Lunch Lessons Book Review

I don't have particularly strong affections towards children after working as both a nanny and preschool teacher for too long. Lately, however, I've had a strong interest in school lunches, the quality and nutritional benefits therein (or lack thereof). I volunteered in a first grade classroom for 2.5 years and during that time, I learned a lot about school lunch. Not by eating it, but simply being around it with my kids during lunchtime. I learned that it was not only gross, unhealthy, but the kids didn't eat it. Very often the vegetables or fruit were the only things that WERE eaten out of the school lunches (shocking, right? kids eating vegetables) because they were the only thing edible unless it was pizza day. Some of the kids parents packed their lunches and those were even worse: chips, candy and a peanut butter sandwich does not a nutritious lunch make.

I read the entirely of the awesome blog Fed Up with School Lunch, watched the entirety of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (awesome, you must watch) and just recently got my hands on a copy of Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children by Ann Cooper and Lisa M. Holmes. I picked mine up at the library- it's one of the books on my list of books I want to read, which you can find here (I tend to fall into the sociology/ memoir/ economic category and not so much fiction).

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The book's premise was awesome and it had some good information. It had great, absolutely fantastic ideas for getting kids involved in cooking, gardening, a ton of recipes and would be awesome if you had kids.

Contents in the book:

- 30-40% of kids born in 2000 will have diabetes and be the first generation to die younger than their parents

- 78% of schools do not meet USDA guidelines for school lunches

- Nutritional guidelines for kids in different statges (detailed and interesting)

- 40% of cancer is diet related

- School lunch started in the 1700's in Europe (the book goes through the whole history)

- Schools need to work with local farmers

- The National School Lunch Program serves 26 million children in 97,000 schools with a budget of approximately $7 billion

- Schools need to change the environment in which children eat (SO TRUE! Cafeterias are awful)

- Big changes potentially cost small amounts of money

- We spend 115 billion on diet-related medical issues a year but only $7 billion a year on school lunches

- 1 out of every 4 meals eaten in America are fast food

- Descriptions of school programs that already implement better food choices for students

In terms of actual widespread reform ideas, it left me a little flat because I don't have kids. I don't intend to have kids. I have an interest in school lunches, but am not a parent, nutritionist or political activist by any means. I moved away from the school I volunteered in, so I'm afraid I don't have a voice there either anymore. I'm aware of the problem, but don't know how to fix it. Maybe I choose the wrong pet project...

Overall, I'd say this is a great book if you have kids or a teacher. For childless adults who intend to stay that way? Not so much in terms of actionable goals, but it's definitely worth a read if only to learn things about school lunch program and alarming statistics about a segment of the population I normally don't give much thought to.