Food Revolution starts

from http://whatsforschoollunch.blogspot.com/

Today is important day for Schools and children all over the country because the House passed the Child Nutrition Bill has been passed 264 to 157! What's all this about? Well Michelle Obama lobbied for a bill to help end hunger and stave off obesity, and since her husband is the president... it will go through no problem. the bill will set up new rules and regulations to improve the quality of school meals, that means more fruits veggies and hopefully lean meats, whole grains, and more fresh food opposed to frozen.

As of now the lunch program feeds more than 31 million children, that's our nations future we are feeding horrible high processed, high calorie, high fat food. The new nutritional guide lines and meals will apply to alot of schools that offer better meals before and during lunch but also include afterschool dinner of sorts and vending machines will see a change for the better as well.

Now your probabl wondering what the catch is? This is made possible by cutting into food stamps, only half of the $4.5 billion will come from this.BUT good things about the bill besides the upgrde in nutrition are: Kids on Medicad will be approved to get these new lunches for free and summer programs will help feed hunger when kids are out of school.

I told you the facts now i must share what i think!! whahaha

I totally support this bill! And i'm glad it passed!! If our kids or the future to America then why are we teaching them bad habits in school?? I was a kid once and i don't remember one healthy meal i ate, not one! All i can remember is that my plate was full of food, that i saw lunch ladies pull big deep pans of food out to dish to me, and i remember the good meals were when we had taco bell or burger king. There also has been since i can remember a "other line," this is where you an get your pizza,burgers,fries,crispy chicken sandwiches,chips, and ice cream at! One of my favorite meals in high school was the french fries covered in cheese, and ALOT of my friends ate this for lunch and shared it as well. I will admit i did have a salad bar at one of my schools, but  NOBODY WENT TO IT, and if i did have it i always had the baked potato covered in sour cream and bacon and there was a big pot of ranch dressing to throw on top of the lettuce (letttuce is like nothing). Now i do remember vending machines, and this is unfortunatly where alot of students get their pick me ups in the after noon be it from candy bars or sugary mountain dew drinks. I remember selling soda to students to make money for some school thing, and that place was always full of students.

Recession is here and American families are being forced to sacrifice nutrition for what ever is cheaper and keeps the family full, schools now have to take on feeding their students for all meals(new bill will offer or con. That's great because i know it has not been easy for people to feed their families, and they are forced to buy cheap products that lead to obesity and the food shelters aren't helping because they supply these non perishable foods.When i was in Ohio, DHL laid off thousands of people and the quote i remember from "60 seconds" episode showed a women talking about her family she said "You know we used to give to the food shelters all the time, but [because of lay offs] we have to go to them now" The stuff we can't afford to pay for now we pay for later by eating the cheaper alternative aka junk food, we are being fed into a future with complications like diabetes, high cholesterol, heart attack, etc.

For me i feel like this is more personal because i went to school and i ate there, and i know most of my bad habits with food probably can be attributed to that fact. I didn't start thinking about real healthy eating until i was out of high school and saw my weight increase. I know there was some classes that tried to tell us about this kind of stuff, but it really went in one ear and out the other because it was grade it it was a class to be passed. Of course after school my friends and I pigged out on ie cream, chips, mountain  dew, whatever we wanted. Maybe then we didn't have to worry about it, but nobody really taught us to invest in our selves back then, this transforms into a issue we end up stressing about in our adult life.

One of my favorite shows was Jamie Oliver Food Revolution, where this British cook decided to change a town into being healthy, he successfully did so for the school in Great Britain. Some of his challenges were coming up with proper amount nutritional food to meet the strict school guidelines and trying to make a meal out of meager money spent on a meal. Some of my favorites moments were:
1. when he went to classroom of young students and many of them couldn't name furits/veggies but they could name them in there popular form (like french fry)
2. kid ate breakfast pizza and then pizza for lunch,lots of the veggies and fruit were thrown away during lunch, all the frozen food the lunch ladies used
3. basically cooking was nonexistant verything was heated up, and when jamie read the labels most of them were long hard to pronunce words,
4. and last jamie showed how chicken nuggets were made 1. take chicken skin off of chicken 2. seperate the good parts 3. left with carcass now 4. chicken skin and carcus put into food processor 5. food is sifted so that bigger bits aren't in 6. add flavoring, processed ingredients 7. then the gunk is cookie cuttered into chicken fingers 8. add crispy breading = chicken nuggets, and the kids choose the chicken nuggets even though they knew it was bad, jamie says we have brain washed our kids to the point where they will eat it in those familiar friendly fun shapes. (watch here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9B7im8aQjo)

all i can say after writing this blog is thank god for shakeology, because it helps give me what i need every day and it taste good and has no secret hidden anti nutritional harm in it.


Most info from the beginning of this blog came from http://mobile.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/us/politics/03child.xml this is quote from there that i liked: 

Mr. McGovern, who is co-chairman of the House Hunger Caucus, said: "Hunger and obesity are two si
des of the same coin. Highly processed, empty-calorie foods are less expensive than fresh nutritious foods."

Now the big question is how do you feel about them cutting into food stamp money? I personally don' think it's a problem since food stamps are commonly used on families with children, plus obama said he would make up for that money taken.