I was thinking about school lunch last night at the Food From the Heart event at the Ferry Building. It was a beautiful event. Commuters wandered into the building and found red and purple linens stretching to either end of the hall. Spreads of ceviche, pastries, empanadas, oysters, meats, mushrooms, fondue, and, of course, wines welcomed visitors into a packed party and out of the gray rain. I used to hate eating in the school cafeteria. It was so rushed and always unsatisfying. I’m wasn’t a shy kid but situations like that, with kids yelling and teachers scolding, made lunch an event to be avoided. My dad used to come by and rescue me and my siblings when he could just so we could eat on the benches out front with him.

So what made the crowd so different last night? Ed Bruske wrote about Michelle Obama’s “tall order” for school lunches in the Washington Post today. He took a trip to a D.C. school to see how lunch is made, served, consumed, and sometimes not consumed. At the end of all this, he asks how we get from here to there. What made lunch in a small town in Ohio so different from last night’s event? This may be an unfair comparison. The vintners and vendors profit from their quality and creativity, whereas school lunches are a public service whose only beneficiaries are big agricultural business lobbies. And then of course there’s the discrepancy in wine consumption which may have done something to elevate the mood last night along with the live music and tango dancing. But even in the middle of the rush, vendors excitedly answered questions, vintners discussed late-season harvests, and people smiled even as they bumped into each other. So, in addition to the vegetables, the reintroduction of cooking, and the participation of the child in every stage of the eating process, from seed to stomach, perhaps we need to encourage kids to taste, perhaps we need to tell them about the breads they’re eating, perhaps we need to give them the opportunity to respond. Bruske points out that the cafeterias rely on consumption to secure aid and so they look to kid-friendly versions of edible. But what if kids were encouraged to actively taste and not passively consume throughout the day, tasting the difference between a green bean brushed with cool dew and that same green bean warmed in the afternoon sun? What if we made them write it down, pushed them to expand their vocabulary and be articulate? What if we offered the time to develop an understanding of pleasure based not on ignorance but on knowledge? Maybe the pink, sugar frosting wouldn’t hold the same appeal anymore. Maybe lunch time could feel a little more like a meal.

Write it down. Be articulate, write to your representatives:

http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5986/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=828

The data is out there and now The United States Department of Agriculture has created an interactive Food Environment Atlas, mapping those data points including local foods, food insecurity, proximity to grocery stores, food prices, as well as providing information on the general socioeconomic makeup of the community. (http://maps.ers.usda.gov/FoodAtlas/)

I poked around on the atlas, looking at the information it had for my home county back in Ohio. Not surprisingly, Licking County has .804 fast food restaurants for every thousand people. Compare that to .16 grocery stores for every thousand people. Here in Alameda County (my current home) things are a bit better; .25 grocery stores for every thousand people and .765 fast food joints for every thousand people. You can even find the number of people eligible for free lunch programs or participating in the breakfast programs associated with the School Lunch programs, yeah, a lot of people rely on them. For example, monthly participants in the free Breakfast programs for San Francisco total 1,175,999 people. It can tell you the ratio of cost comparing fruits to sugary snacks, low-fat milk to soda pop, etc. It includes information on taxes on various food items. It has percentages of farms with sales directly to consumers. It tells you a lot.

But keep in mind, there are some things the interactive map can’t tell you. It can’t tell you why exercise rates are the way they are. It does not detail how many parks are available or how safe they are. It doesn’t tell you about changes over time or the number of activists working tirelessly to improve these numbers. Statistics are always just a snapshot. Data collection is an important starting point to identify problems and design policy reform. But working on these issues, and convincing others that they are worth restructuring the way we think, behave, produce, and consume will require us to create an equally sensitive and thorough map of qualitative issues. We have to be able to describe the relationship between farmer’s markets and diabetes rates, between Farm to School programs and the large numbers of people who rely nationally administered meals through the Child Nutrition Act. We have to pay attention to how communities benefit when they can produce for themselves, not just in the data points, but in community relationships and  a sense of well being. We have to understand how stigma is created around government assistance in certain programs and not in others (social security is treated as an inalienable right while nutritional assistance programs, despite the name upgrade, are still seen as markers of dependency).

