School Food Reforms: The Meat Pie Pushers

Posted on October 18, 2006 by Gerald Pugliese
Last week The New York Times took a look at how students were reacting to recently enacted school food reforms in tri-state area schools. If you remember, some students were encouraged by the new menu offerings, but others were more resistant. Marcelle S. Fischler explains:
“It’s a good idea because obesity and all that is a serious problem,” Max Gold-Landzberg a senior at John Jay High School in Cross River, N.Y. said. He wasn’t enticed, though, by the healthier choices on the hot food line like herb-roasted chicken and stir-fried veggies.
Fischler points out that those students uninterested in the healthier cafeteria food simply brown-bag their lunch. I very passive protest indeed—I mean its not like they had their moms hustling burgers through chain link fences outside the school. That would be crazy, who’d do a thing like that?

The English. You’d expect something more dignified out of our friends from across the pond, but it’s true. According the Sarah Lyall of The New York Times students in England are not accepting school food reforms without a fight, and neither are their parents:
“They shouldn’t be allowed to tell the kids what to eat,” Mrs. Julie Critchlow a parent at Rawmarsh, a high school in south Yorkshire hills, said of the school authorities. “They’re treating them like criminals.”


Mrs. Critchlow has become a notorious figure in Britain. In September she and another mother — alarmed, they said, because their children were going hungry — began selling contraband hamburgers, fries and sandwiches to as many as 50 students a day, passing the food through the school gates.

The mothers closed their business after they were vilified in the national news media as “meat pie mums.” Mrs. Critchlow now feeds her children lunch at home.
Apparently Mrs. Critchlow thinks “meat pies” and “chip butty’s” (a French-fries-and-butter sandwich doused in vinegar) are better nutritional options for children than low-fat pizza and beef curry; two of the new “healthier” menu options Fischler cites in her article.
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School Food Reforms In Action

Posted on October 11, 2006 by Gerald Pugliese
Few would argue that our nation’s obesity epidemic is not wreaking havoc on public health. In fact, just this month numerous articles hit the wire illustrating the consequences and complications of being obese. Don’t believe me? Check out DiseaseProof's obesity archive for posts like these:
All this worrying about obesity has brought prevention of childhood obesity to the forefront. Prompting many schools to overhaul the food they serve to their students. Gone are the potato chips, ice cream, and white bread; replaced by things like baked chicken nuggets, whole wheat bread, and stir-fried veggies. Marcelle S. Fischler of The New York Times examines some of menu changes occurring in tri-state area schools:
In many lunchrooms, school food directors have taken up the challenge. French fries are baked, if they haven’t disappeared entirely. Vending machines are being restocked with bottled water and juice instead of Gatorade. Snacks like baked soy and fruit chips are replacing deep-fried potato chips. Soft pretzels are shrinking; frozen-fruit bars fill the Chipwich racks.
Some of the students interviewed in Fischler’s article appear optimistic about the changes, they themselves are cognizant of the obesity epidemic, but others miss their deep-fried goodies or complain that smaller portion sizes aren’t enough to satisfy them—and some avoid the changes altogether by brown-bagging food from home.

Now you have to applaud the efforts of the school system, even though Dr. Fuhrman would hardly call baked chicken nuggets and stir-fried veggies the pinnacle of healthiness, but it sure seems like a step in the right direction. How many of us can recall classmates wolfing down trays of fries five days a week? Heck, I knew kids in college that still did that.

According to Dr. Fuhrman the best way to ensure your children are eating healthfully and getting the proper nutrition, might be to send them to school with a bagged lunch full of nutrient-rich food. He talks about it in this post from a couple of months ago: Packing A Lunch For School
Some children are happy to eat healthfully, but when it comes to school lunch they don’t want to look different from the other kids. Packing fresh fruit and a healthy bread with some nut butter and unsweetened fruit spread can be a quick option. My children love raw cashew nut butter. If using peanut butter, purchase a brand without salt and other additives. My daughters also like to take peeled orange or apple slices with their lunch. We cut the apple into four sections around the core, most of the way through, keeping the apple intact, and then wrap it in silver foil. This way it stays fresh, without discoloration, and they can easily separate it into slices.
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