School food sucks....so I wrote a paper about it.
I'm actually pretty proud of it. Perhaps I'll turn it in to the school board. But probably not. lol
It was for speech comp, so we had to do a summary of the article, and then a response, which is the good part.The last part is the original article. Tell me what you think.
Summary
This article discusses the poor quality and nutrition of food in many of the nation’s public schools. It talks about what needs to be improved, and what needs to be done about it. Many schools receive food that is already prepared and covered with breading or glaze, and all the schools have equipment for is reheating the food. They do not have a way to actually prepare food, they just heat it. Since the food isn’t very good, students buy snacks and pop from vending machines, which isn’t healthy for them. This diet contributes to the well publicized obesity problem in the United States. Some school districts are taking steps to improve their food and bring in healthier vending machines.
As the authors say, “changing school food takes time.” It gives an example of a restaurant owner trying to help to improve the food. The district declined. This all happened over 10 years ago, and they are just now starting to fix the problem. This is a good scenario, too. Many schools are not even doing anything about it, and continuing to serve bad food, or even changing the menu, but still having bad food.
Response
I agree with a lot of this article. It makes many very good points, and I can relate to a lot of it. The food here at Valley isn’t exactly what you would call steakhouse quality. I think it was actually better last year. Common menu items include chicken bites, chicken bites with sweet and sour sauce, rubbery pancakes, and pizza. While some of this food isn’t that bad, it isn’t very good either. There usually isn’t much selection, and when there is, it is often two good items in one day. The other day, they served pizzatas and grilled cheese in the same day, so I had to stock up on good food while it was still there. It also looks like they might try to be cutting costs on the low quality food. Usually there is tomato soup with the grilled cheese and also several different kinds of fruit and other sides available. This time, it was just grilled cheese and burned broccoli.
The food can lead to a chain reaction. The food is bad, so students buy snacks like ice cream and chips, and this makes them unhealthy. As Texas Education Commissioner Susan Combs says, “We’re killing our kids with the food we serve.”
One problem is with the staff in the kitchen. They get low pay, and they are not trained very well. The equipment in the kitchen is of poor quality, and not designed for actually preparing food-just heating it.
Another problem is the serving sizes. According to the West Des Moines nutrition service food guideline (available at http://wdmcs.org/district/nutrition/guidelines.pdf), high school students receive the same amount of food as elementary school students do. It is extremely unlikely that a senior in high school would want the same serving size of food as a first grader. Both elementary and secondary lunches include just 2 ounces of meat or meat alternative (what is meat alternative?), 3 servings of grains/bread, and 8 oz. of milk. Elementary lunch includes ¾ cup of fruit/vegetables, and secondary lunch includes a full cup. This is the only difference between the two types, and yet they charge 20¢ more for secondary lunch than for elementary lunch. It might just be me, but I think they are just trying to leave us hungry, so we will buy food from the vending machines, so they get more money, with which they keep serving us food that is more than a little sub par.
I think we could solve this problem in a few relatively simple steps. First of all, the basic thing that is needed to improve lunches at all is money. An average lunch at a decent restaurant could cost anywhere between about $5 and $15. Junior high and high school lunch is $2.05. The lunches cost about a dollar to produce (according to this article), so the schools make about $1.05 from each lunch served. There are about 1900 students at Valley, so every day, the school makes around $2000 from lunches. This is nearly $360,000 every year. I don’t understand why this isn’t enough to improve the school food, but if we jacked the price up to $3.00 or even just $2.50, the school would make between $496,000 and $667,000. With this money, they could hire better cooks, get good, high quality, fresh food to actually prepare and cook on site, and redo the menu to include more healthy food, and also bigger servings.
I doubt that Valley or the West Des Moines School District will do this while I am still in the area, but it is always something to shoot for. It would also be a good idea for restaurant owners to consider building more restaurants near Valley if real estate becomes available, because until the food there changes, people are always going to want good dining alternatives.
