And why can’t the DC Council fund this bill?

“… all meals are either prepared in an on-site kitchen, or prepared and sent to the school from another school within the district…All schools within the district follow menus that meet the Federal nutrition standards for the National School Breakfast and Lunch Programs…the menus served include fresh fruits and vegetables whenever possible, are low in fat, saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol, are trans fat free and contain age-appropriate amounts of fiber, protein and vitamins and minerals.”

You’ll notice there’s no mention of sugar, and there are claims made that may or may not
be accurate, but basically we have to decide:
a. Are they doing what they promise, and is that good enough?
b. If not, can we agree on what’s best, or at least better, and the steps to get there?
c. Do we have what we need – facilities and staff – to procure, store, prepare and serve fresh, unadulterated, healthy food?
d. How can we make it happen, sooner than later?

If you haven’t spent a day preparing and serving 300 kids, it probably seems fairly straightforward to multiply your family times 100 or so and you’re done, but I don’t envy the kitchen staff. It sounds great to get fresh local fruits and veggies for 300, not so easy in New England in February. What if the fresh egg truck spreads yolks all over the Beltway – you still have to serve breakfast!

We can debate the priorities of our local/state and Federal governments, but clearly most school systems’ budgets right now encourage buying cheap or government surplus food.
Barring an unexpected windfall or a Miraculous Enlightenment, we need to come up with improvements that don’t cost more, or find a way to fund them, or we’ll wait a long time.

Similarly, we need to keep in mind that DCPS staffing is generally barely adequate or less – Cooke School just expanded its square footage by 25%, but the facility maintenance staff is 25% less than it was before modernization – so recycling and composting are great ideas, but they don’t manage themselves, and to ask the staff to add this to their list is not realistic, unless we can find a way to staff it adequately.

Kids have a lot of influences away from nutritious food – from their family, their friends, their culture and the marketing industry – it’s not surprising they don’t crave raw broccoli, so we have to figure out how to make it appetizing! Tahini dip, I don’t know!

Same for cooked vegetables – even frozen veggies can be handled in a tasty and nutritious manner – is there a way to serve them fresh for an hour on the serving line without creating Death By Steam Table?

Aside from maybe the Berkeley community, the DC area has arguably the best resources and smartest group of advocates on the planet, so identifying the problem is a great first step, but we need to decide if we can agree on basic goals without squabbling about the relative evils of fat, sugar and carbs, and come up with solutions as a team, working with the school system, the food service providers and the food community. We can do better than turquoise “fruit-by-the-foot”.

Are there successful school systems with comparable numbers that are doing this right?
Or can we adapt a successful small-scale model to work at our scale?

If Chartwells wants to work with us and develop a real model program at Cooke, it’ll be quicker and easier than looking elsewhere for a provider. Maybe the White House can help us walk THEIR talk about nutrition and obesity. Hey, it’s only 12 minutes up 16th Street on the S4 bus. Or walk it!

Thanks again Ed, for kicking our psychic derrieres – now we need to move the rest!