Oregon is one of four states in the nation that doesn’t provide any taxpayer dollars to fund the school lunch program. “We get $1.10 per day to spend on lunch for each student,” said Gita Sweeney, assistant director of nutrition services at PPS, at a Brewhaha panel hosted last night by the Bus Project and the Mercury.
A few cents more could make a big difference in what kids eat: right now they have pizza for breakfast. Could the day be near when they’re gnawing on produce and meat from a few miles away?
- L-R: Rep. Tina Kotek, Caitlin Blethen, Gita Sweeney, Heather McPhearson, and Ken Rubin
Also in attendance was State Representative Tina Kotek, who unsuccessfully tried to pass a “Farm to Schools” bill during last year’s legislative session, which would have allocated a few cents per meal to pay for Oregon agricultural products in breakfasts and lunches. The bill is still gaining steam.
Kotek described its reception in Salem as a “gushing lovefest,” but said that when it comes time to divert money from other projects, the votes are hard to find.
The truth is that locally produced food, prepared by hand in school kitchens, is expensive. “Labor-wise it costs more,” said Sweeney. “It really does.”
But, she continued, PPS is working to incorporate whatever local or healthy elements it can. “The one piece of equipment that we have in every school is an oven,” she told the crowd. “We’ve been very creative with what we can make an oven. I make PowerPoint tutorials to show the cooks how to make roasted vegetables.”
Gita Sweeney, by the way, has about the same job as this lady:
Thankfully, her attitude toward fruit and veg is more Pacific Northwest than West Virginia.
When fresh fruits and veggies aren’t available, the school district works to source relatively local products that can be served year-round. Heather McPhearson, a representative of Truitt Brothers, Inc., explained how her company supplies canned pears from the Willamette Valley and vegan chili to PPS for use year-round. But Truitt Brothers is a big company, and the school food is a minuscule percentage of its output: a five-hour run at the factory produces all of PPS’s chili for a year.
Meanwhile, some groups are working with kids to foster knowledge of where food comes from. Caitlin Blethen, the Youth Grow Manager at Growing Gardens, talked about how gardening programs get kids interested in the food they’re about to eat. Hitting low-income kids with food smarts is a priority: Mel Rader of the advocacy group Upstream Public Health noted that many “kids eat better on school meals than they do at home.”
Meals in schools are a complicated ballet of pricing, nutrition and federal accountability. There’s another, more immediate aspect: timing. “Kids in schools have ten or 15 minutes to eat,” said Kotek. “We need longer school days so kids can actually digest their food.” One thing at a time, Tina. One thing at a time.
Getting the state legislature to move could be easier than you think. One of the audience members said that she’d heard that just ten phone calls can really impress a legislator. Apparently they’re not so used to feedback from their constituents. Kotek confirmed that: “Ten calls or e-mails can really change the dialog.” So: feel strongly about food in schools? Look up your legislators and give them a call.
Good food is expensive, but is this actually an excuse for serving pizza for breakfast? I’m find it hard to believe that the people making the purchasing decisions are really unable to find something a bit more nutritional (and breakfasty) on the same budget…
I would ask A CAT to take a reality check and re-read her comments. Since when have professional nutritionists that work in the school lunch program become so dumb as to not know the definition of Child Nutrition? Speaking as a parent and grandparent that actually has had/continues to have school breakfast and lunch with my kids, your perception of pizza is not what is really being served in schools. It consists of a biscuit dough with white gravy, scrambled eggs, cheese and sausage, rather than the pepperoni pizza heart attack in a cardboard box such as that sold at Pizza Hut, etc. I find the meals serve to students not only nutritious, but the kids actually put it in their mouth and eat it. The problem that is looming is that people like you will push for the schools to serve foods that are so nutritious they have no taste and cost a lot more than what they are currently serving. The issue here is not to healthy up the meals to the point that the kids won’t eat them, it is to come to consensus on all of the things that are missing from the normal life of a child, like actually going outside to play, and learning how to make wise life choices. The children of today were taught their eating habits and life choices by their parents FIRST. By the time they get to kindergarten, the teachers and school staff spend most of their time “de-programing” these kids, so they will sit quietly in their seat and pay attention. Everyone goes on and on about what a poor job schools do with teaching kids. But it is conveniently overlooked that the foundation and basis for all learning starts at HOME. When parents stop introducing their kids to fast food fries during babyhood, and teach them they are not the center of the work, and they learn that they need to have good manners and not run around like crazy lunatics during class time or meal time, then perhaps we will begin to see a lot of our current issues go away.
Put money into programs that pay money to people for not having children. Say, $5000 a year that an adult over the age of 18 has no children, $2,500/year they have one, and $0 if they have two.
Overpopulation is the issue here. Overpopulation and religion are the source causes of the vast majority of the world’s ills.