Article
For Jorge Collazo, executive chef for the New York City public schools, coming up with the perfect jerk sauce is yet another step toward making the 1.1 million schoolkids he serves healthier. In a little more than a year, he's introduced salad bars and replaced whole milk with skim. Beef patties are now served on whole-wheat buns. Until recently, "every piece of chicken the manufacturers sent us was either breaded or covered in a glaze," says Collazo. Brandishing the might of his $125 million annual food budget, he switched to plain cutlets and asked suppliers to come up with something healthy--and appealing--to put on top. Collazo tastes the latest offering. The jerk sauce isn't overly processed and doesn't have trans fats. "Too salty," he says with a grimace. Within minutes, the supplier is hard at work on a lower-sodium version.
A cramped public-school test kitchen might seem an unlikely outpost for a food revolution. But Collazo and scores of others across the country--celebrity chefs and lunch ladies, district superintendents and politicians--say they're determined to improve what kids eat in school. Nearly everyone agrees something must be done. Most school cafeterias are staffed by poorly trained, badly equipped workers who churn out 4.8 billion hot lunches a year. Often the meals, produced for about $1 each, consist of breaded meat patties, french fries and overcooked vegetables. So the kids buy muffins, cookies and ice cream instead--or they feast on fast food from McDonald's, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, which is available in more than half the schools in the nation. Vending machines packed with sodas and candy line the hallways. "We're killing our kids" with the food we serve, says Texas Education Commissioner Susan Combs.
As rates of childhood obesity and diabetes skyrocket, public-health officials say schools need to change the way kids eat. It won't be easy. Some kids and their parents don't know better. Home cooking is becoming a forgotten art. And fast-food companies now spend $3 billion a year on television ads aimed at children. Along with reading and writing, schools need to teach kids what to eat to stay healthy, says culinary innovator Alice Waters, who is introducing gardening and fresh produce to 16 schools in California. It's a golden opportunity, she says, "to affect the way children eat for the rest of their lives." Last year star English chef Jamie Oliver took over a school cafeteria in a working-class suburb of London. A documentary about his work shamed the British government into spending $500 million to revamp the nation's school-food program. Oliver says it's the United States' turn now. "If you can put a man on the moon," he says, "you can give kids the food they need to make them lighter, fitter and live longer."
Changing school food takes time. More than a decade ago, when local restaurateur Lynn Walters lobbied school-board members in Santa Fe, N.M., to provide kids with --healthy alternatives to soggy pizza, they refused. So Walters and parent volunteers began an in-school cooking class. Armed with an electric griddle and a bag of fresh produce, they taught fractions using measuring cups and discussed nutrition over bunches of kale while concocting such lunch alternatives as spinach fettuccine and black-bean tostadas. The teachers loved it; so did the kids. But getting the entrees on the school menu was another challenge. The school kitchens there, like many around the country, were equipped to reheat food, not to prepare it. "I was passionate, but I was ignorant of the realities" the school was facing, says Walters, who got a grant to buy knives so the school cooks could at least peel and chop fresh fruits and vegetables.
Changing school food will take money, too. Many schools administrators are hooked on the easy cash--up to $75,000 annually--that soda and candy vending machines can bring in. Three years ago Gary Hirshberg of Concord, N.H., was appalled when his 13-year-old son described his daytime meal--pizza, chocolate milk and a package of Skittles. "I wasn't aware Skittles was a food group," says Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield Farm, a yogurt company. So he devised a vending machine that stocks healthy snacks: yogurt smoothies, fruit leathers and whole-wheat pretzels. So far 41 schools in California, Illinois and Washington are using his machines--and a thousand more have requested them. The schools don't make as much money. Kids spend about half as much on granola bars as they did on Fritos. But, Hirshberg says, "schools have to make good food a priority."
Some states are trying. California, New York and Texas have passed new laws that limit junk food sold on school grounds. Districts in California, New Mexico and Washington have begun buying produce from local farms. Las Vegas parent Terri Jannison says real change can be incremental. After three years of lobbying, the cafeterias there now sell reduced-fat muffins. The soda and candy in the vending machines have been replaced by juice and beef jerky. Doritos were banned, but then replaced by baked Doritos. "It's not perfect," says Jannison. But it's a cause worth fighting for. Even if she has to battle one chip at a time.
Tyre, Peg, and Sarah Staveley-O'carroll. "How to Fix School Lunch." Newsweek 146.6 (2005): 50-51. MAS Ultra - School Edition. 12 September 2006. http://search.ebscohost.com.
