This is a great article about how a chef is remaking the school lunches in NYC. Very cool and heartening!

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/...0509/9chef.htm

Thanks for that! Very interesting. School food was one of the factors in convincing my husband that we should homeschool Cody. I kid you not, the kid ate waffles and french fries and 2 cartons of chocolate milk one day. Rubbish!

One thing I think is a mistake that they're doing in the school is offering a salad bar. That is, unless they restrict certain items. When I was in high school, we had a salad, and there was always a HUGE line. However, kids mainly put on a cup of cheese and about the same amount of ranch dressing, with a handful of Bac-o's on top. Half of us made salads while the other half went for pizza and fries, and we just dug in. That was before subway, McDonalds and Coke machines made it into the school. Cody was getting chubby last year, and I don't think it was all medication. He ate like crap at school, and we felt like we had to force feed fruits and veggies every night. He came home starved every day after school. NO wonder, they loaded him up with simple carbs at lunch, and then he was crashed before school ever let out.

We've had something similar ongoing here in the Bay Area in several school districts...here's Berkeley's for example:

The Edible Schoolyard

Rethinking School Lunch

Wow, Jennifer, I know what you mean! I often subbed for a teacher that had lunch duty. I was posted in the line to make sure kids didn't kill each other while getting their food. I was shocked at what they ate! Tatertots, pizza, and chocolate milk! And that was a good lunch...you'd never believe some of the things the kids brought from home... Oy!

There was a great Simpson's episode on recently where the school installed vending machines with subliminal messages. Bart became incredibly fat and ended up going to fat camp. In the end, he busted up the vending machines and went back to normal eating. I was cheering, thinking of all the kids I know who love that show and might be influenced by it.

Mrs. Jim, those sites are so encouraging!