So, check out the map. Then get the stories. Change will require we are familiar with both the data and the narrative. In the end, I defend Slow Food’s goals because it seeks to preserve meaning, the meaning we create when we cook, when we produce, when we share, when we know. I feel Slow Food seeks what Wendell Berry describes as pleasure based not on ignorance but knowledge. And therefore, my challenge is crafted not just with numbers and ratios, but with stories and recipes.

The right to nutritious and delicious food for breakfast and lunch.

The right to fresh fruit and fresh vegetables each day.

The right to choose-more than one main selection each day.

The right to give feedback and have input on the quality and selections made and have our input be given serious consideration.

So, exercise your right to give feedback and let your School Boards and your representatives know what you’re demanding.

Listening to the speakers at our Labor Day Eat-In, including Senator Mark Leno and author Daphne Miller, it became clear that Slow Food isn’t a typical political movement-in fact, for some it doesn’t feel political at all. But Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini understands the fundamental link between our social experience and our policies and this is why he is able to speak of a “right to pleasure.” This right, like any other, is in need of defense and attention. So when Slow Food demands that schools receive grants for gardens, incentives to buy local products, and an infrastructure to reacquaint us all with real food they do so as part of their defense of the right to pleasure. This is not the sort of pleasure we see on television but the pleasure we see right in our own kitchens. It is the moment Dava Guthmiller described as that first taste of fresh green beans. This pleasure is a complicated one involving the immediate appreciation of a simply good green bean as well as the knowledge of its creation, growth, and history.
Real food in schools means precisely this combination of pleasures. It is partly about getting good, healthy food that will better nourish children. It is also partly about shifting to a sustainable system that brings producer and consumer closer. And it is also about creating a place for children to explore the idea of fairness, of meaningful labor. Not only does the flavor and nutrition of a green bean have something to offer, but also its entire process of being. Children will learn to prepare and to wait until that exciting day when the little leaves of green emerge. There is no better way to learn of a product’s true value than to toil and play in the garden.
And that is what a political potluck is all about-toil and play. The dishes were beautiful and would have made Cezanne jealous. And the dishes were important: the onions slipped into the Civic Center in unsuspecting backpacks, the tomatoes were tucked beneath a towel and the subversive meal began. But it was a Slow Food kind of subversive, full of friendly conversation, letter writing, and recipe swapping. It was the kind of subversive you can bring your kid to-in fact you should bring your kid to.
So if that taste of politics felt familiar enough, then here’s something you can try:
Go have lunch with your kid at school. See exactly what it is you object to, I suspect it won’t be just the food. This is something policy cannot address as effectively and that is why it takes all of us to change. At my school, the cafeteria workers used to blow whistles if we got too loud during lunch. And if they had to blow it three times, we ate our meal in complete silence. And if you broke the silence, you didn’t finish the meal at all; you had to stand at the front of the room for the rest of the period. I wonder how those whistle-yielding workers would have felt doing that if the room was full of parents?
What kind of a food system puts workers in that position? Let’s put cooking back in the kitchen.

This is just the start. Keep reading, keep eating, and keep challenging.

This September Congress is set to reexamine the Child Nutrition Act and we want you to help. Every five years, Congress gets an opportunity to review and update the Act along with the related programs of the Child and Adult Care Food Program, the Summer Food Service Program, the Afterschool Snack and Meal Program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program, and the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program. Although the list seems fairly comprehensive, when stacked against the statistics of children in need, it seems insufficient. The United States Department of Agriculture, responsible for administering these programs, reports that 12.6 million children live in households consistently struggling against hunger. That translates to almost 20% of all children under the age of 18 living in poverty and no doubt the numbers have risen under the current economic conditions. The most recent reauthorization sought to reach more children while updating nutritional standards for the meals administered. The Child Nutrition Act, since its inception in 1966, has fed 30 million kids a year. Certainly the Act has done a lot. But we think it can do more.

