Very few California schools make meals from scratch. To save money, the majority of districts buy food from “mega-processors” which prepare, package and ship meals to be simply re-heated on-site. Most districts also require their nutrition programs to make a profit or to, at least, break even. Then there are labor costs which typically eat up 40% of a school district’s budget.
All of that conventional wisdom is upside-down in Berkeley. Meet Ann Cooper - the Director of Food Services for Berkeley Schools. She’s owned a restaurant, chef’d on cruise ships and written four books. She’s cooked for political stars, rock stars, and movie stars. She can write her own e-ticket in Cuisineland. So what’s she doing running a nutrition program in a public school district?
“Because the s*** we’re feeding kids is killing them,” says Cooper - a “Lunch Lady” who’s leading a revolution against typical school food.
The district allows Cooper to run a $250-thousand dollar deficit to pay for some of the freshest public school food in the country. There’s whole wheat pizza, organic food, salad bars. But is this the real world? Right across the Bay Bridge, we meet Dana Woldow - a parent and Chair of the Nutrition Committee for San Francisco Unified. She says it’s not sour grapes, but school food needs to be better-funded and not with foundation money.
- Chef Ann Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children
- Student Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee, San Francisco Unified School District
- What is Grab ‘n’ Go breakfast?
- Food Research and Action Center
- California Food Policy Advocates
- Eat Smart. Play Hard. USDA Food and Nutrition Service
- MyPyramid, USDA nutrition information for children aged 6 to 11
- Nutrition.gov, access to food and nutrition information from across the federal government
- Eating a Nutritious Diet, Department of Health and Human Services
Listen to the commentary
October 15th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Although the program was very well done as is typical of California Connected I was appalled at the celebrity chef used at the Berkley school district. Not only is the idea of such a position a ridiculous waste of money but the actual chef is horrendous. I was disgusted to see her using profanity in a public school kitchen while pitching a fit and throwing away perfectly good food. I’m sure it is safe to say that there are many people in the area that would have benefited from what she declared as fit only for the garbage can. The educators and volunteers featured elsewhere in the program are to be applauded for finding real world solutions that could actually be implemented elsewhere, to the problem of school nutrition.
October 16th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
Your show did not mention the nutritional supplements
that were used with the kids featured in the movie
“Super Size Me”.
“In the movie Super Size Me
http://www.supersizeme.com
they featured Natural Ovens of which refers you to
Rx Free Kids http://www.rxfreekids.org/
(Note the Rx Free Kids page on “depression, too)
They helped the school with behavioral
problem kids (ADD) with an organic diet and nutritional
supplements
October 26th, 2006 at 7:50 am
Typical story on school foodservice. It’s the school food making everyone fat!!!! Just the same ole political garbage. No mention of what the regulations are in reference to food in the schools now. No mention of the union oriented garbage that does not really allow an operator the chance to search out the best trained employees. No mention of the foodservice deparment having to at minimum to break even(Most districts don’t have money for a promtional foodservice department). No deficit here to untilize. What a dream. Give me that and I’ll be a scratch nutritional fiend too.
no mention of having to work with USDA commodities to help stretch your program farther. Which by the way means you cook it from scratch or you process it. All meals have a requirement to meet in reference to nutritional standards. Two seperate issue between the lunch line(lower income particpants moslty)and the Ala carte sales. What of the demographics each district has to deal with? More people in the lunch line more money. Less people on the program now what? Compete with the bagged lunch or the outside sources of foods kids want? Most kids already have been schooled since a young age as to what they want to eat. Now send them to school and tell them, you got tofu today? Please, the real truth is based on the extra web site set up for the chef’s personal promotion, and Berkley’s desire to pound it’s chest and say look at us, does not reflect any of the truth that goes into school foodservice, or the real regulations and daily headaches one faces in this industry. Not to mention where do parents land in all of this? I’m glad to see the pursuit of excellence but the Berkley area does not reflect the real world, no matter how much the want to promote PC. Please do your homework next time. Talk to the poorer district’s as well before you smear us all with your stupid paintbrush. Super Size Me was made by a guy who wanted to do one thing like your article did. Just to make money. He as well never really mentioned that each State has requirements different than others and for different grade levels. But he goes to a High School were the rules are different as to what can be sold as Ala Carte, says nothing of the demographic, says nothing that maybe the campus is open and the kids can leave to go get whatever they desire to eat, or can bring from home. Nothing about what the department has to do to compete. And then throws it at you that the food is either from a processor and nothing cooked from scratch. Go ask a local establishment what it takes in the way of wages and supplies to cook evrything from scratch. Just as you look at the nutritional information on a package in the store, we must do so as well when planning a menu. The laws are changing and everyone in this State must comply or risk losing revenue, but you guys need to be more truthful and show the whole picture instead of cutting it the way you want it to look in order to sell your polictal agendas or your papers and movies. The real truth about the way you,the Chef, and Super Size Idiot, is that your agenda involves self promotion for the sake of making money and pushing what you perceive as the ideal world in reference to what we eat. It all starts at home.
You need to find a distrct that has no agenda or self promotion in mind and then do a real story.