Snack Food Calories Restricted
Jessica Donze Black, director of the Kids' Safe and Healthful Foods Project, speaks with Education Week about new rules to restrict calories in snack foods and beverages sold in schools.
More info"School lunch in Seattle has come a long way since I was a public school student. In the ’90s, lunch was only a dollar, and the cafeteria served up square, rubbery pizza, scoops of mushy spaghetti, and Belgian waffles (everyone’s favorite!). Fast-forward more than a decade: Elementary school lunch now costs $2.75, and for several years the Seattle School District has inched toward healthier offerings.
For most of public-school history, cafeteria food was something to be endured and then forgotten immediately upon graduating. But in recent years, many parents, health advocates, and doctors have targeted school lunch as one of the aspects of our food system most in need of scrutiny and reform. Since then, many of us have come to see bland, processed-food-heavy cafeteria cuisine less as a necessary evil and more as evidence of the way in which our government’s love affair with Big Ag takes a toll on public health. Not that revamping school lunch has proven easy: Public school districts struggle with extremely limited budgets, and the byzantine logistics of preparing and distributing food for thousands of children are especially tough to change."
- Date added:
- Jan 4, 2012
- Project:
- Kids' Safe and Healthful Foods Project
- Topic:
- School Food
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''While some students look down on food served in school cafeterias, Zoe Deakyne, a sixth-grader at Long Beach Island Elementary School, enjoys getting her lunch there.''
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