sbma44’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  a response from Tom Lee

  Hi Tom.  Thanks for responding to my post -- I appreciate the thoughtful engagement.  But I'm afraid I'm not yet convinced.

  My post was motivated by pragmatism.  I agree that school lunches are a priority that deserves better funding.  But I'm not content to leave it at that: I think it's important that we feed our kids better, and I don't want to see the effort die on the vine.  So let's be honest about what we can achieve.  That means figuring out what we're trying to accomplish, what we can afford, and how to get the most bang for our buck.

  Fortunately, human nutrition isn't actually a very difficult problem.  Oh sure, there's plenty of room at the margins for a vibrant marketing industry to sell us flavonoids or omega-3 fatty acids or whatever else.  But the basic problem of what dietary inputs are necessary for humans to thrive has been solved for quite a while.  This isn't "nutritionism" -- a critique, incidentally, that only gets its teeth from the schizophrenic food choices we find ourselves making on an individual level -- it's nutrition science, and there's nothing wrong with it.  To the contrary, it's saved many lives, and made many others healthier and longer.

  You write:

  While Lee proffers a solution to the school-lunch dilemma that targets (effectively or not) nutrition, Waters offers a robust model that offers synergies in many directions. Lee would preserve the model of cafeteria workers as deskilled clerks with a specialty in reheating; Waters' way would require trained cooks -- who could then pass their skills onto students.

  Lee's model would continue to funnel federal cash into a globalized food system that relies on cheap labor and mined and synthesized inputs, many of them highly toxic and greenhouse-gas-intensive (see oxide, nitrous). Waters wants federal cash to bolster the foodsheds that surround schools, incentivizing (that one's for you, wonks) ecological-minded farming.

  These seem like apple-to-oranges comparisons to me.  Not to be crass, but what are we getting for our money? It's not unreasonable to demand that a federal program define goals that are less amorphous and more verifiable than "synergies", vaguely-defined economic and environmental benefits and a break from the hated status quo.

  I appreciate that there are many things wrong with our current food regime.  But many of the most passionate responses I've received to my post seem to suffer from a double standard: Waters' vision is seen as an idyll in which children cook for one another and schools can spare infinite resources and class time to foodie pursuits. Meanwhile the existing system -- already built, honed and ready for improvement! -- is subjected to withering scrutiny that the Watersian vision is not asked to bear (do you really think salmonella is a problem for factory production but not for food cooked on site by children?).

  Finally, on the point about elitism: I hope everyone can and will afford to enjoy thoughtfully-prepared, flavorful and healthful food (but if I have to settle for one of the three, I'll choose the last).  If you think that it's elitist to suggest that such food is sometimes wasted on children, so be it, but I think you may need to spend some more time around kids.  Foodieism is fun -- I participate in it, and have done so for years.  But it's important that we all realize that ours is not the only way to eat, and that we retain a sense of humility when our good intentions tempt us to force our lifestyle on others before considering whether the resources required could be better spent elsewhere.
  On For the first time in decades, a healthy school-lunch debate opens posted 9 months ago 10 Responses