So, back when I talked about my initial meeting with Rep. Burkett about recess and HB3770, I didn’t divulge the whole story.
What I didn’t mention, was that I had actually asked her to file two, yep two, bills. She said yes to both. Many of you have been reading this blog since the beginning, and you know that reforming school lunch is another huge priority of mine. You may remember HealthyTara, the Chicago senior, who took on her school district and ARAMARK when they wouldn’t give her the school lunch ingredients. Being mom to a child with severe food allergies, I joined her fight for school lunch ingredient transparency.
In addition to a recess bill, I asked Cindy Burkett to file a bill mandating schools make full ingredient disclosure and nutritional content available to parens. Any parent of a child with severe food allergies will tell you, they have to know the ingredients. Further, any parent of a child concerned about their child’s health wants to know the nutritional content of the food they eat.
Long story short, Cindy and her staff drafted and filed both bills. (Thank you!!) The recess bill came back with a fiscal note stating no anticipated cost. The ingredient transparency bill came back with one stating there would be a cost. Although, I can’t imagine why…by law, schools already have this information, so letting parents see what they already have should not cost anything. Regardless, Cindy called me and was very honest and forthcoming about my options. She told me that the House had made it very clear they did not want to pass any mandates that would cost schools additional money. She said she would still keep the ingredient bill in the game if I wanted, but that she didn’t think it would have much of a chance with the current education budget climate. I agreed. I made the decision to not go forward with it this session for a couple of reasons. One, I am fully aware of the food industry’s lobbying power. I was not prepared to take them on in such a short amount of time. And two, I really wanted my school lunch blogging friends to be a part of the process. I knew that Dr. Susan Rubin, Mrs. Q, and Bettina over at The Lunch Tray would help make sure the bill had everything right. A bill this important needed to be perfect: researched, detailed, and not rushed.
So, you can imagine my newly refreshed disdain for the USDA when I was forwarded this Associated Press article by practically everyone I know. I’m sure you are already familiar with it. It’s the one about the $2 million USDA research grant that will take pictures of school lunch in Texas using high-tech cameras and highly sophisticated software. (clearly, not the only thing “high” around here…)
Some key quotes from the article:
Researchers hope parents will change eating habits at home once they see what their kids are choosing in schools. The data also will be used to study what foods children are likely to choose and how much of if they’re eating…
Here’s how it works: students are assigned lunch trays with a unique bar code. After the children load up their plates down the line — mashed potatoes or green beans? french fries or fruit?
{big, big sigh..} OK. Ready for it? Here we go:
This (apparently) just in! Texas elementary school cafeterias are not free-for-all buffets. While the last thing I want to do is defend processed school lunch, I will, however, defend our lunch ladies. Our kids are not loading anything onto their own plates. Why? Because they aren’t the cafeteria workers and allowing them to do so would be unsanitary. Plus, a school in Texas will not allow a child to take mashed potatoes and french fries on the same day. More importantly, you should understand that kids are choosing between what is being served at school. How can you expect them to choose something healthy if it isn’t there? Last, but not least, Texas already has restrictions on portion limits…no picture neccessary, just ask the lunch lady.
When lunch is over and the kids return their plates to the kitchen, another camera takes a snapshot of what’s left on the tray. Software then analyzes the before and after photos to calculate calories consumed and, according to Trevino, a report of nutrients in the foods.
I wonder how Dr.Trevino plans to get the “actual” nutrients without my bill? Because each school gets their food from different suppliers, the nutritional content and ingredients will vary.I also wonder how excited the cafeteria is to take the time and effort to make sure each kid gets his or her assigned tray…while keeping the lunch line moving.
The grant from the USDA will fund the study for four years. Trevino said the coming school year will be very experimental, with programmers fine-tuning the cameras and imaging software to accurately identify what’s a pear and what’s an apple.
Obvioulsy, I’m no scientist (although I do like to play one on my blog) and my idea is hardly “sophisticated”, I would just like to throw this idea out there…
My nutritional content and ingredient bill + the school lunch menu + asking your child “what did you eat today?” =
a hell of a lot less than $2 million dollars.
Example: “Hey junior, I’m looking at your school menu. It says they had apples today. Did you get an apple or pear? An apple? Yes, that makes sense. Did you eat it?”
Ta daaa!! Please make that $2 million check paid to the order of “just a mom in mesquite”.
Now, I understand you may be unwilling to hand that money over to me. If that’s the case, I will suggest the following not-so-crazy ideas:
1. Take that cash, purchase an actual kitchen for those schools and cook real, healthy meals from scratch for the kids. Take a picture of the kids before the healthy food, and then four years later…after the healthy food. Record their behavior, weight, and test scores during that time. Show the improved results to the parents. Once they see that their kids do like healthy food, they may want to adopt the same healthy diet. Plus, when kids ask for food like the kind they eat at school…it will be a good thing. #winning
2. Take that two million dollars and donate it to the local food bank.They can turn that money into 8 million meals for hungry children here in Texas. Especially since,
Five San Antonio elementary schools will take part in the program. Researches selected poor, minority campuses where obesity rates and students at risk for diabetes are higher.
Seriously USDA? You and these researchers intentionally hand-picked poor, overweight, minority children at risk for diabetes? And you think a four year, $2 million photolog scrapbooking “How your kid became overweight and diabetic~in pictures” is a good idea? What the hell is wrong with you? You don’t think poor parents already know they can’t feed their kids better? You want to give them pictures of their financial short-comings in action?
3. However, since you seem to have already committed to this food-o masochistic plan…
Give one school a kitchen and feed those children non-processed lunches made from scratch. Help them plant a school garden and encourage hands-on parental involvement. Show families and children how to transition into a healthy lifestyle. While they do that, continue taking pics of the other four schools’ lunches. Instead of just adding up the calories (since that doesn’t really matter), add up the amount of additives those kids are eating with their processed food. Factor in the lack recess time. When the four years are up, parade the healthier kids around in front of the un-healthy kids’ parents. Tell the un-healthy kids to hold up those pictures of all the crap you allowed them to “choose” at school…include a list of all the non-food ingredients they ingested. Have the parents analyze the results. Tell them you thought a photoshoot would be better than feeding them well.
Now, run for the hills. Once parents realize that you are using their kids as lab monkeys under the guise of “counting calories for your own benefit”, they’re going to get pissed. You are “research scientists”…you know what’s making our kids un-healthy. You also co-incidentally chose a community with a high hispanic population. I have a feeling you took into account the higher probablity of parental language barriers with a greater chance they are under-educated about food choices.
Not cool.
