23
Apr
Renegade Lunch Lady!
Concerned about food in the schools and how kids learn to eat? Check out Chef Ann Cooper’s website Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children. This doesn’t look like the school lunch menu I remember, but if Cooper is successful, more school dining programs will feature delicious, healthy lunches and snacks made from whole foods. A former fine-dining chef, Cooper has worked in many school kitchens and is now trying to transform the food in the Berkeley (CA) Central School District. She is the author of several books on food and cooking. From her bio:
Chef Ann did not always serve food in a cafeteria line; she is the former executive chef of the Putney Inn in Vermont. But her commitment to healthy, fresh food drove her to work with school administrators, politicians and parents - the people with the power over school food - to guarantee that wholesome food choices are available to kids today and kids tomorrow. Chef Ann’s definition of a healthy school lunch extends beyond the French fries, processed chicken nuggets and syrupy fruit salad found on the average commodity-driven lunch menu approved by the National School Lunch Program. According to Chef Ann, we won’t have much hope for future generations of healthy kids unless we begin teaching them what good food really is - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stated that 35 percent of our children are overweight, which statistically predicts that children born in the year 2000 will be the first in our nation’s history to die at a younger age than their parents.
