Amy Kalafa

Writer Amy Kalafa

Next year new federal guidelines to promote healthier schoolhouse lunches volition go into effect as mandated by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Among other things, the legislation calls for less fat and salt in schoolhouse lunches and more whole grains and locally grown fruits and vegetables. In this interview, EdSource'due south Sue  Frey talked with Amy Kalafa, author of the newly published Lunch Wars: How to Start A School Food Revolution and Win the Battle for Our Children'due south Health (Tarcher 2011). She also produced a film, Two Angry Moms, that helped focus national attention on the issue.

EdSource: How does California compare with the rest of the land?

Kalafa: California is alee of the land in the larger culture of food, and that has resulted in more model programs in this state. But it doesn't mean that the state every bit a whole is ahead considering most school food in California looks like school food in Rhode Island and Texas and Chicago. It's coming from the same factories, and it'southward processed and packaged and full of chemicals and sugar and salt and junk. So in that sense, California is not ahead.

Merely every time I turn around, somebody's telling me about another district in California that is doing something swell. Chef Alice Waters in Berkeley is one of the first models. Riverside has been doing it for a long fourth dimension, and Riverside is a high-poverty commune. So it'south not about the haves and the have nots.  It's near the communities that get together and make up one's mind that this is an educational priority.

EdSource: What impact do you recall the proposed federal school breakfast and lunch guidelines volition have on schoolhouse meals?

Kalafa: They're already raising sensation about the meals program and the problems involved. Only food programs must be seized on as a local issue—commune by district. We cannot look the federal authorities to administrate a program in every local customs.

It'due south not a federal mandate that is changing school districts that are really taking this to heart. Information technology's parents and administrators and teachers and students who are involved in raising their ain nutrient IQ and education food literacy. They're hiring chefs, and chefs know how to really utilise whole grains, soaking them overnight so their vitamins and minerals are more available, doing it correct.

EdSource: You lot mentioned in your book that nosotros could go adept ideas from other countries. Which countries stand out?

Kalafa: I was so struck past Brazil, which we often think of as office of the developing world. I met a adult female whose female parent runs a lunch plan in a medium-sized city in Brazil. They have a gardener who lives on site at the school and runs the schoolhouse's garden. Her mom gets authorities commodities similar nosotros practise here—more often than not things similar rice and beans and yucca, which is a pop starchy vegetable there. Just they're whole foods.

The food in the school is and then good that kids bring leftovers dwelling so it feeds the whole community. They look at junk food and fast food as a luxury item. It's so expensive that they tin can't afford information technology, so they're eating much healthier even though, in a manner, it's poor-people food. And that'south true of a lot of other countries, even in the developed world.

My husband'southward family is from French republic. Considering food is such a office of their culture, they have iv-course lunches in every school in the state. You'll see kids eating beet salad and celery root salad. They offering just one meal, but the kids all swallow it and similar information technology because information technology's what they know. They're taught to have a palate that tin discern subtle flavors, which is the opposite of what our kids are taught. Our kids are taught if it'southward non sweet and salty all at once, then it doesn't taste expert.

EdSource: You say that you can motivate children to choose good for you foods. What are some tips for parents?

Kalafa: Picket cooking shows. Kids dear cooking shows. I've worked at a lot of cooking shows, and I can't tell yous how many families and how many kids—even 8- or nine-year-old boys—come up to me and ask about a chef, saying: "Oh I dearest her show."

Effort new recipes. Expect things upwardly on the Internet. It can be really fun to plan menus and accept kids to the grocery shop and get them involved in choosing the produce, teaching your kid how to selection the ripest melon. Kids learn with their senses, so if they can feel something and smell it and squeeze it, they sympathise.

And, of course, growing some of your own nutrient no matter where you alive. Even if you have naught but a window sill, you can abound a cute herb garden and and then kids volition gustation things they've grown.

EdSource: What is happening with school gardens around the country?

