Cut back on the meat and cheese in your school lunch programs. Why? Because Friends of the Earth (FOE), a U.S.-based environmental organization, along with the Oakland, California, school district, have tested this menu for the past two years and now want it to go nationwide. End of story.
The experimental program, which featured a 30-percent reduction in meat, poultry and cheese purchases by the district, reportedly shrank its carbon footprint by 14 percent, said FOE in a press release. On top of that, the district also claimed it saved 42 million gallons of water annually and captured $42,000 in savings — which in turn went to purchase more healthy fruits, vegetables, legumes, and organic pastured beef.
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“This is a landmark moment for school food. We were so excited to see how the data showed that we could reduce our carbon and water footprint by serving healthy, delicious food — like the vegetarian tostadas with fresh made in-house salsa, that kids absolutely love — all while saving money,’’ Jennifer LeBarre, executive director of nutrition services for Oakland Unified School District, said in the release.
There’s been a push in the past few years to cut back on the amount of meat served in school lunches and to replace it with seasonal produce. “Buying local” can certainly help reduce some costs and support the local economy.
“School for a lot of kids is their best chance at a healthy diet — and they are disregarding the role that good fat plays in brain development … immune function, the list goes on,” said one ag advocate.
But this plan and the push to take this nationwide is “totally negligent” and full of misplaced priorities, said Noelle Harding, a South Dakota mother of three who is also a consumer agriculture specialist and advocate.
“School for a lot of kids is their best chance at a healthy diet — and they are disregarding the role that good fat plays in brain development, including immune function. This gets my blood boiling. It’s an agenda based off a perceived environmental issue and it has no business in our children’s diets or schools. The school board should not be using kids diets as a platform for their social agenda,” Harding told LifeZette.
The science to back this is skewed and the environmental impact is negligible at best, this mother and others believe. Science also shows that removing healthy fats from kids’ diets does them harm, especially during the critical years of brain development.
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“They’re in school to learn and now you’re depriving them of one of the things they need most? Seventy percent of the brain is made up of fat. For lower income kids, sometimes the only good food they get is at school. And kids in general — often when they go home, all they’re getting is Cheetos and frozen pizzas without a good foundation of the food groups,” Harding added.
She is also curious to know what the kids actually end up eating in this new food program.
The program is a case study, said FOE, in how modest reductions can translate into big differences — and if every school in the nation would serve less meat and cheese, it would be comparable to “taking 150,000 cars off the road every year or installing 100,000 residential solar systems.”
Related: Kids’ Meals Still Aren’t Healthy
A young mother of two from Valentine, Nebraska, told LifeZette she finds the results laughable if not sad. The environmental impact isn’t at all what these advocates claim it is, she said. And she’d be furious if the district her young children will attend changes its menu to fit this agenda, she added.
“Meat and cheese offer such valuable nutrients to your kids. If you look at beef, the amount of iron, zinc, thiamin, and other nutrients they get from these products — they’re nutrient dense. How do you more cost effectively and better replace that?”
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