My Critique of Michael Pollan: School Lunch

Fallacies and illogical judgments should always pave the way for a good rant. The conclusions that Pollan draws, can easily be rebuked leaving him without credibility and a vegetable short of a complete meal. For a number of years there has been a push to purchase local produce. Schools could always purchase locally by using applicable wording when submitting bids. Regardless, September of 2009 “Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan today announced a new initiative to better connect children to their food and create opportunities for local farmers to provide their harvest to schools in their communities as part of USDA's "Know your farmer, know your food" initiative."

Mr. Pollan states the government dumps food on schools “that is very fatty, high in salt, highly processed.” The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is strictly regulated by USDA guidelines  specifying requirements for meals served to students. For example, under these USDA guidelines, a standard 6”sandwich from Subway, with all its’ fresh vegetables and freshly baked  bread, would not qualify for a school lunch. Some of the requirements  to meet the USDA guidelines:

§  contain no more than 30 percent of calories from fat;

§  contain no more than 10 percent of calories from saturated fat;

and provide one-third of the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs)

 for calories, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, and calcium.

Pollan’s rant is disingenuous as he states, “Most school lunch programs in America are a scandal”, “A disposal system for surplus agricultural commodities”, “School cafeterias no longer have kitchens, they have giant microwaves, so they are utterly dependent on processed foods”.

 The NSLP operates 101,000 schools providing 31 million children daily in 2010. There are programs that need to be investigated, most are decent and numerous  programs are outstanding. I would rate the government commodity program an 8 on a scale of 10. The website for commodities has a complaint section and my assumption is that it is not flooded with complaints. I am an advocate of a free market system, thus I oppose farm subsidies. That does not correlate to schools being a dumping ground for farmer’s unused products. Does Pollan think school workers would be complacent in accepting “crummy” government commodities?

 It is somewhat true that schools no longer have kitchens. Today, the prevailing concept is to build a central production site and satellite meals out to the surrounding schools. This is a strictly a financial decision as equipment and labor is drastically reduced at each school. Instead of having a fully equipped facility, the kitchen usually is outfitted with a refrigerator and freezer. Labor is reduced from a full staff to a few part-time workers. The savings on benefit packages is huge, not to mention workers compensation and hourly totals. The trade-off is the quality is not at the same level as a meal cooked on-site. There are also products which cannot be shipped as those products do not hold in transporting. The giant microwave reference is one for the ages as it is so hysterical. (see Phyllis & Lois).

For more nutritional information regarding school lunch visit the following links:

http://www.healthyschoollunches.org/background/nutrition.cfm

http://www.schoolnutrition.org/Content.aspx?id=6926

PHYLLIS & LOIS

Phyllis & Lois

The day in the life of a "lunch lady"

We have to produce 900 meals today.

                                                                             Ok

                           We have to make them in 2 hours!

                                                                            

                                                   Ok

                                                                                                                                                      

How can you remain so calm?

Because we have a Bickford 2000!

For those individual not familiar with school food service equipment, this is a Bickford 2000.
A "Giant Microwave."

Today's Social Media

I am currently taking a course at Penn State, Web 2.0 and Learning. This course encouraged me to start this blog. Recently, we studied some of the Web 2.0 tools that are available to us. I decided to cut and paste part of the syllabus, then to explain the impact of these tools. “Web 2.0 tools and social media are becoming an increasingly more pervasive part of our daily lives. From online social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogs, etc., to collaborative platforms such as Wikis, Diigo, Youtube, etc., technology tools are allowing individuals to move from consumers to prosumers of information, and allowing individuals to become active participants and creators of content and content dissemination.” Individuals who have teenagers or go online understand some of the ramifications of the new age media. 

I Goggled “school lunch” and was not surprised by the many videos depicting school lunch as unacceptable. That is no different than the hundreds of blogs from soccer moms ranting about unhealthy school lunches. I selected a YouTube video of Michael Pollan: school lunch. There were many to pick from and selected the one which was a little less offensive.

There will be a divided audience of opposing opinions regarding this video. Let me state my opinion (since it is my blog). School lunch gets a bad rap. Schools have some really miserable programs with individuals who have agendas which are not in the best interest of students. Having said that, I've been in school food service for 16 years and have seen hundreds of accounts with good food service programs. It is easy to make the news with  bad programs. It is just as easy to ignore good programs with people who have committed their lives to feed students with nutritional meals. I will critique Micheal Pollan's video on my next post.

EDTEC498A: Emerging Web 2.0 Technologies and Learning

In other news today, health costs continue to rise and prescription medication is at an *all-time high. Is it a stretch to say that “We are what we eat”. If we connect the dots of eating unhealthy foods for decades, the results are high blood pressure, obesity, or ailments resulting  in prescription drugs and increases in health insurance. Last week I walked around the halls of my organization carrying a baggie containing 18 packets of sugar. I would proudly show this prize to anyone who made the effort to look in my direction. I proceeded to tell them it represented a 22 oz. cup of soda (actually, it is 17 ¾ packets, I was trying to avoid a mess).

As I step down from my soapbox, I reflect that I have an opportunity to create change, at least in my community. If we educate our youth on eating healthy, they have the knowledge to make an informed decision. One of the avenues to communicate that message will be done through the electronic media. Today's youth is attracted to the Internet like a magnet.  That is the means to reach our youth and move the program in the right direction. Without the youth's influence, the program will move lethargically. My hope is that I have not bored you and that you might be curious to log-on to my next post or ask a question.

http://pharma.about.com/od/Sales_and_Marketing/a/The-Most-Prescribed-Medications-By-Drug-Class.htm

School Lunch

          School lunch, was the original quick service food establishment, and it has lost its’ way. Society evolved, trends came and went and the school lunch program became a follower versus a leader. When family revenue became more wanting, the nutritional content of meals started to decline. The two working parents eliminated the time to provide the home cooked meals that were the staple of our families a generation ago. It became too easy to pull the frozen entrée out of the freezer and zap it in the microwave and presto, dinner is served. On many occasions, we jump in the car and head off to that quick serve restaurant, you know the one, it has Carrot Top  as it’s mascot. I’m not lecturing, as I am as guilty as the next person. To make matters worse, schools started contracting with these quick serve establishments to provide lunches for the students. What were we thinking? Not only were they not nutritional, we lost innovation, and profit. But hey, the “lunch ladies” could keep the stains off their whites.