{"id":247393,"date":"2010-01-29T15:36:49","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T20:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calorielab.com\/news\/?p=6801"},"modified":"2010-01-29T15:36:49","modified_gmt":"2010-01-29T20:36:49","slug":"fighting-obesity-at-the-school-level-%e2%80%94-what-lunch-looks-like-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/247393","title":{"rendered":"Fighting obesity at the school level \u2014 what lunch looks like today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that Michelle Obama has said that childhood obesity<\/a> is a grave threat to our national health and economy and has vowed to launch a public-private partnership to decrease the number of kids facing tons of future health problems because of their weight, it seems an appropriate time to take a look at the current state of school lunches. <\/p>\n

That’s just what Ed Bruske, a D.C. blogger and parent, recently did when he spent a week in his daughter’s cafeteria<\/a> and wrote about the experience.<\/p>\n

“Fresh” foods<\/h3>\n

On his first day at the newly renovated cafeteria<\/a> of H.D. Cooke Elementary School, Bruske witnessed some impressive improv. The school hadn’t received the ingredients for that day’s meal — which was supposed to be chicken patties — so food service manager Tiffany Whittington scrounged together “baked ziti” from frozen meat product, egg noodles, tomato sauce and spices.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

That’s at least somewhat better than the meals D.C. kids used to get, which were all prepared off-site and merely heated at their schools. But the company that runs food service in the D.C. schools, Chartwells-Thompson, recently moved away from preprepared meals in favor of what it calls “fresh cooked” options. These meals are either prepared on site or, in the case of elementary schools that don’t have cooking kitchens, at a nearby high school where they can then be transported to the school that needs them. <\/p>\n

But their idea of fresh cooked isn’t what most of us would consider to fall under the term. H.D. Cooke doesn’t have a stove — though there is space for one — as most of the “cooking” is actually done in steamer trays or convection ovens. <\/p>\n

Highly processed, industrial food<\/h3>\n

Contrary to the label of fresh, Bruske says the food he saw being produced in the cafeteria was largely highly processed for maximum efficiency in preparation. This makes the food cheap, fast and easy to prepare, but that comes at a cost. <\/p>\n

There are no fresh fruits and vegetables involved (the kids do get fresh fruit and vegetables for snacks<\/a>), and the food doesn’t have a lot of flavor. Whittington says she likes to add cheese for flavor, and there’s a bunch of it in her “ziti.”<\/p>\n

The food served in the lunchroom came from all over the country<\/a> and included plenty of additives, preservatives and sugar. But of course the foods kids bring from home<\/a> often aren’t any better, including things like Lunchables, canned fruit full of sugar and candy.<\/p>\n

And though this series of stories looks at just one school, this sort of scenario is repeated across the country<\/a> where the federal School Lunch Program provides subsidy foods and schools don’t have the budget, manpower or time to really cook for our kids. Here’s hoping Obama’s initiatives include a lot of support — and funding — for better, fresher, healthier and more local options for school lunches around the country.<\/p>\n

(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)<\/p>\n

From the RSS feed of CalorieLab News<\/a> (REF3076322B7)<\/p>\n

Fighting obesity at the school level — what lunch looks like today<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that Michelle Obama has said that childhood obesity is a grave threat to our national health and economy and has vowed to launch a public-private partnership to decrease the number of kids facing tons of future health problems because of their weight, it seems an appropriate time to take a look at the current […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2815,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2815"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}