Bubble-gum apples and pre-fab cheeseburgers

What’s become of school lunch 2

School lunchWhere’s my bubble-gum-flavored apple? Photo: dancing chopsticks

Remember back in April, when I bemoaned Obama’s choice of an industry-friendly school-lunch overseer? The job of administering the USDA’s school-lunch program went to Janey Thornton. She had made her name serving in several capacities for the School Nutrition Association—a conglomeration of school cafeteria managers who have never seen a Tyson chicken nugget they didn’t try to serve to a kid.

Now the great new blog School Lunch Talk, co-edited by “renegade lunch lady” Ann Cooper, has delivered an inside look at just what the SNA is all about:

Imagine if Las Vegas built a Costco-themed hotel with a particular emphasis on chicken nugget samples and then filled the building with lunch ladies. That’s the best way I can describe the School Nutrition Association’s annual food expo, which is taking place right now in Vegas’ Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Every summer, thousands of lunch ladies flock to the show to sample the newest industry products for school lunch. They stroll through over 800 booths, tasting everything from popcorn chicken and mini cheeseburgers, to whole-grain doughnuts and blue-raspberry slushees. Forget flipping through cookbooks - today, this is the menu planning process for your kid’s school cafeteria.

If you want a bird’s eye view of the problems plaguing school food, this is the place to go. The expo boasted 40 booths showcasing ice cream, cakes, cookies, puddings and other desserts. Over 20 booths peddled poultry (mostly breaded) and 20 more featured beef products. Pizza showed up at 12 booths. Fresh fruits and vegetables showed up at only 10.
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My personal favorite from the show was the Crazy Apple. In an attempt to get kids to eat more fruit, this company has developed apples that taste like bubble gum, cotton candy and tropical blast.

 

Grist food editor Tom Philpott farms and cooks at Maverick Farms, a sustainable-agriculture nonprofit and small farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Follow my Twitter feed; contact me at tphilpott[at]grist[dot]org.

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  1. Grass Posted 9:41 am
    07 Jul 2009

    You have to know that Tyson and Monsanto "food safety" bills in Congress are threatening farming and food all together.  Bubble gum flavored apples?  Are you working for industrial food companies now?  Could you get more trivial?For anyone who's seen Food, Inc, the companies exposed there are making a bid for absolute power over food.  If you want to learn more, go here and send a message but even better would be to get involved.  Call, let your friends know, find out if you can help the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund which is fighting as hard it it can to save our farmers.   Stop HR 2749 Action Page: http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum996.phphttp://www.ftcldf.org/petitions/pnum993.phpThe bills contain Codex.  http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/THE_FOUNDATION/Events/codex-whatisit.htmlHere where it comes from.  http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/PHARMACEUTICAL_BUSINESS/history_of_the_pharmaceutical_industry.htm
    If the bills pass, organic is dead, integrative, natural health is gone, and pesticides and irradiation and drugs and the industries behind them are in. 

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  2. paulhue Posted 12:24 pm
    10 Jul 2009

    At least the kid in the photo has 100% juice. School food is absolutely horrible. Tom, when will you consider using school vouchers as a way for sophisticated parents to obtain control over their schools, rather than relying on a few guys on top of an enromous, billion-dollar, national pyramid to make the choices that a few of us want? Imagine how much power parents would have if they controled where their $12k annual per student check went?Not that I can report here in the Detrot area that we private school parents have any better choices: even at the private schools, not enough parents here care or know about food for the private schools to serve anything that a food savy person would eat, or permit his kids to eat. But I have an easier task convincing a tipping point's worth of fellow students to request real food, than I would convincing a federal beuracracy! 

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