Would you eat this?

School lunch: Yum or yuk?
Image courtesy Mrs. Q

It's very challenging to teach students when they are eating school lunches that don't give them the nutrition they need and deserve. Oftentimes what is served barely passes muster as something edible. And after a meal high in sugar and fat, they then must pay attention in a classroom.

Mrs. Q
Fed Up: School lunch project

Looks like this meal falls into the category of "food-like substances," as author Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food)likes to say. Wouldn't you agree?

Mrs. Q, a teacher, got fed up with inattentive children who were hungry, hyper and ... hungry, especially after lunch. She decided to look into what they were eating. Then she took it a step further.

For the rest of 2010, Mrs. Q is eating the same school lunch her students, the majority of whom qualify for subsidized lunches, wolf down (or not) in the cafeteria every day. She's often hungry after lunch. Sometimes she's downright disgusted. She finds some of the food inedible. She says she would not feed this food to her toddler.

If we are going to build Ordinary, we need to pay attention to what we're feeding our children. The Fed Up: School lunch project is a good place to start.

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We make peace in a million small ways every day.

All text and images, unless otherwise noted, copyright L. Kathryn Grace. All rights reserved.