself, and I know race-baiting when I see it.  The coded message here is not anything to do with work ethic.  This message speaks to the resentments of middle class Southern whites who are constantly told by Republicans (and some Democrats) that their money is being taken by African Americans and Hispanics who are too lazy to work for themselves.  Never mind that the vast majority of the kids on free and reduced school meals have parents who work (and likely much harder than the Congressman).  Never mind that the middle-class white kids in the cafeteria didn't pay for their meals, either (their parents usually do).  No, we are meant to imagine a freeloading welfare queen's kid living it up on taxpayer-funded tater tots.

I personally hope that the Congressman isn't simply ignorant of the truth of the National School Lunch Program.  I think I prefer to believe he's being disingenuous, trying to curry favor with his resentful class of backers.  Surely he must know that the National School Lunch Program is named after a Senator from his own great state of Georgia, Richard B. Russell, one of the framers of the original legislation.  It was taken on by Russell and colleagues in the 1940s as a way to prop up Southern agriculture, which it still does.  Yes, that free lunch for kids is paying for the free lunches at a fair few agricultural industry corporate headquarters in Georgia.  Whenever they grow too many peanuts or pigs, rather than eating the losses in a financial sense, the surpluses gets taken off of their hands and sent to the mouths of hungry kids.

For shame, Congressman.  You're either uninformed, disingenuous, or miserly.  Rather than wrap it up in talk of trying to start a dialogue on work ethic, just get educated on why everyone took such offense at your statement.  And maybe hanging out in a school with their hungry kids would make you a better Congressman; after all, hanging out at your free swanky lunches with dignitaries and donors hasn't done the trick.


 

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