Improving School Lunches For Children

Here in Canada, a cable channel called The Food Network just began showing a television series out of the United Kingdom, called Jamie's School Dinners. The two episodes that I have watched have been positively brilliant.

This television series follows celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver, as he visits schools around the country with a mission to change the way that the government and parents are feeding their kids. It was both shocking and sad to see Jamie ask a group of elementary students to identify various vegetables, only to have asparagus mistaken for onion and celery mistaken for potato. I thought that I was the only kid to have soda and chocolate bars for lunch.

By taking the kids on a field trip to a farm, getting them involved with making nutritious meals, and working with school and government officials, Jamie Oliver has been able to get the government to commit to spending 280 million pounds to improve school lunches around the country.

I have heard of similar progress in the Berkeley Public School District in northern California. I hope that teachers, parents, and government officials all around the world are watching this television series. If you are in a position to improve school lunches for the kids in your area, please visit feed me better.com, where you will find some excellent resources and ideas on how to help our kids have access to foods that they need to be at their best!

A word of caution: although I think it's a brilliant series, it involves coarse language from time to time.