Sunday, February 22, 2009

Jihad against junk food

I have been waiting for a hero in the US to stand and fight for more healthful food in schools. Whenever I engage in conversation on this topic the archetype of Jamie Oliver and his "feed me better" campaign in Brittan comes up. Read his manifesto where he outlines a strategy for putting fresh local ingredients into the cafeteria. Talk about people powered media, Mr. Oliver encourages children to use their cell phone cameras to take pictures of the their school lunches and post them on his site. Internal checks to ensure the reform is happening on the ground. This could happen in the US, but living in the breadbasket of the world we have some of the largest food production lobbies on the planet. Look what we are up against.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Pizza is the real American pie, a true staple and perhaps the most perfect vector of grease known to man :-) How feasible would it be for local farmers/producers and school boards to work together to circumvent federal regulations to provide more diverse and healthier options for students? It is very viable yet the real problem is that so many care so little about such an important issue. From my understanding federal regulations represent nutritional minima and merely reinforce that pepsi, doritos and the likes can be served in cafeterias. Should locals wish to improve their menus with local produce it would be quite easy to exceed regulations, though working through the cost effectiveness may represent only a slightly more difficult task. Thanks I appreciate your post.