School food
The National School Lunch Program, created in 1946, is supposed to ensure that no child goes without a healthy meal every day.
But more than sixty years after it began, school food typically is far from healthy. School lunch programs are so underfunded that today’s schools have only $1 per child to buy ingredients. Schools do their best to stretch that dollar, but it’s not enough to make healthy meals.
Much of the food served in school lunch programs comes from the USDA's commodities program, which distributes millions of pounds of surplus foods to schools. These include meat (mostly industrially-produced beef, pork, and high-fat meat products), dairy (including some rBGH), and canned goods that are high in salt and/or sugar and refined flour. Fiber-rich fresh fruits and vegetables are more expensive and few and far between.
Junk food also is sold in vending machines and most schools lack resources to start nutrition programs, or to buy and cook healthy, sustainable food.
There's been some good news, however. Thanks to a nationwide campaign, the USDA has decided to allow schools to source organic and rBGH-free milk!
Several groups and organizations are working to make sure every schoolchild can eat sustainable, healthy, delicious food:
The National Farm to School Network
Slow Food's Time for Lunch campaign