Bite me, Jamie Oliver

As I'm sure you've seen on ABC, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is setting out to "revolutionize" how Americans eat. This ticks me off for many reasons, but let's focus on just one, shall we?

In the first episode of "Food Revolution", Oliver visits an elementary school and proceeds to dissect the students' school-provided lunch. Of course, to him it is disgusting and unhealthy, and blah, blah, blah...his intent is to make anyone watching feel like a terrible parent for allowing their children to eat lunch from the school cafeteria.

It seems to me that chef Oliver is out to ruin the career of "lunchlady." These people are already work very hard and are usually under-appreciated, so why is he on a mission to make them feel even worse?

Public schools in America participate in a government-funded school lunch program. This means schools are provided with certain food items and are reimbursed for meals that they provide. But of course, since it is a government program, there are regulations! It is not a free-for-all when creating menus. Below is the info from the USDA website regarding nutritional requirements for school lunches:

School lunches must meet the applicable recommendations of the 1995 Dietary Guidelines
for Americans, which recommend that no more than 30 percent of an individual's calories
come from fat, and less than 10 percent from saturated fat. Regulations also establish a
standard for school lunches to provide one‐third of the Recommended Dietary Allowances
of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, calcium, and calories.
School lunches must meet Federal nutrition requirements, but decisions about what specific
foods to serve and how they are prepared are made by local school food authorities.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/aboutlunch/NSLPFactSheet.pdf

So every week/month/year, it is the job of the humble lunchladies to create menus that meet these nutritional requirements, are cost-effective, easy to cook in large amounts (and cooked with food provided from the government), and appealing to children ages 5-18. Could you do that? I didn't think so.

A group in Minnesota called "LUNCHPOWER" also set out to "revolutionize" school lunches. After much thought and consideration, they came up with these guidelines. Look familiar?

Their goal was to come up with a monthly school lunch menu that would average no more than 30 percent of calories from fat. They began by establishing criteria for maximum levels of fat and sodium. And, to make sure meals would provide adequate amounts of energy, they also established calorie requirements.

For the pilot test, they set a goal of having lunches average--over a 1-month period--no more than 22 grams of fat and 1,000 milligrams of sodium per day. The calorie goal was 550-800 calories per lunch.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1098/is_n3-4_v22/ai_14526578/

Wow, super good job, LUNCHPOWER. You copied the USDA guidelines. The important piece to grab from that quote is that each lunch should have 1/3 of a child's daily calorie requirements, which comes out to 550-800 calories.

Again, I would like anyone in my readership to create a lunch menu using the following guidelines:
-between 550 and 800 calories
-no more than 30% of calories from fat (that's an average of 22 grams of fat)
-1/3 of daily value of protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, and calcium
-appeals to children in grades K-12
-can be prepared in large batches and served quickly

Hmmm...something tells me you might end up with a slice of pizza (carbs, veggie, protein), a cup of orange slices (vitamin C, fiber), green beans (vitamin A, fiber), and a carton of milk (protein, calcium). All of these things can be prepared easily and in large amounts and can be served easily to students with a 15-minute lunch period.


So don't knock it until you've had to it! I'm tired of viewers/commenters saying things like "Oh, I'm never going to let my kid eat school lunch" and "I can't believe that! Don't they know anything about nutrition?" Yeah, they do, but they also have to get paid by Uncle Sam, so they do it in the most efficient way possible. We'd all love to see an organic salad bar or make-your-own stir fry, but it just isn't logical for a school setting. (And that's not even considering sanitation issues or the dreaded food-allergy police!)

To summarize, if you actually investigate the school lunch in YOUR child's school and find it unacceptable, then send them a PB&J. I lived on brownbag lunches for the majority of my childhood and that's just fine. But don't get all high-and-mighty over your school's lunch ladies. They're working hard--the women I work with are making lunch for 600 kids in about 3 hours, working at an hourly wage. You wanna trade places with them? I don't.

Two other important points I could not seem to weave into my "essay" above:

1. There are many kids eating school breakfast and lunch who do not get a meal anywhere else. They go hungry on weekends and in the evenings. To me, it is just important that these kids EAT, and less important how sustainably grown the food is

2. Chef Oliver had a segment on his show where students were quizzed on the names of vegetables. Obviously, they didn't know many or he wouldn't have put it on TV. News flash, parents: If your kid is 9 years old and doesn't know what a tomato is, it is not the fault of their school! Try parenting! It was another illustration of "how American education fails students" and it ticked me off. Teachers do enough parenting in a school day--do your part at home and throw some cauliflower on their plate, okay? And if you are such a helicopter parent that you are obsessing over what the school is serving, perhaps public school is not for you.