cafeteria food? we'd rather go hungry!: SIS Capstone project: Cafeteria Food? We'd Rather Go Hungry!

Cafeteria Food ? We'd rather go hungry!
By: Genesis Quezada and Daisy Flores

When people think of cafeteria food, one thinks nasty, unappetizing, greasy food. You think, how can they serve us this and thinks it’s safe for us to eat? Cafeteria food used to be cooked on school site, but now it is shipped from another state, where the only thing that has to be done to the food is heated up. This can leave the food unhealthy, undercooked, or overcooked, building up many harmful illnesses. Unhealthy cafeteria food can cause food borne illnesses & obesity if not changed. It’s a more serious issue than we think. Our purpose is to change cafeteria food in a healthy way by trying to get a salad bar or something simple as providing water for the students, anything is better than what we already have. We invite Amy White .We made flyers to hand out to the audience when presenting. These flyers consit of steps on how to donate money to saladbars2schools.org.When reached the goal of 125,000 dollars all HISD schools will receive salad bars.

Not every school cafeteria food is the same in the world. But every country has the same goal and concept as us, to try to provide a healthy good tasting lunch to the students. Unfortunately, some countries are doing a better job than others. According to website http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4298245.stm the article "Schools Dinners Around The Wrold" says "France is viewed as a country where food is their national religion," school meals are their main interest since obesity in children under the age of 15 is rising. Their schools provide the students with a nutritionist who also works with the parents, to ensure that the meals provided are a healthy balanced diet. The French believe that good eating habits should start early. So there is no issue of children preferring pizza over something healthy such as fish. The school lunches are simply an adult menu served in children portion sizes. One example of a menu in a primary school is a grapefruit, followed by grilled chicken with green beans, then rice pudding for dessert. Their snack is a tangerine. Potato chips are only offered once a week, but are usually accompanied by salmon lasagna rather than a burger. If they serve pizza it will always be served with a healthy green salad. Every meal is served with water rather than a soft drink or milk. Even though the French schools offer healthy meals, they will probably make poor choices outside of school. For this reason, the French government commission has made healthy eating a main priority that primary schools offer nutrition classes to teach children the lessons about healthy eating.

Cafeteria food is a global issue, something people don’t seem to understand. Acording to the website "http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/news/2011/11101002.aspx?print=1" the article "Exciting , healthy changes underway for school meals" claims that "about one in five school-age children in King County are overweight or obese, increasing their of risk serious health problems, including Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol." Since 1980, the rate of overweight children nationwide has doubled, and the rate of overweight teens has tripled. In an effort to combat this trend, Public Health - Seattle & King County funded five school districts to improve nutrition standards as part of Communities Putting Prevention to Work, a federally-funded campaign to fight obesity and tobacco use, two of the leading causes of death in King County.

But what about our school? Our district? It looks like others are receiving good change but we aren’t! The U.S. Department of Agriculture has proposed changes to school meal standards that would add more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fat-free and low-fat milk to school meals. The proposed rule would double the amount of fruits and increase the amount of grains by 80 percent for school breakfasts. Officials further proposed increasing fruits and vegetables by nearly four half-cup servings each week for school lunches. The Agriculture Department’s other proposed requirements include: Decreasing the amount of starchy vegetables like white potatoes, corn, lima beans and green peas to one cup a week. Offering pasteurized, 100 percent fruit juice, reducing the amount of sodium in school meals by 25-50 percent over the next 10 years. Establishing average calorie content for meals offered to each age/grade group that would fall within the minimum and maximum calorie levels set by the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine. Hopefully, what they say is true because we need change, it isn’t as hard as it seems, little changes could lead to big changes like offering only fat-free flavored or unflavored milk or unflavored 1 percent milk, using food products and ingredients with zero grams of trans fat. Under the proposed rule, school cafeterias would have weekly requirements for dark green and orange vegetables and legumes. Employees would also be required to serve food with less than 10 percent of its total calories from saturated fat.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/school-lunches-and-the-food-industry.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Lunch from Singapore