Trading Grease for Greens

Forget the mystery meat. Efforts to help teach public school children to eat better in, and outside of, the school cafeteria have taken root all over the city in recent years. A fair and conference held this weekend at Teachers College looked to explore ways to promote children's nutritional health.

The conference, "Schools, Food and Gardening: Cultivating a Healthy Future," focused on helping children develop healthy food attitudes and behaviors through changing what ingredients go into the Monday special, teaching children how to garden and cook, and fostering relationships between farms and schools.

Food is available for children at public schools: nationally, over 90 percent of all public schools have lunch programs, and over 80 percent have breakfast programs, said Kate MacKenzie, director of food and nutrition at FoodChange, an agency involved in New York City food policies.

But Lynn Parker, director of Child Nutrition Programs and Nutrition Policy for the Food Research and Action Center, said there is a lack of participation in these programs system-wide, despite the obvious benefits. "Research has shown children who eat a breakfast do better in school, have less behavioral problems in class, and are less likely to be tardy or absent," she said.

Yet as more and more children do take advantage of food programs at schools, panelists at the conference noted, there should be increased attention to what goes into the meals, including the proximal origins of the food.

"We are trying to, for once and for all, to get it clear that schools should buy food from the state or region," MacKenzie said.

Current nutritional standards prevent New York City schools from using artificial ingredients, trans-fat cooking oil, MSG, and meat mechanically removed from the bone, said Jorge Collazo, executive chef of the NYC Department of Education. New York has not banned frozen foods since they are easier to store than fresh foods, and not allowing them would require changing cafeteria infrastructure.

Other ideas the academics, chefs, teachers, and physicians suggested included urging children to look beyond Cheetos to carrots, expanding gardening programs, providing cooking classes for teens, and designing curricula to link food to environmental studies. Some panelists suggested introducing salad and burrito bars in cafeterias.

The conference was hosted by the Nutrition Program of Teachers College and the Baum Forum, a not-for-profit program of conferences and seminars held periodically to focus public attention on food and farming issues. It was designed as a follow-up to a conference held last year that also discussed schools, food, and wellness.