Before we get into that, take a breath and let those numbers sink in. The problem isn’t just our food policies of course, but food becomes a basic element to solving any poverty-related problem. Thirty million kids are able to get at least one meal a day. That meal helps them focus and succeed in school. Sometimes the connections between a school meal and a good history paper seem stretched but I challenge you to focus on your work after skipping breakfast and lunch. And that’s just one day; many children start the day without having had a complete dinner the night before. Now imagine a meal for every child that goes beyond a caloric count. Imagine a meal that comforts them, introduces them to real food, and connects them to local producers.

Because school cafeterias rely on a combination of federal funding and private income from things like vending machines, achieving such a meal is often difficult and government subsidies make it easy to serve highly processed foods. But the government has the potential to direct its money toward a more positive end, one that would see an increased awareness of food cultures and systems as well as increased health and social benefits for our children. The transformation of school cafeterias to a site of processed production and consumption has had serious impacts, including a hand in helping to triple childhood obesity rates since 1960. (French et al, 2006) The problems are well known but the benefits are less well recognized.

Anthropology scholars define food as one of several “culturally defined material substances used in the creation and maintenance of social relationships.” (Mintz et al, 2002) Food has the power not only to change our bodies but also our way of thinking and relating. Teaching children that eating is an agricultural act that connects to a larger system of producers can create a generation of thinkers able to connect seemingly disparate landscapes and anticipate consequences. That is why Slow Food San Francisco, along with the other U.S. chapters, is asking for this review and reauthorization to be a chance to affirm our commitment to healthy and informed children. We are asking for:

-Increased reimbursement rate for each lunch from $2.57 to a minimum of $3.57 to invest in quality ingredients with greater nutritional value. Though this means a rise in spending it would be significantly offset by cut costs through a decreased reliance on long-distance transportation, increased health of our children, and revitalization of local economies.

-Grants for Farm-to-School Programs and school gardens to help connect children directly to food production and producers. The Farm-to-School organization has already worked with Congress to provide an example of successful local farm networks supplying schools. Programs like farm-to-school or school gardens (check out the Edible Schoolyards at Sanchez, Miraloma and Paul Revere Elementary Schools in San Francisco or Martin Luther King Junior Middle School in Berkeley for an example) have been shown to increase children’s knowledge of and preferences for vegetables. (French et al, 2006)

-Financial incentives to encourage schools to purchase locally grown goods.

-Opportunities for education and training of farmers, cooks, teachers, and administrators to participate in making the National School Lunch Program a success.

We know now that feeding is more than just about total calories. We know this after struggling with rising obesity and childhood diabetes. We know this after facing a problematic and growing health care bill. We know this after pausing to remember the nights we spent around the dinner table as children, overwhelmed with a feeling of being truly loved. We know this after calculating how much oil we ‘eat’ in every grocery-store product. But mostly we know it when we admit our own distance from the farmers-the hands-that care for the tomato we pick up at the store. Try asking someone working at that store about the conditions of the workers who grew those tomatoes. This Act can no longer be about just feeding or educating our children, we need it too. We need to remember what Wendell Berry felt as he said, “the community-in the fullest sense: a place and all its creatures-is the smallest unit of health and that to speak of the health of an isolated individual is a contradiction in terms.” We must learn, listening to the farmers like Steve, that community and wholeness is what sustains us and our meals must be a product of this understanding. And once we’ve digested this knowledge it’s imperative that we do our part by writing our local representatives, signing the national petition for the reauthorization or by merely just coming to one of the many Eat-In/Potlucks on September 7th to share a meal and be part of what could be quite a movement towards eating what we preach.