From Happy Dance to Nightmare: The High Cost of Cheap Food

 

On Saturday I did a cooking demonstration, gave a talk and signed books at the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market in San Francisco. I love farmer’s markets, and Ferry Plaza is the “Gold Standard” of them--although not my favorite--only because it’s part tourist attraction. I work in Berkeley and go to the Tuesday market there almost every week, and Alemany market is amazing for all of the ethnic produce available.

 

Walking Ferry Plaza--tasting the beautiful fresh fruits and vegetables, nibbling on local artisan cheeses and having the best coffee around--all were part of my day on Saturday.  At moments I was doing a “happy-dance” over how incredible the foods looked and tasted. The crowd is a “scene,” lots of kids, strollers, bikes, backpacks, and this on a cloudy cool morning.  

 

I shopped and bought 4 “special” heirloom pears for $11, five pounds of heirloom dried beans for the chef’s discount of $20, some bits of wonderful local cheese for $20 and a local rotisserie organic chicken for $12--plus much much more. In total, I spent almost $150 on my beautiful delicious food that was made for happy dances. And then I awoke in the night thinking of the nightmare reality of what has become our National School Lunch program.

 

Most school districts in America spend less than $150 on food to feed a child for the entire 180 day school year. Less than $1.00 per day to feed our children food that is supposed to nourish and care for them, and this in the setting of “education.” The reality of spending more money in one day on this beautiful food than I have to spend for one child in Berkeley schools for an entire year made me cry.  

 

What a horrible place we’ve come to in this country.

 

I think all living/breathing human beings understand that we’re not only in the throes of an obesity crisis, but that all manner of diet related illness is on the rise. The CDC has stated that of the children born in the year 2000--those 7-year old babies in first grade this year--that 1 out of every 3 Caucasians and 1 out of every 2 African American and Hispanics will contract diabetes in their lifetime (most before they graduate High School). This means that within a short decade as many as 40-45% of all school age school may be insulin dependent. The CDC goes further to say that these young children will be the first generation in our country’s history to have a lesser life expectancy than their parents.

 

All because of what we feed them!

 

And what do we feed children in most schools, certainly not the beautiful food of the farmer’s markets. In most schools the fare is a mix to chicken nuggets, tater tots, canned fruits and vegetables, chocolate milk (with more sugar than soda), corn dogs, pizza pockets and more depressing “stuff” (not really food) than I care mention. Cheap, cheap food that costs less than $1 dollar a day.

But this cheap food has a cost and that cost is our children’s health. Michael Pollan recently reported in the New York Times Magazine that diet related illness costs our country over $200 billion dollars a year--almost 30 times more than we spend on school lunches. As a country we spend $110 billon a year on fast food, $50 billion on diet aids and then of course the war in Iraq, estimates are topping $200 billion a year for that as well.

 

Yet as parents and caregivers, we buy our kids the best: the best sneakers, certainly the best car seats, jeans can often cost $50 - $100 a pair. We buy our kids swimming lessons, skiing lessons, music lessons, language lessons – the list goes on and on and on.

 

But for some reason, as a nation we seem unwilling to invest more money into the National School Lunch program. Here in the state of California, with the $11 pears at the farmer’s market, the governor has vetoed funds to raise the state reimbursement by 6 ½ cents per day per child--yes you got that right 6 ½ cents a day.

 

This week the state senate health committee takes up UB 20, which would fund the 6 ½ cents, plus raise the state’s reimbursement for school meals by another 8 or 9 cents over 3 years.

 

Seems like pennies, you can’t buy an apple at any of the farmer’s markets for 10 cents, yet we seem resistant to increase our children’s school lunches by that much.

 

But if we don’t make our children’s health a priority…………. then in the future there won’t be any. For if we stay on the current path and future generations continue to die at a younger age than their parents…………. then extinction is on the horizon.

 

We’re in an election cycle; please let the candidates and all of our elected officials know that our children’s health and their future is a priority and that we want--no deman--that more money be allocated to their health and future by increasing funds for school meals.

 

Ann Cooper “the Renegade Lunch Lady” is an author and the Director of Nutrition Services for the Berkeley Unified School District, a National School Lunch Advocate.

 

Ann Cooper

 

More on school lunches from NAAO friend and healthy food expert, Kate Adamick: