Paging Gordon Ramsey
According to this piece, school lunches in some parts of Great Britain have improved immeasurably -- with fresher and healthier meals replacing processed junk like the heinous-sounding "turkey twizzler."
New state legislation aims to ban the sale of junk foods and beverages on California campuses. Well and good, if that's what "the people" want.
The problem is what's left for the children to eat. If the "healthy alternatives" that will replace the delicious, non-nutritious junk food are disgusting, then -- in an ironic boomerang effect -- the legislation may not result in healthier Californians in the long term. Instead, it produce an entire generation of people who studiously avoid "healthy foods" because of a bad experience with poorly prepared or even downright repulsive institutional fare. (The food at my grade/high school was generally nutritious and good, but I remember the vile, slimy chicken chow mein; to this day, the very term "chow mein" make me nauseous.)
Apparently, a celebrity chef helped turn things around in Britain. How about it here? There are plenty of celebrity chefs, ranging from Gordon Ramsay to Wolfgang Puck, wandering around L.A.
Wouldn't it be great if they would create some school menus to demonstrate that nutritious eating can be delicious, too?
New state legislation aims to ban the sale of junk foods and beverages on California campuses. Well and good, if that's what "the people" want.
The problem is what's left for the children to eat. If the "healthy alternatives" that will replace the delicious, non-nutritious junk food are disgusting, then -- in an ironic boomerang effect -- the legislation may not result in healthier Californians in the long term. Instead, it produce an entire generation of people who studiously avoid "healthy foods" because of a bad experience with poorly prepared or even downright repulsive institutional fare. (The food at my grade/high school was generally nutritious and good, but I remember the vile, slimy chicken chow mein; to this day, the very term "chow mein" make me nauseous.)
Apparently, a celebrity chef helped turn things around in Britain. How about it here? There are plenty of celebrity chefs, ranging from Gordon Ramsay to Wolfgang Puck, wandering around L.A.
Wouldn't it be great if they would create some school menus to demonstrate that nutritious eating can be delicious, too?
posted by LadybugUSA at 9:30 AM
2 Comments:
Alice Waters, who literally put California Cuisine on the map with Chez Pannise, has done an outstanding job of bringing healthy delicious meals to schools up in the Bay Area for many years.
http://www.chezpanisse.com/cpfoundation.html
http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/homepage.html
Her programs have been lauded by Repub and Dem alike.
Wow, school feeding troughs are another gummint success. Sigh.
When I was a kid, the "school lunch program" was whatever lunch Mom packed plus a little milk money. The "youth jobs program" was a newspaper route and "day care" was babysitting by the neighboring family's girl.
Today we have obese kids, gangs of unemployed (and unemployable) youths, and too expensive (but licensed!) institutional child care. The "progressives" would have us believe this is progress. Adults know better, the honest ones at least.
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