Angry Moms Want Better School Lunches
Angry Moms Want Better School Lunches
Watch the video:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/AmericanFamily/story?id=2707243&page=2
Two Moms Went on a Cross-Country Quest to Find Good Food
Dec. 7, 2006 — – It’s no secret that school cafeterias aren’t exactly havens of healthy food. Usually, hamburgers, french fries, and chocolate chip cookies are accepted as lunchtime staples.
But two New York mothers got so fed up with the junk food in school cafeterias that they decided to do something about it. Filmmaker Amy Kalafa and dentist Susan Rubin banded together to form Two Angry Moms, a group dedicated to finding healthy alternatives to cafeteria food and helping other parents demand change.
Kalafa and Rubin sat down with “Good Morning America’s” Robin Roberts to talk about their quest and the documentary they recently made about it.
Rubin’s career made her fully aware of the junk food her children were getting at school.
“I was a dentist for 14 years and when my first child went to school, she would come home with wrappers from all this candy and junk food, which I thought was completely inappropriate. That’s how I got involved.”
At one point, Rubin was even banned from her daughter’s school cafeteria.
“The school made a rule that I was not allowed in the school cafeteria unless I had got prior approval from the principal and the food-service administrator,” she said. “But I found I was not getting anywhere with my PTA so I went outside to get something done.”
Reform Spreading Through Lunchrooms
Kalafa and Rubin traveled the country to look at school districts that are getting fresh, healthy food into their cafeterias.
In Berkeley, Calif., they found chef Ann Cooper, who is working with local farmers’ markets to provide fresh food to schools. She serves lunch to 10,000 kids a day and has gotten rid of all packaged food.
A food-service director in Peterborough, N.H., provides a great example of what a dedicated food-service staff and community can do. Despite the chilly New England climate, he’s still able to get a lot of food from local farms.
In Riverside, Calif., a school installed a salad bar, but the brown lettuce and canned vegetables turned off the students. By using locally grown produce and working with local farmers, they got children hooked on greens.
These types of programs, called farm-to-school programs, are growing. But many school administrators claim that they don’t have money to provide fresh food because of a lack of funding.
“We can’t afford not to,” Kalafa said. “Our kids are getting fatter and we are spending twice as much on health care as we are on food. It’s a case of pay now or pay later.”
What Parents Can Do
Kalafa and Rubin offered tips for parents who want to improve the food served in their children’s school.
Look at what your children are eating. Find a way to meet your child for lunch at least once.
Get involved by starting with your PTA. Show up at the next board of education meeting. Remember, the point is to come together on this issue, not to be adversarial.
I agree that there is a lot of very bad food in school cafeterias, and kids are naturally drawn toward the fried foods & sweets. There are some businesses out there that are addressing this problem among our youth. My husband and I have recently become distributors of a great product called Swirl. We are happy to be associated with Swirl because the product is 100% fruit juice, fortified with Vitamins C, A, D, and Calcium. The juice becomes slushy in our granita machines, and the kids go crazy for it. Although Swirl does contain sugar (of course, since it’s fruit juice), it is fat free, caffeine free, cholesterol free. Several of our schools in the Central Ohio area pulled out their pop machines this year to be more aligned with the Wellness Program. Unfortunately, it seems like school dieticians are having to do a lot of “shopping” and research to be able to convert the school lunches into healthy ones, but Swirl is a great option and we are happy to help, if only in a small way.
I want to tell you about a very special food service director at Plum Borough School District in Pittsburgh. One of the moves she made to improve nutrition involved replacing french fries with carrot sticks. The kids understood why, but the move wasn’t all that popular, based on the carrot stick food waste being generated. To entice the kids to eat the healthier alternative, she offered a ranch dip. A subsequent nutritional audit gave her high marks for many of the changes she put in place, and the carrots became more acceptable although the audit also noted that the high fat dip was off the charts as to fat content.
She switched to a low fat dip and “nearly had a riot” on her hands as a result. The search was on for a low fat dip that didn’t taste like a low fat dip.
She discovered a natural fat replacement ingredient gel made from the fiber of grain. It repalces a portion of the fats in most food preparation with zero calorie fiber. Her dips and mayonnaise now taste the same or better than the full fat versions, and the kids are pleased. They are eating the carrots and the dip and she is finding ways to incorporate the Z Trim fat replacement ingredient into other standard menu items. Simple solution, simple product that works; it’s just natural dietary fiber processed into a gel that mimics fat.
She says it also helps to assure that she’ll meet her nutritional guidelines for participation in the USDA school meals program.
Dr. Mehmet Oz sings the praises of Z Trim on page 90 of his new bestseller, “You on a Diet.” If you could remove the unnecessary fats and calories from a kid-favorite recipe, add some dietary fiber in the process, and not change the taste of it, where is the down side? More schools should be going this route.