It was for speech comp, so we had to do a summary of the article, and then a response, which is the good part.The last part is the original article. Tell me what you think.
Summary
This article discusses the poor quality and nutrition of food in many of the nation’s public schools. It talks about what needs to be improved, and what needs to be done about it. Many schools receive food that is already prepared and covered with breading or glaze, and all the schools have equipment for is reheating the food. They do not have a way to actually prepare food, they just heat it. Since the food isn’t very good, students buy snacks and pop from vending machines, which isn’t healthy for them. This diet contributes to the well publicized obesity problem in the United States. Some school districts are taking steps to improve their food and bring in healthier vending machines.
As the authors say, “changing school food takes time.” It gives an example of a restaurant owner trying to help to improve the food. The district declined. This all happened over 10 years ago, and they are just now starting to fix the problem. This is a good scenario, too. Many schools are not even doing anything about it, and continuing to serve bad food, or even changing the menu, but still having bad food.
Response
I agree with a lot of this article. It makes many very good points, and I can relate to a lot of it. The food here at Valley isn’t exactly what you would call steakhouse quality. I think it was actually better last year. Common menu items include chicken bites, chicken bites with sweet and sour sauce, rubbery pancakes, and pizza. While some of this food isn’t that bad, it isn’t very good either. There usually isn’t much selection, and when there is, it is often two good items in one day. The other day, they served pizzatas and grilled cheese in the same day, so I had to stock up on good food while it was still there. It also looks like they might try to be cutting costs on the low quality food. Usually there is tomato soup with the grilled cheese and also several different kinds of fruit and other sides available. This time, it was just grilled cheese and burned broccoli.
The food can lead to a chain reaction. The food is bad, so students buy snacks like ice cream and chips, and this makes them unhealthy. As Texas Education Commissioner Susan Combs says, “We’re killing our kids with the food we serve.”
One problem is with the staff in the kitchen. They get low pay, and they are not trained very well. The equipment in the kitchen is of poor quality, and not designed for actually preparing food-just heating it.
Another problem is the serving sizes. According to the West Des Moines nutrition service food guideline (available at http://wdmcs.org/district/nutrition/guidelines.pdf), high school students receive the same amount of food as elementary school students do. It is extremely unlikely that a senior in high school would want the same serving size of food as a first grader. Both elementary and secondary lunches include just 2 ounces of meat or meat alternative (what is meat alternative?), 3 servings of grains/bread, and 8 oz. of milk. Elementary lunch includes ¾ cup of fruit/vegetables, and secondary lunch includes a full cup. This is the only difference between the two types, and yet they charge 20¢ more for secondary lunch than for elementary lunch. It might just be me, but I think they are just trying to leave us hungry, so we will buy food from the vending machines, so they get more money, with which they keep serving us food that is more than a little sub par.
I think we could solve this problem in a few relatively simple steps. First of all, the basic thing that is needed to improve lunches at all is money. An average lunch at a decent restaurant could cost anywhere between about $5 and $15. Junior high and high school lunch is $2.05. The lunches cost about a dollar to produce (according to this article), so the schools make about $1.05 from each lunch served. There are about 1900 students at Valley, so every day, the school makes around $2000 from lunches. This is nearly $360,000 every year. I don’t understand why this isn’t enough to improve the school food, but if we jacked the price up to $3.00 or even just $2.50, the school would make between $496,000 and $667,000. With this money, they could hire better cooks, get good, high quality, fresh food to actually prepare and cook on site, and redo the menu to include more healthy food, and also bigger servings.
I doubt that Valley or the West Des Moines School District will do this while I am still in the area, but it is always something to shoot for. It would also be a good idea for restaurant owners to consider building more restaurants near Valley if real estate becomes available, because until the food there changes, people are always going to want good dining alternatives.
