Did you watch? Jamie Oliver's new show, Food Revolution, began last Friday. I did, and I'm hooked. It's no secret that school lunchs leave a lot to be desired. It's time that everyone sees how unhealthy they truly are.
I work in a school that has almost 70% of the students qualifying for free/reduced lunch. This means they also get breakfast. For far too many, these are their only two meals of the day.
Guess what they eat. The favorite choice for breakfast is pop-tarts and for lunch, it's french fries.
We've been working on eating healthier at home. Buying meat and eggs from a local butcher who only buys from local farmers. He has a huge sign up in the store that none of their meat has any additives or hormones added. I choose to believe. We buy regularly from the farmer's market when produce is in season here. The pickings got light over the winter, but I canned a lot of our locally grown apples and froze bags and bags of fresh corn. Next year, I plan to preserve even more.
This year Jim is talking about putting in a garden as a project for him and Sera. I told him you grow it, I'll cook or preserve it.
We're far from perfect with this, but we're trying. Ice cream is much too regular a part of our diet and those Girl Scouts made a few bucks from us, but we're working hard to improve. Too many children don't have these opportunities.
Can you imagine a 5 or 6 year old child not being able to identify a tomato? I can see not knowing what a beet or an eggplant is, but a tomato, a mushroom, or a potato? That is one of the things this show highlights, and it's appalling.
We wonder why so many schools are struggling to educate our young?
Maybe their brains are starving from lack of nutrients?
Update: Another link you may find interesting, Fed Up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project.
Labels: my thoughts, school, Television
4 Comments:
I watched and I am hooked also. We are trying to eat heathier. I find that it is a process that is hard and long. I have been reading food labels and researching what some of the items are. It makes me wonder why they feel the need to put certain things in our food.
What did you think when he made the chicken nuggets? Although he said they are not allowed to make them that way here I was grossed out! Chick-fil-A will be the only nuggets that I will be eating. I used to work there and know that they are made 100% from boneless chicken breast.
It should be intersting to see if this show will really change school lunches.
I was just wondering why choose a 'local butcher/farmer' VS... what?? and/or why? I guess I dont understand the full impact of perservatives. Do you have a link that might explain the downside/benefits of the preservatives?
I think it's AWESOME you're going to plant a garden!!! I sure wish we still had our house and I could too. I used to love planting my small garden on the side of the house. Oh well. Maybe again someday..... But hey! Good luck with yours and make sure Sera gets to put the seeds in the dirt! Kayson used LOVE to do that and watering them. Then we'd go out (what felt like every 5 minutes asking) once a day to check to see if anything has grown. I know we had SO much fun doing it. I hope you have an awesome experience with it and grow some good veggies!!
Oh my lands... I just wrote about this tonight, to be published tomorrow. Great minds and all. *grin*
Did you read about "pink slime" a couple of weeks ago? Umm... personally I found that even worse than Jamie Oliver's chicken nugget experiment... and that's difficult to do.
We watched (and made our 10 year old watch as well). I explained that this is WHY we don't eat at McDonald's more than once or twice a year when we're traveling. She can be picky (she doesn't like anything with a sauce), but what's amazing about those lunches is that she'll eat baked chicken or ham at home, but doesn't like it at school. Now we know why! I applaud Jamie Oliver for what he's doing, but boy, it's sure is a big goal.
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