On the heels of my post about Lunch Lessons, Chef Ann Cooper’s new book on children and food, comes a new study from Penn State researchers looking at the presence of metabolic syndrome in 13-year-old girls. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of traits including insulin resistance and abdominal obesity that is a strong indicator for chronic disease. Previous studies focused on its presence in adults.
The Penn scientists showed that girls within the risk groups for hypertension and metabolic syndrome had significantly greater weight and fat increases between the ages of 5 and 13 than the other groups studied. Those at higher risk for metabolic syndrome also consumed significantly more sugary drinks between the ages of 5 and 9 than the other groups. (Note that sugary drinks are more than just sodas: “As far as I’m concerned, chocolate milk is soda in drag,” Chef Cooper says. “Most chocolate milk has more calories and sugar per ounce than soda. Just read the label.”) Further research is needed to show if these risk indicators do lead to disease later in life, and to look at a wider variety of children. (All of the girls in the study were white, non-Hispanic, and from central Pennsylvania.)
On a related note, from the Department of Totally Obvious Scientific Results comes a study (in fact sponsored by the American Psychological Association) showing that “Holidays Can Make Women Eat More.”
Back to children’s lunches. Do any of you have stories about particularly good or bad school food programs? What do your children usually eat for lunch? What, if anything, would you change if you could? I’m particularly interested in hearing from those of you outside the U. S. Anything we could learn, or are things much the same all over?
Our big issue is dealing with a picky eater. He only likes a handful of foods and none of them vegetables. His preschool has a kitchen and a cook (it’s affiliated with the University my wife attends) and serves only vegetarian and mostly organic food. They do not allow any outside food because several children have severe food allergies. Instead of eating the wonderful nutritious food offered, our son starves himself (except for fruit and liquids) until he gets home. His main source of protein these days is chicken nuggets (I know, I know), he literally would rather go hungry than eat what he doesn’t find acceptable. We tried the hardline-only putting what we were eating in front of him for meals. He stopped eating and started losing weight. We’re pretty much at a loss, none of the standard advice seems to work with him. I blame my wife’s pig-headed genes…. ;-)
Oh, that’s tough. I’m not sure what to suggest other than to keep at it. You never know when someone’s example (say, an older cousin he wants to emulate) may trigger a desire to try something new. You can also try bulking up other foods with hidden vegetables, e.g., making carrot or zucchini muffins (but watching the overall sugar intake with this method).
Here in Portland, OR there is a school chef who is trying to remake the school lunch culture.
From the Oregonian (read entire text here: http://www.oregonlive.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/living/1160427322150110.xml)
The from-scratch project at Abernethy Elementary (Portland, OR)
It’s lunch-crunch time at Abernethy Elementary School cafeteria. Children scramble for seats at low tables, stab straws into milk cartons and nibble around crusts of their PB&J. A timeless lunchtime scene.
In the kitchen, though, are signs of a new frontier.
Kids load lunch trays with chicken drumsticks kissed with house-made barbecue sauce and baked in the oven that morning. They grab bowls of cauliflower bisque, or a pulled-pork sandwich. If mac ‘n’ cheese is on the day’s menu, it’s made with real bechamel sauce and looks a lot like what you’d find at the natural-foods-store deli down the street.
Out in the school garden, tomatoes are ripening, and limbs of the Italian plum tree sag with heavy fruit. Linda Colwell, the chef-turned-lunch-lady, sees tomato topping for pizzas, dried prunes for chicken tagine.
Welcome to Abernethy Cafe, where Colwell and her staff are trying to change the future of school food. Colwell, a Paris-trained chef and the driving force behind Edwards Elementary’s Garden of Wonders, landed here last fall after her neighborhood school closed and merged with Abernethy.
In the beginning she dreamed of buying direct from Oregon farmers, creating menus centered on local products. But with 200 kids to feed, a litany of purchasing rules to conform to and $1 to spend per child per meal on food, she quickly scaled back her efforts to focus on scratch cooking, regardless of the source of ingredients.
It wasn’t as simple as thinking up great recipes. Arcane buying rules require bidding on food months before it enters the kitchen. USDA nutrition requirements govern what, and how much, lands on every plate.
“I had to learn a whole new way of thinking about food,” Colwell says, remembering workdays that started at 5:30 a.m. in the school kitchen and ended after dark, sending e-mails and plugging nutrition data into a computer.
Now, as the pilot enters its second year, she counts the lessons.
Change is possible, but slow.
Scratch cooking is expensive, though the food isn’t.
One person can’t do it all, and a healthy program needs both enthusiasm and staffing.
Kids like kid food, but with the right exposure and encouragement, they can surprise you and eat things you never dreamed they would.
Though food costs were lower in the scratch kitchen — 94 cents per meal at Abernethy versus 99 cents at a control school — labor costs were much higher, $2.58 compared with 68 cents at the control school, where heat-and-eat entrees are the norm.
The real question: What are we willing to spend? Overall Abernethy’s meals cost about twice as much to produce, $3.52 per scratch-cooked lunch compared with $1.67 at the control school.
The question to ask isn’t why scratch-cooked food is so expensive, but why we are paying so little for lunch?
The above excerpt is from ongoing coverage of healthy lunches at public schools. See this link for all 4 parts: http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/living/1160166303188070.xml&coll=7