Article
For Jorge Collazo, executive chef for the New York City public schools, coming up with the perfect jerk sauce is yet another step toward making the 1.1 million schoolkids he serves healthier. In a little more than a year, he's introduced salad bars and replaced whole milk with skim. Beef patties are now served on whole-wheat buns. Until recently, "every piece of chicken the manufacturers sent us was either breaded or covered in a glaze," says Collazo. Brandishing the might of his $125 million annual food budget, he switched to plain cutlets and asked suppliers to come up with something healthy--and appealing--to put on top. Collazo tastes the latest offering. The jerk sauce isn't overly processed and doesn't have trans fats. "Too salty," he says with a grimace. Within minutes, the supplier is hard at work on a lower-sodium version.
A cramped public-school test kitchen might seem an unlikely outpost for a food revolution. But Collazo and scores of others across the country--celebrity chefs and lunch ladies, district superintendents and politicians--say they're determined to improve what kids eat in school. Nearly everyone agrees something must be done. Most school cafeterias are staffed by poorly trained, badly equipped workers who churn out 4.8 billion hot lunches a year. Often the meals, produced for about $1 each, consist of breaded meat patties, french fries and overcooked vegetables. So the kids buy muffins, cookies and ice cream instead--or they feast on fast food from McDonald's, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, which is available in more than half the schools in the nation. Vending machines packed with sodas and candy line the hallways. "We're killing our kids" with the food we serve, says Texas Education Commissioner Susan Combs.
As rates of childhood obesity and diabetes skyrocket, public-health officials say schools need to change the way kids eat. It won't be easy. Some kids and their parents don't know better. Home cooking is becoming a forgotten art. And fast-food companies now spend $3 billion a year on television ads aimed at children. Along with reading and writing, schools need to teach kids what to eat to stay healthy, says culinary innovator Alice Waters, who is introducing gardening and fresh produce to 16 schools in California. It's a golden opportunity, she says, "to affect the way children eat for the rest of their lives." Last year star English chef Jamie Oliver took over a school cafeteria in a working-class suburb of London. A documentary about his work shamed the British government into spending $500 million to revamp the nation's school-food program. Oliver says it's the United States' turn now. "If you can put a man on the moon," he says, "you can give kids the food they need to make them lighter, fitter and live longer."
Changing school food takes time. More than a decade ago, when local restaurateur Lynn Walters lobbied school-board members in Santa Fe, N.M., to provide kids with --healthy alternatives to soggy pizza, they refused. So Walters and parent volunteers began an in-school cooking class. Armed with an electric griddle and a bag of fresh produce, they taught fractions using measuring cups and discussed nutrition over bunches of kale while concocting such lunch alternatives as spinach fettuccine and black-bean tostadas. The teachers loved it; so did the kids. But getting the entrees on the school menu was another challenge. The school kitchens there, like many around the country, were equipped to reheat food, not to prepare it. "I was passionate, but I was ignorant of the realities" the school was facing, says Walters, who got a grant to buy knives so the school cooks could at least peel and chop fresh fruits and vegetables.
Changing school food will take money, too. Many schools administrators are hooked on the easy cash--up to $75,000 annually--that soda and candy vending machines can bring in. Three years ago Gary Hirshberg of Concord, N.H., was appalled when his 13-year-old son described his daytime meal--pizza, chocolate milk and a package of Skittles. "I wasn't aware Skittles was a food group," says Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield Farm, a yogurt company. So he devised a vending machine that stocks healthy snacks: yogurt smoothies, fruit leathers and whole-wheat pretzels. So far 41 schools in California, Illinois and Washington are using his machines--and a thousand more have requested them. The schools don't make as much money. Kids spend about half as much on granola bars as they did on Fritos. But, Hirshberg says, "schools have to make good food a priority."
Some states are trying. California, New York and Texas have passed new laws that limit junk food sold on school grounds. Districts in California, New Mexico and Washington have begun buying produce from local farms. Las Vegas parent Terri Jannison says real change can be incremental. After three years of lobbying, the cafeterias there now sell reduced-fat muffins. The soda and candy in the vending machines have been replaced by juice and beef jerky. Doritos were banned, but then replaced by baked Doritos. "It's not perfect," says Jannison. But it's a cause worth fighting for. Even if she has to battle one chip at a time.
Tyre, Peg, and Sarah Staveley-O'carroll. "How to Fix School Lunch." Newsweek 146.6 (2005): 50-51. MAS Ultra - School Edition. 12 September 2006. http://search.ebscohost.com.
posted by Dan at 21:32
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