In a recent thread we were talking about school lunches. Recent news relates that fast food meat may be safer than school lunch meat which is just plain ridiculous.However, you don't have to stand for shoddy school lunches.
My first plan of attack would be to pack your kids a take along lunch in a reusable lunch bag. Until public schools get on board with healthy lunches this is your best bet. However, because not all parents can afford to pack lunches (more than 30.5 million children are participants in the national free lunch program) everyone who cares about the health of our kids should become advocates for healither school lunches. Following are some actions that parents can take to improve the school lunch system.
My first plan of attack would be to pack your kids a take along lunch in a reusable lunch bag. Until public schools get on board with healthy lunches this is your best bet. However, because not all parents can afford to pack lunches (more than 30.5 million children are participants in the national free lunch program) everyone who cares about the health of our kids should become advocates for healither school lunches. Following are some actions that parents can take to improve the school lunch system.
- Start at home - you can't always control what schools serve but you can impact the choices your kids make. Get your kids on board with healthy eating at an early age. Talk to your kids about healthy foods vs. empty calories, organics vs. non-organics, and so on. Raise your kids with healthy food choices stocked up around the house.
- Join the School Lunch Revolution, a program designed by Whole Foods that offers comprehensive FREE resources for healthy school lunch recipes. These recipes work well for both schools of all size and parents. This program also offers good resources for schools looking to make a change such as where to find natural foods, training videos covering cooking techniques and food safety, educational tools for parents, plus community activism resources that can help you learn how to initiate healthy and nutritious change in a school system.
- Get involved with the 2009 Reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act. This is an act from Organic Consumers that is urging everyone to create positive change for school lunches.
- Discourage fast food companies and soda machines at your schools.
- Get your own organizational tools with the free resource - How to Change School Food Policy: An Organizing Kit
- Write to Congress about the changes needed for school lunch programs. To get healthy school lunch programs need more money allocated for planning healthy meals and organics and if congress doesn't see fit to allocate said money, our kids lose out. You can even send an action alert about school lunches to Congress.
- For updated news about school lunches read School Lunch Talk, an excellent blog all about school lunches.
