| School food is a hot topic of late. From the Child Nutrition Act reauthorization currently being debated in Congress, to First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" initiative on childhood obesity, to celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's "Food Revolution" TV program taking aim at eating habits, the health of our children is front and center. Parents, local officials, community partners, and others want to know how to help improve our kids' meals -- and have basic questions about how the complex universe of school food really works: - Who makes the decisions about what our children eat?
- What foods do school food service professionals have to work with, and why?
- What national, state and local policies play a role?
School Food FOCUS is tackling these questions with School Food 101, a series of briefs that will describe the operating realities of food service in the nation's largest school districts. The idea for this project emerged from FOCUS school food service professionals, who expressed the need for succinct and straightforward ways to talk about the complexities of their world with an increasingly interested and involved lay audience. These materials will explain school food for a wide spectrum of audiences, including parents, teachers, legislators, and members of the media.
The first two pieces, The Cost of School Lunch and Understanding USDA Foods, have been developed in collaboration with the CS Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems at MSU.
We are launching this series with an introductory webinar about the purpose and plans for School Food 101, as well as the critical issues addressed in the first two briefs. - Laura Stanley, Special Projects Coordinator, School Food FOCUS, will introduce School Food 101;
- Kymm Mutch, Administrator of School Nutrition Services at Milwaukee Public Schools, will talk about the real cost of school lunch; and
- Cathie McCullough, Director of the Food Distribution Division of the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), will talk about USDA commodities as they relate to a range of school meal programs.
If you would like to attend, please register here by May 3, 2010.
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School Food FOCUS is a national initiative that helps large school districts (with 40,000 or more students) procure more healthful, more sustainably produced and regionally sourced food, so that children may perform better in school and be healthier in life. www.schoolfoodfocus.org
The CS Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems at Michigan State University works at a national level to support the development of healthy communities and sustainable, locally-integrated food systems by engaging communities in applied research and outreach. foodsystems.msu.edu
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