Hilltown Families 
Lunch Room Updates
School Lunch Updates:
"Lunch Lessons" by Ann Cooper.
How the USDA Helped Bring Processed Food to School Lunch
Most adults don’t have glorious memories of school lunch. It was sloppy Joes, shepherd’s pie, spaghetti with meat sauce, and it was usually on the bland side. But the food wasn’t bad, and it was almost always cooked from scratch by an army of school lunch ladies. Read more at School Lunch Talk.
Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children
Remember how simple school lunches used to be? You’d have something from every major food group, run around the playground for a while, and you looked and felt fine. But today it’s not so simple. Schools are actually feeding the American crisis of childhood obesity and malnutrition. Most cafeterias serve a veritable buffet of processed, fried, and sugary foods, and although many schools have attempted to improve, they are still not measuring up: 78 percent of the school lunch programs in America do not meet the USDA’s nutritional guidelines. Chef Ann Cooper has emerged as one of the nation’s most influential and most respected advocates for changing how our kids eat.
In Lunch Lessons, she and Lisa Holmes spell out how parents and school employees can help instill healthy habits in children. They explain the basics of good childhood nutrition and suggest dozens of tasty, home-tested recipes for breakfast, lunch, and snacks. The pages are also packed with recommendations on how to eliminate potential hazards from the home, bring gardening and composting into daily life, and how to support businesses that provide local, organic food. Yet learning about nutrition and changing the way you run your home will not cure the plague of obesity and poor health for this generation of children. Only parental activism can spark widespread change. With inspirational examples and analysis, Lunch Lessons is more than just a recipe book—it gives readers the tools to transform the way children everywhere interact with food.
American Lunchroom: A Photo Essay
Check out American Lunchroom for a photo essay of what our kids are eating at school: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Viewers are invited to send in a photo of what their school lunch looks like too.
Great coverage of Ann Cooper’s Lunch lesson. Whole Foods Market and Chef Ann Cooper, have just joined forces to transform lunch in schools across the country with the “School Lunch Revolution” campaign. This national effort, aims to enable schools to improve the way children eat. The free, first-of-its-kind Lunch Box Web site – thelunchbox.org – will provide the necessary resources for food service directors to make tangible changes in their cafeteria menus.
I thought you and your readers might find this a good follow up to your recent post + there are some great videos with Chef Ann which offer back to school food tips for parents. You can find these videos @ http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/schoollunchrevolution/videos.php