Fairfax County, VA
The information in the introductory slide show you watched on this site is drawn from the school lunch program in Fairfax County, Virginia - one of the wealthiest communities in the country, where many policymakers in Washington, DC live.

According to an article in the Washington Post on July 15, Fairfax County received an award as the nation's best school lunch program! .

The award came from the School Nutrition Association, the organization that bears most of the blame for the terrible state of school food! Be sure to look below the article and see the comments to the Washington Post that follow the article -- most are really scathing!

Meanwhile, please share our petition site with friends and with school age kids who might like to see some things change in their school cafeterias - even if they don't live in Fairfax. What happens there will later happen everywhere.

After you read the claims by the school about how healthy their food choices are, go back to the introductory slide show and look at slide #10 (the quesadilla ingredients). Then come back here and take another look at the actual ingredients in some more of their offerings. And imagine how a child with these chemicals under his belt manages to learn anything.

Here is the "treat" they serve at Thanksgiving. Additives such as artificial color, flavor, preservatives, or MSG are marked in blue, while various sugars are marked in red - and remember this is a main dish, not a dessert. Not quite a Norman Rockwell painting of Thanksgiving, is it? (Tocopherol is not marked because it is actually a natural preservative also known as Vitamin E.)

Sliced Turkey Breast with Gravy – Ingredients: Turkey Breast Meat, Water, Chicken Stock, Margarine [Partially Hydrogenated and fully refined soybean oil, water salt, mono and Diglycerides, whey, lecithin, Sodium Benzoate, beta carotene, Palmitate, artificial flavor], Wheat Flour – Enriched [Bleached and Enriched Wheat Flour (niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid)], Food Starch-Modified, Chicken Flavor [Hydrolyzed soy and corn protein, Salt, Sugar, Maltodextrin, Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed and Soybean oil, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Disodium Inosinate, Disodium Guanylate, Thiamin Hydrochloride (vitamin B1), Tricalcium Phosphate, Artificial flavor, Tocopherol (preservative)], Chicken and Vegetable Flavor [Hydrolyzed Soy and Corn Protein, Salt, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Maltodextrin, Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed and Soybean Oil, Sugar, Onion Powder, Thiamine Hydrochloride (vitamin B1), Disodium Inosinate, Disodium Guanylate, Spices including turmeric, Natural Flavor (contains celery)], Salt, Caramel Color, Spices.

And if the kids eat breakfast, here's one of the choices from their "award winning" program (notice that ingredients 2, 3 and 4 are all cheap sugars.

Pop Tart, Frosted Strawberry – Enriched flour (wheat flour, niacinamide, reduced iron, thiamin Mononitrate (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), folic acid), Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Dextrose, Vegetable Oil, (Soybean, Palm, Cottonseed and/or Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil with TBHQ and Citric Acid for freshness), sugar, cracker meal, contains two percent or less of wheat starch, salt, dried strawberries, dried apples, dried pears, cornstarch, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, monocalcium phosphate), Citric Acid, Milled Corn, Modified Wheat Starch, Beef Gelatin, Caramel color, mono – and diglycerides, sodium stearoyl, lactylate, datem, partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil, modified corn starch, xanthan gum, soy lecithin, Color added, Niacinamide, Reduce Iron, Red #40, Vitamin A Palmitate, Yellow #6, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Thiamin Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Folic Acid, Turmeric Color, Blue #1. (Less than 0.5g Trans Fat per serving. Contains wheat and soy ingredients.

Notice also that both of these very different items contain partially hydrogenated oils, meaning that they contain trans-fats, which are required to be labeled as trans-fats, but of course the children never see the labels. Oh - and one last thing: Please notice just how much strawberry is in this Strawberry Pop Tart: less than 2% ... there is more salt than there is strawberry!! No wonder they have to use gelatin and color it with Blue 1, Red 40, and Yellow 6!!