Episode 12: Food for Thought

I don’t know about you, but back when I was in school, lunch was a bit of a free-for-all. I was lucky enough to have parents who educated us pretty diligently on making good food choices, but sometimes those crunchy, salty french fries with thick chocolate milk were just too good to pass up. There wasn’t much thought put into nutrition in schools back then. I realize now that unless kids had parents who had instilled food wisdom into their brains early, they probably didn’t think twice about eating junk for meals. In fact, the freedom was kind of fun.  

Fast forward to 12 years ago when Michelle Obama spearheaded the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 which allowed the USDA to radically change the way school lunch (and breakfast) was considered for the first time in 30 years. By changing nutrition standards and making healthy food options more widely available, food in schools finally got some of the attention that it deserved. So what’s happened since then and what’s going on now? What can we as moms and teachers do to support these initiatives and bring them home? Let’s find out.

With me on today's episode is Karen Spangler, Policy Director, at National Farm to School Network, a Washington D.C.-based non-profit organization that works to increase access to local food and nutrition education across all 50 states. Their goal is to improve children’s health, strengthen family farms, and cultivate vibrant communities through a unifying focus on food. 

We also wanted to include a few direct resources for you freemoms, so here you go:

• Benefits of Farm to School programs fact sheet

• More information on a racially just food system

• Benefits of Values-Aligned Universal School Meals

Enjoy!