obesity
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Berkeley school food revolution’s secret ingredient: parents
Part 2 of Cafeteria Confidential: Berkeley, in which Ed Bruske reports on his recent week-long, firsthand look at how Berkeley, Calif., schools part ways from the typical school diet of frozen, industrially processed convenience foods. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest of the Cafeteria Confidential series. Eric Weaver’s son is a freshman […]
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No more nuggets: Berkeley schools serve Epic Chicken
In this second, multi-post set of his Cafeteria Confidential series, Ed Bruske reports on his recent week-long, firsthand look at how Berkeley, Calif., schools part ways from the typical school diet of frozen, industrially processed convenience foods. Cross-posted from The Slow Cook. And check out the rest of the Cafeteria Confidential series. My instructions, simple […]
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Jamie Oliver on parents, nuggets, ‘luminous drinks,’ and school lunches
“Parents can be the most positive, powerful force in a country or they can be disgusting, backstabbing traitors. When little Johnny comes home and says, ‘I didn’t get my nugget today,’ it’s wrong to say ‘Oh, all right, darling,’ and give him some [expletive] horrible Lunchable and a pack of potato chips and a luminous […]
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The sweetener lobby: still a powerhouse in the school lunch debate
For the sweetener industry, shovelling empty calories to your kids has been very, very good business. They’d prefer not to stop. “Healthy Schools” legislation written by D.C. Councilmember Mary Cheh comes up for its first committee vote today after months of deliberations and with one very conspicuous missing element: no regulation of sugar in school meals. Removing the […]
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What I learned at Michelle Obama’s historic obesity summit
FLOTUS with the mostest: Michelle Obama addessses the Obesity Summit.When President Obama established a “Presidential task force on childhood obesity” in February, Grist’s Tom Laskawy wondered whether our nation’s first federal food policy council had quietly sprung into being. In a food policy council, the key stakeholders of a region’s food system come together to […]
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Americans eat more processed food than, well, anyone
The New York Times had a small article and a big graphic recently on America’s love affair with processed, packaged food: Americans eat 31 percent more packaged food than fresh food, and they consume more packaged food per person than their counterparts in nearly all other countries. A sizable part of the American diet is […]
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A teacher openly crusades for better school food–and gets seared
Colorado teacher Mendy Heaps: dangerous lunchroom radical–or fruit-cart-pushing concerned citizen? Mendy Heaps, a stellar English teacher for years, had never given much thought to the food her seventh-graders were eating. Then her husband, after years of eating junk food, was diagnosed with cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure and suddenly the french fries, pizza, and ice cream being […]
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Have Jesus’ disciples been overeating?
Leonardo da Vinci’s 1498 painting of The Last Supper.Photo: Drewwiki via Wikimedia Commons In a strange study published this week by the International Journal of Obesity, professors found that portion sizes in artistic renditions of The Last Supper increased dramatically in the past 1,000 years, the L.A. Times reports. The study, conducted by brothers Brian […]
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Sorry, we can’t cook: D.C. schools say ‘no’ to more veggies
Cheer up, kid — the chicken nuggets and tater tots are sticking around. In a move that could signal a serious fault line in the argument for more vegetables as a tonic for childhood obesity, drafters of “Healthy Schools” legislation pending before the D.C. Council have scuttled a push for additional produce in school meals […]