Federalism is bad because a principal won't turn off his vending machines?!

One of the things that makes school food political, of course, is that it makes so much money. The other is that there are always fights over who will get to make decisions. I make this point in my article in Educational Researcher and in the introduction to School Food Politics: The Ecology of Hunger and Feeding in Schools Around the World. These two things interact, of course, in that control over policy comes with control over the money, usually. Conservatives of a particular stripe resent any control over the money and prefer that local schools do whatever they want with the food served in schools. Here's GOP Representative Rob Bishop of Utah talking about why federalism is bad just because two principals got busted for clear, avoidable violations of a longstanding rule about competitive foods. They got busted, by the way, by state inspectors. Yes, Rob, the states monitor compliance with the rules. And, the rules are there to protect the federally funded program that is feeding actual nutritious lunches to the kids at those schools. If the schools were allowed to make money during lunch off of vending machines, the program for giving healthy food wouldn't be able to survive financially. Ask those schools how they would feel if the funding for the program and the commodity products used were just left up to Utah to provide. The schools could opt out of the program (not all schools use the National School Lunch Program), but what would that do in terms of "punishing" the kids at that school? If you want the federal funds, you have to turn off the vending machines at lunch; it's very simple. If you don't want the millions in federal funds, and you'd rather get the couple hundred dollars the machines would make during lunch time each week, by all means keep them on. It's still a local choice, no federalism problem involved.

NPR's exploration of the 26-ingredient school burger

Me talking about food on TV

My University's television program decided to do an interview with me about my school food research. Here it is:

http://www2.und.edu/dept/studio1/videopages/12-01-11/stories12-01-11.html#guest1

Colbert on the Victory of French Fries Uber Alles

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Food Day is just around the corner

A coalition of groups are sponsoring Food Day on October 24. Hopefully you'll spend a small part of that day (and eventually lots of others) thinking about the food system and your place in it. Or maybe write your legislators that day and tell them to put in place laws and supports that make a sustainable and healthy food system a reality.

Resistance to healthy food from parents

Debate on whether we should have healthier school food?

If you personally just don't want to have to pay for poor kids to eat, say so. Don't mask your opinion behind the rhetoric of freedom from government. No hungry kid wants to be free from government interference in their diet.

Greenville, SC schools make investment in better food culture

Here's a great example of a school district with a progressive attitude: invest time and training and it will benefit kids. As the accompanying story says:

"The lunch period will now last longer as well, because students will be spending time at salad bars for example. Principals in the program have agreed to extend the lunch period from 20 to 30 minutes. That's time the district says isn't wasted because it's still a learning experience.

'When children come to the cafeteria, they are not coming to lunch, it is not a break in the day, they are coming to a nutrition lab where they are learning to make healthy choices,' said Sharp."

Kudos to these forward-thinking educators from my home state!

School Food Politics is in print!

Sarah Robert and I are proud to announce the publication of our co-edited collection, School Food Politics: The Complex Ecologies of Hunger and Feeding in Schools Around the World. It is available from Peter Lang Publishers.

See information at http://tinyurl.com/3bje9q8

The essays in School Food Politics explore the intersections of food and politics on all six of the inhabited continents of the world. Including electoral fights over universally free school meals in Korea, nutritional reforms to school dinners in England and canteens in Australia, teachers' and doctors' work on school feeding in Argentina, and more, the volume provides key illustrations of the many contexts that have witnessed intense struggles defining which children will eat; why; what and how they are served; and who will pay for and prepare the food. Contributors include reformers writing from their own perspectives, from the farm-to-school program in Burlington, Vermont, to efforts to apply principles of critical pedagogy in cooking programs for urban teens, to animal rights curriculum. Later chapters shift their focus to possibilities and hope for a different future for school food, one that is friendlier to students, "lunch ladies," society, other creatures, and the planet.

What impact does the cafeteria environment have?

Here's a really interesting and fun video from England's School Food Trust showing the results of their recent contest to do "school canteen rescues." It gives a great look at English school food--culturally different in interesting ways. It should give everyone pause, though, to consider issues like environment as well as involving kids in making school food something they want.