Friday 19 September 2008

common sense about school lunches

Ann Cooper talks school lunches: "Speaking at the 2007 EG conference, 'renegade lunch lady' Ann Cooper talks about the looming forecast that today's kids will be the first to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents, and our subsequent waking up to a revolution in the way kids eat at school -- local, sustainable, seasonal and even educational food.

"Ann Cooper cares -- a lot -- what kids eat for lunch. As the head of nutrition for Berkeley, California, schools, she serves organic, regionally sourced and sustainable meals to lots of lucky schoolkids. Ann Cooper believes we were feeding our kids a path to our extinction, and has set out to change our thinking about school lunches.
"We send these kids to school to learn. When we send them there to eat bad food, that's what they learn ... and what's happening is our kids are getting sick."
Here's an example: What if, Ann asks, "what if we had lunchtime recess before the meal?" eh? eh? Kids get de-stressed and hungry, and the only reason to cut short the meal is to scurry back to classrooms?? You think they would? Does that make astounding sense, or what. Know any schools that do it that way? I rest my case.