The Cost of Affordable Food

When someone puts a piece of food in front of me, I don’t just see a piece of food. Instead, I see an innocent cow being cornered by a forklift and slaughtered, its limp, moist tissue hung on a long conveyer belt with hundreds of others. I see hundreds of chemically-injected chickens packed into a dark barn with no hope of seeing sunlight in their lifetime. I see immigrants pulled from their houses like criminals, taken away from the lives they’ve spent years building for themselves and their families, working for the same food company that courted them into the country. I see pink slime, a dubious compilation of cartilage, connective tissue, tendons and ammonia being served as chicken nuggets and hamburgers in public school lunches. [excerpt

Eat Your Veggies: A Chef-Prepared, Family Style School Lunch Increases Vegetable Liking and Consumption in Elementary School Students

School lunches provide an opportunity to introduce children to healthy foods in ways that might result in both short- and long-term healthier eating. This study compared vegetable consumption and liking for vegetables in 8–10 year old children at two schools, one with a traditional lunch service (61–84 students in School B) and the other (24–26 students in School A) which devoted one day each week to the “Eatiquette Program”, which incorporates chef-prepared food, non-disposable plates and cutlery, and family style service including an adult at each table. Consumption of target vegetables (cauliflower and sweet potato “fries”) was recorded in the lunchroom at the beginning and end of the school year, and a subset of children provided rankings and ratings of liking for those and six other vegetables in separate assessments at those times. Consumption of sweet potato fries was higher in children in the Eatiquette lunch than in the children at the control school at the beginning of the year. Although initial consumption of the cauliflower was not significantly higher in the Eatiquette lunch than in the control school, consumption increased from the beginning to the end of the school year for children eating the Eatiquette lunch. In addition liking for and ranking of the cauliflower increased from the beginning to the end of the year for the children in the Eatiquette (n = 6) program but not for those eating the traditional lunch (n = 22). The Eatiquette program increased consumption of and liking for vegetables. Aspects of the Eatiquette program including food palatability and the presence of an adult at each table may be responsible for these increases

Just Dessert: Serving Fruit as a Separate Dessert Course Increases Vegetable Consumption in a School Lunch

Consumption of vegetables is related to overall health. American children, particularly low income students who qualify for free school meals, consume a majority of their calories at school. The United States Federal Government sets regulations for those school meals to promote healthy eating, encouraging the consumption of well-liked fruits and less-liked vegetables. Given that hedonic contrast can affect liking for foods served simultaneously, this study investigated whether a well-liked fruit served at the same time as a less-liked vegetable in a school lunch would reduce consumption and liking for that vegetable compared to when the fruit was served subsequent to vegetable consumption. All of the third and fourth grade subjects consumed some of the vegetable when the fruit was served after the vegetable. When the fruit and vegetable were served simultaneously 40% of the subjects consumed none of the vegetable (Cramer\u27s V=. 0.52). There was no difference in liking ratings for the vegetable as reported by subjects, though they may have felt peer pressure to positively rate their meal. Serving the fruit component after the rest of the meal is recommended as a standard practice to encourage vegetable consumption in school children