Are you aware of what a school lunch these days consists of? In most public schools, lunch is not the only meal being served. Breakfast and snacks are served year round as well. For some students, the meals they eat at school provide nearly all of their daily requirements for major nutrients, vitamins, and minerals.

I am a substitute teacher in the NYC public schools. Every time I deliver a class to the lunchroom, I glance at the food being served. Meals seem to vary in likability with the students. There’s also a big gap between what is being served and what is actually eaten.

As I see milk sloshing around in the liquids pail, partially eaten fish patties, and a white mountain of Styrofoam trays, I often wonder why we create such uninspired, ugly food for children at school. And how does this cafeteria mediocrity take place in New York City, arguably the food capital of our country and well-known throughout the world for beautiful, diverse eating experiences?

One reason is that nutrition standards for schools are developed on the national level, not the state level. Since it is a nationally organized program, it has historically been an outlet for USDA surplus commodities. Food that is not good enough for McDonald’s is being prepared and served to schoolchildren every day.

More than 860,000 meals are served each day in NYC public schools. In Manhattan, the lunch menu seems pretty varied, with vegetables offered every day, including a green salad once per week.  At my school, P.S./I.S. 217, the salad bar offers ribbons of fresh romaine lettuce, raw vegetables such as carrots and peppers, and a choice of dressings. The hotel pans are clean and the veggies look fresh and crisp for the most part. Overall, our menu is OK, with a few highlights. 

But again, is that what we should be serving to children, reasonably decent food? There’s plenty of room for improvement: more variety, smaller portion sizes, more time for students to eat lunch, smaller menus on half days, and reusable serving trays and utensils instead of Styrofoam and plastic. These seem to be the immediate changes that could take place as stepping stones to drastically changing the actual food being served.

School food can in fact embody the highest ideals of what children should be nourishing their bodies with. There are chefs across the country who are trying pilot programs at select schools, creating healthy meals for kids that include organic and locally grown produce, meats, cheeses, and breads. These chefs are up against many pressures like keeping food costs down and convincing bureaucratic school agencies to change how ingredients are purchased. Chefs also must convince their eaters—students—that healthy food can taste delicious, give them the nutrients they need, and help them create good eating habits and strong bodies.

In April, I attended a conference at Columbia Teachers College on this very topic: transforming our school food system so that we feed the highest quality meals to children. The Schools, Food and Community conference was organized by the Baum Forum, Nutrition Program at Teachers College Columbia University and Liquori and Associates. Roberta Sonnino was featured as keynote speaker.

The conference was well attended with teachers, chefs, a few farmers, directors/commissioners of different agriculture programs, students, gardeners, and community organizers to name a few of the attendees. Saturday’s program included a roundtable discussion about initiatives to change school food and health in New York City schools. The NYC school food program is undergoing a transformation, albeit slowly, by adding more healthful food choices and some locally grown produce to their menus.  For example, carrots grown in NY state are slowly making an appearance in NYC schools, precut and bagged as carrot crunchers. Apples and stone fruits from MY state are presently being served both whole and sliced in bags.

The keynote address from Roberta Sonnino, a professor of environmental policy and planning in Wales, was an amazing introduction to healthy school food programs taking place in Italy and the UK. Her keynote: “The school Food Revolution: Public food and Sustainable Development in the XXI Century” presented a wealth of information on several pilot programs in the UK and Italy tracking the creation of nutritious school cafeteria menus which emphasize using fresh seasonal produce and artisanally crafted food products.

The research was astounding in terms of how large, public institutions were able to establish relationships with local farmers, and organic food purveyors to create dynamic school food programs. What was also fascinating was that officials in Rome truly supported changing the school meals program and shifted their interpretation of what value and quality really mean. We are conditioned to believe that nutritious, fresh foods are exorbitantly expensive, but this is not always the case. In Italy, for example, the cost of purchasing local food with fewer food miles is not always more expensive in terms of dollar amount. Also, Italians view the purchasing food not just as a simple exchange of calories for cash, but instead as a transaction where important values are expressed concretely—values like supporting the local economy and stressing the importance of nutritious family oriented meals.

Prof. Sonnino’s research has been compiled in a soon to be released book, The School Food Revolution: Public Food and the Challenge of Sustainable Development.  As Prof. Sonnino reported on the great advances being made in the school food programs in Gloucestershire and East Ayreshire Whales, and Rome, Italy, I was tremendously hopeful and excited to learn that large public school systems have consciously made decisions to value the food being served to children.

Sonnino reports that food purchasing has conventionally been considered a commercial service where decisions on which items to purchase are based on their value only in economic terms. Some steps are being taken to change this point of view. In Rome, the bidding process has been overhauled so that rewards are given to suppliers for their green practices. For example, food suppliers are awarded with bids if they harvest and ship their produce within three days! Bakeries that want to supply bread to schools are required to bake and deliver their bread within 6 hours! Sonnino shares more examples in this podcast from June 2007.

During the Q and A period, a teacher in the audience shared that students in NYC public schools barely have time to eat their meal after standing in long lines to get it. Prof. Sonnino responded that in Rome, students immediately sit down at their tables to be served their lunch. Everyone laughed, recognizing the gap between Italian and the US views on the cultural importance of food.

As we in the US become more conscious of what we are eating, we need to make sure that these changes filter down to school lunches as well. We may never have waiters in school cafeterias, but we can certainly provide fresh, delicious, and nourishing meals to reflect the incredible diversity of our citizens, and to help children learn and grow.

(photo by Scott Ableman via flickr.)