| With an Ear to the Ground
By Vern Grubinger
Behold the chicken nugget, Nature’s perfect food.
Son number one informs me, "They’re golden brown, bite-sized, crunchy on the outside, and chewy on the inside!"
Son number two asks, "Daddy, what are chicken nuggets made of?"
"Well, chicken I suppose, I mean...I hope. Let’s look it up." We surf the ’net. "Yup, says right here, chicken patties wow-- 16 grams of fat per serving."
Don’t be so negative, Dad. They serve them at school a lot, and they taste good.”
"If they called them pulverized poultry pellets would you still eat them?”
"Gross! Why do grown-ups have to wreck everything?”
And so concludes today’s nutrition lesson.
Helping kids eat well is easy during the first few years, when parents have at least some control over what goes in their children’s mouths, notwithstanding all those miscellaneous household objects kids always chew on. After that, though, it’s birthday parties, meals with friends, and—perhaps the scariest eating experience of all—school lunches.
At home, we try to eat healthy food: fresh local vegetables, whole grains, no artificial stuff. But weekday lunches are out of our control, and include hot dogs, fries, canned fruit, and, yes, chicken nuggets. What’s a granola-lovin’, tofu-totin’ dad to do?
Well, I don’t blame the schools, because they’re trying hard with the money they have. The 47,000 school lunches served every day in Vermont cost an average of $2.15 apiece, and only 42 percent of that is food. What kind of a lunch can you make for a buck? These cheap lunches are due in part to the national school lunch program’s low reimbursement rate to schools, and to nutritional requirements that don’t emphasize freshness or quality.
Meanwhile, trends in child health are alarming. Obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and other disorders linked to bad eating habits are on the rise. Obviously, school lunches aren’t the only cause—television ads promote junk food, fast food restaurants serve it, and busy lifestyles discourage home cooking.
Something needs to be done. Fortunately, there’s a growing interest in farm-to-school programs, which specifically aim to improve child nutrition while enhancing local markets for farmers. They work best when linked to a classroom curriculum that helps kids connect to where their food comes from. In Vermont, we have FEED: Food Education Every Day, a program developed by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont. So far they’ve worked with four schools to show that local food can be brought into cafeterias and classrooms. The USDA also has a fledgling program aimed at connecting farms and schools. But communities don’t need a program to help them start addressing this issue. Parents and school boards can work with cooks and food vendors to encourage the use of local food, and they can also look for a little more money per meal if that’s what it takes.
It’s a win-win investment. Healthier kids, healthier farms—they go together like soup and a sandwich.
Aired on Vermont Public Radio in October of 2002 and part of the forthcoming collection, With an Ear to the Ground.
Available in paperback from Northeast SARE for $10 plus $3.95 for shipping and handling. To order, call 802/656-0554 or send e-mail to hhusher@uvm.edu. Discounts for bulk orders are available.
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