Lauren Howland
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Cafeteria school lunches have always had a dramatic visual component to them. The scene in the movie, “Billy Madison” has forever stuck out in my mind as the epitome of fearful food scenarios that you would never wish on anyone—even your worst enemy. During lunch, Adam Sandler sits with his 10-year-old friends at an endless rectangular lunch table. As they simultaneously enjoy their snack packs the lunch lady comes over to dump another melody of red and brown mystery ingredients onto his Styrofoam tray. As he starts to turn away she looks at him straight in the eye and in that evil-lunch-lady-laugh gargles out, “have some more sloppy joes—I made ’em extra sloppy for ya!” Sandler turns back to his new friends and chimes in, “lady you’re scaring us!”
Laughter ensures.
But the stereotypical lunch lady isn’t the only scary part about lunch in the public school system. With most schools constantly dealing with budget issues, many are left with little money to ensure that children are getting the nutrients their growing bodies need to help them concentrate throughout the day. Old regulations have left cafeterias with the option of serving French fries as vegetables and fatty ice cream for dessert.
More recently, parents and activist groups have been working hard to educate schools and help implement changes to alter menus to allow children to get the food they need. For instance, an anonymous teacher in the mid-west region of the United States has gained monumental fame for her daily blog and now website, fed up with school lunch.
This blog followed the teachers experiment to eat her school cafeteria food for 100 days. Each day featured a picture of the lunch, what it contained, and a brief review. As people gained interest, she expanded to include stories of people doing similar work, and constant updates on the fight to revamp the school cafeteria food system (The teacher resisted using her name on the commentary to relieve her school of the public embarrassment and save her job.) Similar pressure mixed with the rising levels of obesity in children has led some schools to take out ice-cream in vending machines and limit the amount of processed food intake by children.
In a recent New York Times article, a link between processed foods and the levels of ADHD in children was reported. According to the article, in a concluded report, staff scientist from the F.D.A wrote that while typical children might be unaffected by the dyes, those with behavioral disorders might have their conditions, “exacerbated by the exposure to a number of substances in food, including, but not limited to, synthetic color additives.” The article goes on to mention that many popular foods including Cheeto snacks, Froot Loops cereal, Pop-Tarts, and Hostess Twinkies contain artificial dyes. Many of these snacks are often for sale in vending machines or snack stations in schools—including the one I went to.
Although it seems a long shot that public schools will start serving gluten free organic meals daily, massive steps are being made to alter the situation at hand. John Herrman, a local science teacher and farmer at Ellis school in Fremont, NH, has taken grand strides over the years to bring local produce into his school cafeteria—with the help of his own students.
“People connect through food; they always do, at all ages. If not, you gotta connect people to their food,” said Herrman. “I’m proud to say that most of my students know their food doesn’t grow in a grocery store and it doesn’t come wrapped.”
With the help of a $5,000 grant from a local design company, Timberland, Herrman and 75 volunteers had a greenhouse built in just one day on the Ellis school property. He now teaches a class during the schools enrichment period that allows students to work in the greenhouse.
“Kids will come up to me and say, ‘what kind of eggplants are we planting today? Or ‘Mr. Herrman what can I plant next?’ It’s great,” said Herrman.
The crops they grow are then used in the school cafeteria. The first year they grew enough to hold a small farmers market that gained them sufficient revenue to buy seeds and soil for the next season.
“We put out a sign that kids painted. Imagine, a little seventh grade girl carrying a big wooden sign with hinges that she put on,” said Herrman. “All the girls learn to run a screw gun. It’s great, you teach them how to put a board together and they feel so empowered. They can take those skills with them throughout life.”
Last year the class supplied herbs for the cafeteria and this year they have an estimated 50 lbs of garlic growing around the school in raised beds.
“It’s great because it protects them from vampires—kids are into that,” laughed Herrman. “Students and parents will meet me in the summer to harvest all of that and they’re excited to do it.”
Herrman also held a field trip, which he will be doing again next year that incorporates his own farming field into his teaching. Students, parents, and administrators take the day to come down to his farm and plant a field together. After they work, the community makes pizza form scratch using Mozzarella cheese the students made and sauce that Herrman produced locally.
“It’s a total science lesson all day,” commented Herrman.
This year, the corporation Lowes granted the school project another $5,000 grant to help build a sustainable heating and cooling system for the green house. They also gave an additional $500 in cash to help expand the growing opportunity from pre-school through 8th grade. The school used the money to make eight more grow stations for the younger children to work with.
Most of the school cafeteriais not grown in the green house or down the road, but slow and steady progress is reshaping the way cafeteria food has looked in the past.
“Today was grilled cheese day,” said Herrman. “The cheese wasn’t local, the tomato soup wasn’t local, but it can be.”
This December the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act was passed and this means updated regulations for school lunches. For the first time since 1973, school lunch spending was increased—now allocating $4.5 billion or an increase of 6 percent. According to an article posted here, “New regulations will include more fruits and vegetables, whole grains, fat free and low fat milk, and a reduction in the sodium content of food overtime. The key is an increase in availability of healthy foods in a learning environment.”
With the help of this new bill and avant-garde thinkers, such as Herrman and other local food activist, hopefully the not-so-picturesque image of ‘sloppy joes’ and unidentifiable vegetable side dishes will dissipate into the background. The next generation will power onward with a more conscious understanding of where their food comes from—with the right amount of vitamins and nutrients to conceptualize it.
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