Kalafa: At that place is a big motility in the country to get a garden in every school, and they function actually as classrooms. Now states, including California, are putting out curriculum effectually school gardens and sustainability. And federal police force requires districts to have wellness policies. The Center for Ecoliteracy in the San Francisco Bay Expanse has a model wellness policy, and they besides have some wonderful books for teachers on sustainability education.

Health policies that address nutrient can also address things similar waste material in schoolhouse cafeterias. Are nosotros still eating off styrofoam trays and tossing them in the garbage? Some schools are changing all of that and getting kids involved in the zero waste material movement as well. In some districts, it's coming from the kids.

EdSource: Is that mutual—kids bringing well-nigh change in food policies?

Kalafa: Well-nigh every heart and loftier school anywhere I go has a green social club of some kind. A lot of those kids are asking schools where the meat comes and whether they are using humanely raised meat.  They are also asking for vegetarian and vegan options on the menu.

There's increasing awareness on the function of kids about where their food comes from and how it relates to sustainability. Kids are learning about it online. In videos that get passed around, kids see how chickens are raised on the manufacturing plant floor with no infinite and no claws and legs cleaved. Kids are really sensitive to that. They get really upset about it. That's motivation.

Media literacy is some other educational area that has an impact on kids' choices. When they acquire that big food manufacturers are targeting them with millions of dollars of advertising and trying to get them hooked on really junky foods from an early age, kids get indignant virtually that.

EdSource: What are constructive ways for parents to make changes in their schools?

Kalafa: Information technology always has to begin with a chat, asking questions and starting a dialogue. Enquire the food service managing director, "What are your needs? What would you lot like to do if y'all could?" And then try to find ways to back up the program.

It's a prototype shift to get people to start to call back that this is a missed educational opportunity and that we might actually be doing harm. Nobody wants to hurt kids.

Yous may not be able to change all the food in the cafeteria in the outset year you're involved. You may demand to volunteer in the classroom or to be a monitor in the cafeteria or to commencement a schoolhouse garden or to have a garden club. Try to find the easiest way to go your foot in the door and then develop your activeness program from there.

At that place are so many ways to assault this from the educational standpoint. Bring pediatric cardiologists to speak. Concur a Saturday morning or after-school result then that parents tin can sense of taste some examples of foods that are whole and healthy and see that they're good.

Find people who are sympathetic in the administration, celebrate the good stuff you attain. Be creative and host fundraisers that don't have junk nutrient involved. Exist that parent who is working toward positive results. And and so people in the customs volition get-go to go interested and you can grow your coalition from there.

Healthy schoolhouse food has become a parent-instructor organization consequence now. When I started, it was too controversial for the PTO, but now they're hosting screenings of my motion-picture show and raising funds for new kitchen equipment or to train staff in how to cook from scratch.

EdSource: Are there any California examples of effective parent lobbying for healthy food?

Kalafa:I just met Gabby Scharlach from San Rafael. When she was 12 years sometime, she raised $30,000 to build not only a school garden, but also an outdoor classroom with a kitchen at her school.

EdSource: You've been tackling this upshot for many years. Are you surprised to see the school food reform motion gain such traction recently?

Kalafa: No, not at all. It's a tipping betoken phenomenon. The Centers for Illness Command and Prevention announced that this is going to exist the first generation in American history that would alive shorter lives than their parents. The statistics on childhood obesity were and only go on to exist dire. But two weeks ago, they said that 50% of the kids built-in subsequently 2000 are predicted to be obese. Nosotros accept to wake up and deal with information technology. We've lived in denial for a long time. We are a culture that's pretty darn good at that and it's bankrupting us. When people wake upwards from that kind of a stupor, they start looking effectually for solutions.

Certainly having the First Lady of the United states and then a Television star like Chef Jamie Oliver can't hurt a cause. So we've got some very important people that are really speaking out now and in that location are some really knowledgeable leaders like Kate Adamick [who helped to turn around the food program in Santa Barbara] who know how to solve this trouble in the trenches. There are models that nosotros can learn from.

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