Candace

Talmadge

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March 17, 2008

Two Angry Moms Offer Food for Thought

Do you know what kind of food your local school cafeteria is serving? Your nearby hospital or grandparent’s nursing home?

It’s probably standard U.S. institutional fare: Not much in the way of fresh, local fruits and veggies, and sorely lacking in nutritional value because it’s laced with substances (like partially hydrogenated oils, also known as trans fats, or high-fructose corn syrup) not found naturally in produce or meats.

Yes, I have railed against laws like the one New York City passed mandating the removal of all trans fats from the food served in the city’s restaurants. It was the element of compulsion I objected to, not the removal of the fats themselves. I try to avoid trans fats in foods whenever I can as a matter of responsible personal choice, not because someone orders me to do so or orders others to do so on my behalf. I insist on being treated like an adult.

And when a grass-roots organization like Two Angry Moms seeks to educate parents about the ways they also may act like responsible adults to help improve the quality of the food served to their children at school, I stand up and applaud.

After all, a healthy citizenry is a national security issue. Good nutrition plays a major role in fostering good health, especially in children, whose ability to concentrate and perform well in school depends greatly on eating healthy breakfasts and lunches.

The mothers in question are Amy Kalafa, a writer-producer and holistic nutritionist, and Susan P. Rubin, D.M.D., H.H.C, a dentist turned holistic health counselor and founder of Better School Food.

Together, Kalafa and Rubin founded Two Angry Moms and produced a nearly 90-minute documentary on DVD in an effort to teach parents across the country some critical background information with concrete steps they can take to bring about positive changes to their kids’ school lunch menus.

It’s grassroots democracy in action, so to speak. Change from (literally) the ground up. And it’s subversive because the two are bucking the big bucks that major agribusinesses and huge food processors reap from the USDA. The federal agency’s school lunch program is not designed to provide nutritious lunches for school children. It exists to help large growers and food processors dump their excess products at a tidy profit into the nation’s schools.

The biggest obstacles to improving school cafeteria food for the better are the FDA lunch program, the financial deals that snack-food and soda makers reach with cash-strapped public districts to install their vending machines in schools in exchange for a small percentage of the take, and personal food tastes and preferences.

Kalafa and Rubin examine all three areas, using specific examples of innovative private schools and ground-breaking public districts across the country that have radically changed how they prepare and serve school food.

Not surprisingly, the Berkeley Unified School District’s approach to providing healthy school meals is one of the most radical and comprehensive. The district doesn’t merely feed kids meals with healthier ingredients. It integrates growing, harvesting, preparing and recycling food into the academic curriculum.

The fortunate Berkeley youngsters raise crops and chickens, sell excess produce to local consumers, and learn how to prepare, cook and serve healthy meals and recycle the waste into usable compost. They reap vastly improved food quality plus invaluable lessons in biology, math, entrepreneurship and patience, since plants grow on their schedules, not the kids’.

While growing food locally is not the main message of this movement or the DVD, it’s probably one of the most important themes to emerge from it. Given the skyrocketing prices of gasoline and diesel fuel, making locally grown and raised food much more widely available is also a national security concern.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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