Exploits of a Vegan Wannabe

This week the school lunch programs in our community came up in a conversation Sandy was having with a colleague. He told her that 75% of all the children in our public school district participated in the low cost-no cost lunch program. That means to me that if the socioeconomic status of these children makes them eligible for free lunches, then they are most likely eating  the food provided by the school. Whether or not it is a nutritional meal is likely of no concern to these children. We have to care on their behalf.

Conversations about the rising rate of childhood obesity and corresponding concerns about the food served in school lunch programs have reached critical mass. Earlier this year the new USDA guidelines for public school lunch programs were introduced. This story has been unfolding for sometime as First Lady Michelle Obama continues to make nutrition and exercise for youth a priority on her agenda.  On January 26th the First Lady along with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, described the new guidelines that suggest more emphasis on fruit, veggie and whole grain consumption, but is still leaving too many calories and cholesterol on the plate.

A story from ABC News  included this passage with an example of a shortcoming :   ” The new rules, the first major nutritional overhaul of school meals in 15 years, won’t be as aggressive as the Obama administration had hoped. Congress last year blocked the Agriculture Department from making some of the changes the department had sought, including limiting french fries and pizzas”.

These new standards are applicable to students that are part of low-cost or no cost lunch programs in which the federal government subsidizes food costs with the school systems.  This dialogue was especially important to Sandy and me as we learned that so many of the students in the public school system in our community are in the low-cost, no cost lunch program.   We found this 75% number to be a bit shocking.  Living in a middle class suburb in middle America, we expected that maybe 40% of public school students in our city would be in this category, but 3/4 of them?  Are you kidding?  This is pretty scary when we considered that these same children are very likely going to be in need of an escalated amount of healthcare in the upcoming decades that parallels unhealthy eating habits.

Some opponents of the new guidelines cite that the changes are too expensive to implement and should not have gone as far as they did.  This opens up another important issue about why less healthy foods are more readily available and cost less than healthy foods, but setting that aside for now, how are they missing the correlation that a healthier child today is the most effective way of curtailing higher health costs later?   These same students are likely under-insured or uninsured and will need assistance with healthcare as child obesity and related diseases spiral higher each year.

One of the organizations that advocates even more aggressive USDA guidelines is the Physicians Committee for Responsible  Medicine (PCRM).  See their commentary on the story here.   One of the examples that they offer as an easy way to help improve the standards is to require the addition of meat-alternatives for students to choose from. They illustrate why this is so important.   ” The guidelines include language on meat alternatives, but they do not require schools to offer them. Plant-based entrées are better choices, and are typically high in fiber and low in fat. A veggie burger, for example, provides the same amount of protein as a typical cheeseburger—15 grams. But while a cheeseburger has 10 grams of fat, a veggie burger has only 5, and very little saturated fat, no cholesterol, and fewer calories.”  This is just one suggestion that uses a common food served in school lunches as the example, imagine what a little creativity would bring to the table with some plant-based culinary know-how!

Maybe this conversation can continue locally in places like parent, teacher associations, at school board meetings and writing letters to local editors to apply pressure from the grass roots level.  If we raise a collective voice, maybe we can help our youth have a chance for a healthier lunch plate and a more favorable medical outlook.  A simple start with asking for Meatless Mondays in school lunches could be the perfect place to help this transition begin.   Like anything else, making this change one meal at a time could be just what we need for a feasible solution.

There is still time to Enter for a chance to Win a copy of  The Inspired Vegan:

~Please comment on the Exploits blog or on our Exploits Facebook from now through Saturday, Feb 11th and tell us your favorite comfort food.  We’ll randomly draw from the entries and announce the winner on Monday, Feb 13th.

Have a delicious day.

Tags: compassionate eating, PCRM, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, plant based diet, USDA lunch program guidelines, vegan wannabe