Slow Foods USA takes on Hot Cheetos

This "pie in the sky" scheme will never happen

School grounds and lunch tables littered with empty Flaming Hot Cheetos bags. Even the trash cans are loaded to the top. It’s enough to make any executive at Frito Lay squeal with delight. This is the scene at many of our schools today.

It looks as if these mouth-puckering Cheetos are the kids' idea of a hot lunch.

Slow Foods USA (as a counter to the fast food we all know), an organization dedicated to bringing more nutritional food and healthy preparation practices back to mealtime, is now campaigning for improvement in school breakfasts and lunches.

On Labor Day hundreds of “Eat-Ins”, as part of their National Day of Action for serving good food at schools, are being staged in all 50 states. They want to trade frozen tater-tots for fresh tomatoes.

Not a bad goal. Actually, many schools already do have the tomatoes in their salad bars.

The cause is worthy. The message….. essential. But it is doomed.

Many school districts around the country have strived to provide more nutritional food selections. While the soda vending machines at schools have become extinct, and candy and chips are harder to find on campuses, nearby convenience stores devote themselves to supplying the children with the junk food they crave. So the kids “import” the bad stuff.

Aggressive advertising campaigns certainly are part of the problem. But that will always be.

It is just that presently the curriculum does not allow much time for in-depth study and awareness of the advantages of carefully prepared fresh foods and other health-related issues. Just ask a kid the last time he or she read the ingredients label on anything! You’ll see.

What really is at hand is that we are at a crossroads.

One path leads the way to better results on standardized tests by teaching to the test – practicing over and over throughout the year on materials designed to simulate the kinds of questions students will have to answer robotically in April or May. This is what is going on in most places of learning today.

Another path heads out to greener pastures; to reading articles and searching the library and the Internet for information about good nutrition and healthful life practices. But the way things are now, this kind of study will not help much in attaining higher test scores, so it won’t be put into practice.

Maybe we can walk “the road not taken”. English teachers can interweave articles and research about healthful living into the reading curriculum. Mathematics teachers can require calculations and projects about percentage of fat and sodium and preservatives in the food we consume. Social studies teachers can assign delving into understanding and appreciating how food has evolved over the past 100 years.

Ah, but this “pie in the sky” scheme will never happen unless……..one day the test maker provides the test taker with questions related to caring for our bodies; giving ourselves the best nutrition; knowing how to prepare food in a fashion which enhances its quality and flavor.

Students can practice their reading, mathematics, and delving skills in discovering practices which will enhance their lives for a lifetime.

Is the Slow Foods USA movement doomed to failure due to an ignorant population with no intention of choosing another path?

Let’s meet for lunch and find out. How’s Labor Day sound to you?

For more info: www.examiner.com/x-12104-Health-and-Happiness-Examiner~y2009m8d11-Healthy-quick-backtoschool-lunches

www.examiner.com/x-19969-Cleveland-Green-Parenting-Examiner~y2009m8d18-Lunchbox-brigade-and-child-nutrition-act