Lunchtime Madness

All that food was going to waste. I couldn't believe it. I watched as child after child tossed his orange into the trash.

This was wrong for so many reasons. And it was also so predictable.

I often spent lunchtime at the elementary school. We lived in what we euphemistically referred to as a "mixed" neighborhood. Although many of the families had been living there for years, others came and went too quickly to get to know them.

And most of them, 75% in fact, qualified for free lunches. This meant that I had paid for all of these oranges with my tax dollars. And, to be politically correct, these were the kids who most needed good, nutritious lunches. Then why were they throwing them away?

Quite simply, they were throwing the oranges away because they didn't know what to do with them.

Federal mandate at the time required that each child receive one-half of a piece of fruit. So what did the lunch-lady do? She cut each orange in half. She didn't peel it. She didn't cut it into slices. She gave each child a half of an orange. She put the minimum amount of effort into feeding these children that the federal government told her to do.

I've served up quite a few oranges during my years as a parent. And I can't imagine ever handing a kid, particularly a kindergartner, an orange that way. What's a kindergartner supposed to do with that? Those few kindergartners who did attempt to eat their oranges returned to class with sticky faces.

And for goodness sake, even McDonald's has figured out that if you want to get kids to eat fruit, like apples, you've got to slice it up for them!!

So why is this scene from nearly 20 years ago so important to me today?  The memory of that day came back to me when I read an article reprinted from the LA Times about food waste in schools. You can imagine my lack of surprise.

According to this article, in Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest school district, students throw away $100,000 worth of food EVERY DAY. This is understandable, if, as one student mentioned, the apricots were "sour," and the meat was "nasty."

The article refers to the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by First Lady Michelle Obama which places more government regulations on school lunches. And the article also names several different studies that are in progress on how to get students to eat the sour apricots and nasty meat. Of course, all of these studies require even more public funds.

While I'm sure that our first lady had good intentions, I'm also sure that she would not have any luck convincing Sasha and Malia to eat sour apricots and nasty meat.

And adding more studies and regulations only increases the levels of bureaucracy involved in getting good, healthy food to our children. The problem with bureaucracies is that they need to function at EVERY level in order to work. Clearly something is not working in a school district that is throwing away $100,000 worth of food every day.

So what's the solution? In the first place, I'm a firm believer that the federal government needs to get out of the business of micromanaging local schools and food programs. More community involvement and less governmental regulations will help find solutions that are tailored to local neighborhoods. More involvement from enthusiastic individuals like celebrity chef Jamie Oliver (and, well, you or me) can help to encourage new ideas. Oliver has done tremendous work with his Food Revolution, helping school districts to make food options more healthy and tasty. We, as individuals, can be the eyes and ears at our children's schools. We can form relationships with administrators so that when we point out areas that need improving, the administrators will be receptive to our ideas. We can also encourage our children and their friends who come over to play to make healthy choices by providing them with nutritious snacks.

And to those of you who are directly in charge of providing meals at school, for Pete's sake, slice the oranges so little kids can actually eat the darned things.

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This was a long post, wasn't it? Thanks for sticking with it 'til the end! Shall we touch on health-care next?