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How to change a school's food program
As your child grows, his muscles, nervous system, vision system, and brain are all formed from the food he or she eats. Much of this food is provided by the school system. If your child deserves the best, make it happen.
Here is how a handful of concerned parents
changed a school system's food program.
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It may be possible in some communities to politely ask a food service director to remove harmful additives from a school lunch program, and have him/her agree to do it. In most communities, however, it is probably as likely as having the frog you kiss turn into a prince.This is an account of what happened quite a few years ago in Fairfax County, Virginia, a suburban area just outside of Washington, DC. Perhaps this information will prove useful for you as you set about to make positive changes in your community's school foods program.
In the early 1980's, I joined a handful of other concerned women meeting to see what could be done to improve the foods being served to school children, with a particular interest in removing the additives excluded by the Feingold Program (synthetic food dyes, artificial flavorings, and the preservatives BHA, BHT, TBHQ). In addition, the committee called for the removal of MSG (monosodium glutamate) and nitrites.
This work was inspired by the positive changes made in the New York City school system in the late 1970s, when Elizabeth Cagan took on the job as chief administrator. She required the foods served for breakfast and lunch in the city's 803 schools to have:
- no artificial coloring or flavoring
- no non-beneficial additives
- no carbonated soda
- only pure fruit juice
- whole wheat buns for hamburgers and hot dogs
Dr. Stephen Schoenthaler documented the dramatic rise in test scores as a result of the changes in the foods in New York. Despite the fact that there was no effort to change what the students ate outside of the school, their test scores rose from the 39th percentile on the California Achievement Test to above the 55th percentile. See the Schoenthaler study.
During this period, the National Parent Teacher's Association passed a resolution calling for good nutrition in school meals. The resolution recommended more fruit, vegetables and whole grains and less sugar, starches, additives and preservatives. The resolution, however, was largely ignored by schools.
Back in Virginia, letters were sent to PTA presidents, local politicians and members of the school board, explaining the group's goals. The politicians seemed willing enough to go along with the idea (Who's going to vote against giving nutritious food to children?) but feelings among the school board members were mixed.
Our group had already dueled with the county food service director in the local press, responding to her charges that "all natural food is grey, tastes like cardboard, and goes moldy before your eyes." Such comments attracted the attention of local radio show hosts and won both interest and sympathy in the community.
In view of the hostile response of the food service director, coupled with the lack of any strong commitment from other quarters, our best shot seemed to be to pester the School Superintendent and Board of Education,
by providing an overwhelming indication of community interest. Petitions were printed up and placed in libraries and health food stores throughout the county. This effort was reported in the local newspapers. Some of the librarians and virtually all of the health food store managers were enthusiastic. Stores kept the petition at the check-out counter, and asked customers to sign it. With very little effort, approximately 4,000 names and addresses were collected.
These petitions were photocopied and presented to the Board of Education in one of their meetings. The story was again picked up by the local press. The Board agreed to a 2-week trial in two area elementary schools, to take place the following spring. This would enable them to test an additive-reduced lunch, and determine both costs and student acceptance.
At this point, to our group's delight, the hostile director went on sabbatical leave and the acting food service director, Penny McConnell, took over. As she and her staff began researching foods, they became enthusiastic about the project and gained cooperation from the vendors. Being a large county, offering a good business opportunity for vendors, this wasn't as hard as it may sound.
By late spring the county was prepared to serve their special lunch in the two elementary schools. The menu was almost identical to that of the rest of the schools in the county (thus dissolving some of the myths about natural food). Student acceptance was very good, and the costs were only slightly higher (debunking two more myths). The slight cost increase was due to an error on the part of the staff; they thought that they had to use uncolored cheese. Less expensive bulk cheese, which is naturally colored, would have been acceptable.
In September the new "additive-reduced" lunches were initiated in all of the county's schools. A monthly menu noted the foods that still contained the undesirable additives (synthetic colors, artificial flavors, BHA, BHT, TBHQ and MSG) but there weren't many of them. The food service division also upgraded their breakfast program, preparing a number of items from scratch.
These encouraging changes took place in the space of about one year. Unfortunately, because of the lack of any oversight or continuing active supervision, the lunches slowly reverted to their earlier deplorable level. Today, as the quality of education in American schools has deteriorated to the point where school systems are finally looking for solutions, it is time again to look at the quality of what we are feeding our nation's children.
The information presented on this web site offers answers to the issues you will face as you work to make these important changes in your community.
As your child grows, his muscles, nervous system, vision system, and brain are all formed from the food he or she eats. Much of this food is provided by the school system. If your child deserves the best, make it happen.
For those who are nervous about making changes, it may be important to realize that most of the foods that are currently being served in schools could still be provided, but simply in a form that is free of the harmful additives. Here are some examples:
Some suggested menu guidelines
- Dishes like burritos, tacos and spaghetti can easily be made without MSG. Hamburgers should be made of 100% beef, with no extenders, and communities should not permit their children to be the guinea pigs for testing out irradiated meats.
- Deep fried foods can use oil that is free of the petroleum-based TBHQ (a preservative similar to BHA and BHT). Despite the bad press it has received from competitors, coconut oil is a versatile product that can be used for cooking and is an excellent source of medium chain fatty acids, something sorely lacking in the American diet.
- Most colored cheeses that are sold in blocks and slices use a natural coloring such as annatto. Synthetic dyes are generally added only to cheese sauce powders, as in macaroni & cheese mixes, but even here some mainstream brands use no synthetic dyes.
- Most canned fruits are available packed in their own juice, rather than a sugar syrup, and the majority of canned vegetables are free of harmful additives. Even fruit cocktail free of dyed cherries does exist.
- Whole milk is required as it is more likely to be free of the BHT often hidden in the vitamin fortification added to low fat and skimmed milks, but surely a dairy considering the entire school system as a customer can find a vitamin A Palmitate with a "natural" preservative such as vitamin E (mixed tocopherols) for their skim milks.
- At one time soft drinks were an occasional indulgence; today, unfortunately, they are the major daily beverage for many American children and teens. Besides the additives, artificial colorings, sugar and caffeine in such "empty calorie" beverages, they contain phosphates which remove the calcium from the bones of our growing children. However, pure fruit juices are not hard to find. They can be diluted and sweetened if desired, for an inexpensive punch. And don't forget the value of good quality water.
- Cookies can easily be made with natural ingredients. Prepared pudding without synthetic additives has long been available in supermarkets; the same is true for ice cream. Even when made from scratch, there's nothing complicated about pudding. It's a combination of sugar, cornstarch, milk and flavoring.
- Gelatin desserts served by most schools, restaurants, and institutions are a highly sweetened concoction of synthetic chemicals and acids, offering no nutritional benefits whatsoever. However, a similar but nutritious dessert can easily be made from fruit juice and unflavored gelatin.
- As for the breakfast meal, a variety of dry cereals without the undesirable additives are available. Acceptable frozen waffles are available as well, at the same price as the ones with artificial coloring. While most commercially available syrups would not be acceptable, and pure maple syrup is expensive, a simple and delicious syrup can be made "from scratch" by briefly boiling water, brown sugar and white sugar, and adding a little pure vanilla.
- In their breakfast program, Fairfax County cooks made scrambled eggs from .... well ... eggs. Attention was paid to the butter used for frying them.
- Fairfax County is one of the largest school systems in the U.S. Like the New York City system, they found it was neither difficult nor expensive to make the changes that brought a higher quality of food to the area's children.
