When I started this blog a couple of years ago there was two things I promised myself I would never do:
1) Put a picture of our son on my blog (there are some freaks out there ya know..)
2) Talk about any food politics, or how we should be eating differently
The picture above shows I have just broken rule number 1. That is our son, having just picked some produce from our new vegetable garden.
UPDATE: Picture of our son removed.. It just still makes me uncomfortable..
Lets go and break the second now shall we?
I don’t want to talk about the importance of pesticide/hormone/chemical free food. Nor about how great it is to grow you own food (just found that out this year..). I don’t want to sound like a yuppie arrogant prick.
All I want to say is this. Our son is fast approaching school age. Faster than either myself or my wife care for. School food for the most part is 100% crap. Complete crap. Some single people have made big efforts to change it, and it hasn’t got that far. In England Jamie Oliver (the awesome Jamie Oliver..) tried. He did pretty well, until parents started passing fast food over the school fence to their kids.
The fact is that it takes more than just the odd single person (even if he is a celebrity chef..) to effect a big change. Here in the US the Child Nutrition Act is up for renew this year. This controls the school lunch programs throughout public schools. The Act says what food gets into schools and what food doesn’t. This Act only comes up for renew every four of five years. Now is the time to let congress know that healthy, nutritious food should be standard in schools.
There has been a lot of studies done showing how a child’s attention span is effected by what they eat. Crap goes in, crap attention comes out (along with a host of other problems). Good food goes in, kids are more alert, more attentive at school, and less disruptive. Sounds like a win to me.
Thankfully, the days of having to chain yourself to railings outside of parliament to effect a change are over. Slow Food USA has set up a petition to get real food into schools. All that one has to do is go to the website, stamp in a quick bit of info, and hit GO.
If you are concerned about healthy food in schools, click the bell below, read what the petition is all about, and if it sounds like your kinda thing, sign it!
Last time I mention my views on what people should be eating.. But it is for the kids ya know!
