Vegetarianism is good for the environment--so
let's force it on kids!
Oakland schools partnered with the environmental group Friends of the Earth (FOE) to fight global warming by making student lunches climate-friendly.
FOE gave kids a lunch menu designed to eliminate foods it says are “unsustainable for our planet.” The new menu features far less meat and more plant-based food. Any meat or cheese the school did use came from “pastured, organic dairy cows.” The student’s lunch menu went from beef hot dogs and pepperoni pizza to vegan stir fry tofu and vegan tostadas. The new FOE-approved menu served meat and cheese-less frequently and reduced the portion sizes.
Tofu? Does anyone
really like tofu?
“This is a landmark moment for school food,” Jennifer LeBarre, head of nutrition services for Oakland Unified School District, said in a FOE press statement. “We were so excited to see how the data showed that we could reduce our carbon and water footprint by serving healthy, delicious food –– like the vegetarian tostadas with fresh made in-house salsa, that kids absolutely love –– all while saving money.”
It's ok to force this on your own kids, but it
should be criminal to force this on other people's kids.
This is the problem that also happened with Michelle Obama's program to get all the foods to healthy versions: Kids are going to throw most, if not all, of it out and waste so much more food. I'm not sure what the right balance is because I think it's also bad to just give kids hot dogs and pizza and fries for lunch all the time, but going the other extreme will just leave kids hungry and irritated.
ReplyDeleteI don't accept the dichotomy--either healthy yucky-tasting food or unhealthy good-tasting food. It's possible to have the best of both worlds!
ReplyDeleteThe new standards already don't provide enough calories for active high school athletes. We have young men literally begging other students for more food because the current regime says students don't need more calories than allotted by the Federal government guidelines. As a result, students have resorted to bringing all kinds of junk food to fill up on during classes. What is more, the imposition of rules that eliminate vending machines-even those machines that offer sports drinks and healthy snacks like nuts, granola bars and such, have resulted in loss in revenue that was often used to pay for school activities and scholarships as well as putting a local vending machine business out of business for good--losing a good number of jobs in the area. Multiply that by districts across the nation and you see where this kind of mindlessness leads.
ReplyDeleteA couple of comments. I like tofu, assuming it is fried, Vietnamese style which makes it slightly crusty on the outside.
ReplyDeleteWith the emphasis on being vegetarian, what is going to happen to the students who may be or develop an allergy to soy products? My former boss was allergic and she had a very hard time avoiding soy and soy protein.
I'm an omnivore, but tend to like cut back on my meat protein sources. I also have some issues with soy products (not allergy) and trying to find non-soy, not meat protein products is a challenge. I have found one brand that isn't and I eat their chicken nuggets 3 times a week.
In Oakland? Wut?
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone else see the disconnect?
My nephew goes to school in Santa Monica and has a community service class. Today they had someone from the city come in to talk to the students. He talked about trying to force people into electric cars and talking about whether it is better to fine people who don't or bribe people who do. He said if they bribed people with $2500, then the feds would pay the city $7500, and they'd come out with $5000! Yippee!
ReplyDeleteI suppose the bright side was that they preferred bribery to punishing their citizens.
There are many days I really hate living in this state.
Community service class? I guess it's ok as an elective, but I've written before about community service as a graduation requirement. My two favorite posts on the subject are
ReplyDeletehttp://rightontheleftcoast.blogspot.com/2011/03/community-service-as-graduation.html
and
http://rightontheleftcoast.blogspot.com/2008/12/backing-off-community-service.html
I would be happy to see the end of the federal school lunch program, along with an explicit statement that parents are expected to feed their kids. Failing that, schools could provide the rice, protein powder, vitamin etc dish that is made into packets for disaster relief - and it tastes good.
ReplyDeleteMy kids wouldn't eat school lunches, with the occasional exception of freshly-made cheese pizza at the ES that made them to freeze for distribution to other ESs - in addition to lunch from home, usually. They were all full-time elite athletes from very young ages and would have been fainting in the halls on the Obama lunches (which they would not have eaten, anyway). By MS, teachers were generally good about letting kids eat in class, as long it was something neat and didn't interfere with work. Lots of kids were in the same situation of needing to eat 3-4 hours before practice, and lunch periods often didn't fit.