"Two Angry Moms" with Slow Food Boston

Last week, Slow Food BU hosted a film screening of Two Angry Moms with Slow Food Boston.

Two Angry Moms is a documentary following filmmaker and mother Amy Kalafa, who searches for schools that offer healthier school lunches. Susan Rubin of Better School Food is the other "angry mom" in the documentary, and the film shows the efforts of Susan and other leaders in the movement to improve school lunches. The film offers steps for those interested in improving the quality of food in children's schools, such as:

1. Have lunch with your child in the school cafeteria
2. Join a committee or coalition
3. Survey your district
4. Read your contracts
5. Market your new program

Read the more detailed action plan here.

After the film, Alex Loud of Slow Food Boston spoke about Slow Food's Time for Lunch Campaign. The Child Nutrition Act is a federal law that was created in order to help meet the nutritional needs of children in the National School Lunch Program. Because the Child Nutrition Act is reauthorized every five years and is planned to be reviewed by Congress in early 2010, it is the perfect time and opportunity to make change. Currently, Congress allots $2.68 per school lunch, with $1 allotted towards ingredients. Only 20¢ of that $1 is devoted to fruits and vegetables, which simply isn't enough to provide children the real food that they need. If you are concerned about this issue or would like to become more involved, look at Slow Food's Time for Lunch Campaign.

A panel discussion followed, featuring JJ Gonson of Cuisine en Locale, Claire Kozower of Waltham Fields Community Farm, and Kim Szeto of the Farm to School Initiative.

Claire discussed some of her previous involvement with the Farm to School Initiative in Somerville. In Somerville, children only have 12 minutes to eat lunch. 12 minutes is hardly enough time to eat lunch, much less enjoy it. It is because of this short lunch time that they found that children ate more apples and left less waste when the apples were small- children simply do not have enough time to eat a large apple during lunch. These small apples are now provided to the public schools in Somerville, Cambridge, and Boston, and are locally sourced from Lanni Orchards based in Lunenburg, MA.

Kim is involved with the Farm to School Initiative in the Boston Public Schools. Despite the mere 20¢ devoted to fruits and vegetables per meal in school lunch, they have found that buying local is sometimes cheaper, and they have been able to serve local and seasonal produce including corn on the cob, collard greens, sweet potatoes, and butternut squash.

JJ, involved in Cambridge's Healthy Service Task Force Food Advisory Board, provided a parent's perspective on the issue.

• Because the 12 Cambridge schools feed thousands of kids a day, commodity products are extremely important in controlling costs. Commodity products are provided for free to schools, because they are excess products available from the government as a result of agribusiness subsidies. However, one needs to question the health implications of these commodity products, such as tuna, which poses health risks for children due to the mercury levels in tuna and the potential health risks from the can linings.
• The classic yet deceptively innocent PB & J sandwich has its health implications as well. The bread and peanut butter contain hydrogenated oils, the peanut butter and jelly contain high fructose corn syrup, and the jelly contains unnatural colorings.
• Schools are not allowed to serve water because it has "no nutritional value." Schools typically only offer milk, chocolate milk, and apple juice.
  
• Read more about what JJ has to say on school lunches here.

All three acknowledged how significant Lanni Orchards has been in providing local produce to public schools within the area.

Although there is a lot that needs to change in the school food system, there are many ways to become more informed and to become more involved. Here are a few resources to get you started:

• Find more ways to become active at the Two Angry Moms site and review their action plan
  
• Better School Food
• Slow Food's Time for Lunch Campaign
• The School Nutrition Bill (H2092) and the Local Farm Products Bill (H2107/S1437) were recently passed by the House of Representatives in MA. However, these bills still need to be passed by the Senate. Read the article on the passage of these bills, and keep updated and find out more about what you can do through the Massachusetts Public Health Association

For another recap of this event, read Slow Food Boston's followup.

Northeast Real Food Summit-2009

This past weekend 8 members of SFBU joined over 300 college and high school students from more than 60 northeastern schools to learn, network and stratagize around food justice at The Real Food Summit in Amherst. The Northeast summit was one of 5 regional summits organized by the "Real Food Challenge" which is a project of The Food Project, the California Student Sustainability Coalition, and their partners. We joined other like-minded students to brainstorm new ways to get fresh food in dining halls, more campus gardens, or more critical food-related curricula, making our schools invest in healthy, community-based, fair, and environmentally sound food for all.

“Our food system affects the future of our country, from health to climate change to the economy,” says Anim Steel, Director of National Programs at The Food Project, and co-coordinator of the Real Food Challenge. Our current food system is like the Titanic. We have a huge system that's chugging along, but where is it going? We're headed towards a huge iceberg that includes the global food crisis and climate change. But like the Titanic, all it takes it a small part of the system, a rudder as such, to turn this ship around.The Real Food Challenge has set an ambitious national target for colleges and universities to meet: purchase 20% “real food” by 2020. Led by students themselves, the campaign believes that with collaboration, commitment, and collective action, it will be possible to turn around the university food service industry. Students have the potential to be a huge driving force, and not just consumers of Real Food. 4 Billion Dollars a year are spent for food in dining halls, which means we have a huge buying power, and the potential to turn this ship away from the iceberg. As Anim said, “The younger generation has the largest stake in the future, so they should have the loudest voice in shaping our food system. That’s what this summit is about.”

Workshops included "Building Food IQ and Sharpening Your Sound Bytes" by Dr. Susan Rubin, the founder of Better School Food, during which students learned, among other things, that the sweetener high-fructose corn commonly found in commercial foods has been indicated to be contaminated with mercury. Suggested reads included The End of Food by Paul Roberts and recommended movies included The Real Dirt on Farmer John and F.L.O.W.. Meanwhile, students discussed The Farm Bill and the Northeast with Simmons faculty member and NESAWG consultant Larry Dixon. Although improvements to the Farm Bill can always be made, students recognized some of the positive changes in the U.S.- including the transition of the Food Stamp Program to SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Dixon explained the provisions within the Farm Bill, such as value added grants, which students can utilize in order to get Real Food to their dining halls and gardens on their campuses. Though the Farm Bill has been passed for the next five years, there is room for on-going input in terms of where funding from the bill is allocated. NESAWG, the North East Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, is attempting to make funding more accessible by providing support and educational resources regarding the Farm Bill, which can be especially beneficial for university students who want to see change on their campus but might need funding to make it happen.

As well as attending other groups' workshops, Slow Food BU was asked to participate in a workshop held by Julia Middleton, Director of Youth Programs for Slow Food USA. Doing so provided us with the opportunity to share with other Slow Food members and would-be members our own ideas about running a successful Slow Food On Campus chapter, as well as to learn about the exciting things that other SFOC chapters have been doing.

Despite the Summit ending early due to the impending snow, it was a great success and lots of fun! Thanks to all who came from BU and a BIG thanks to the RFC organizers!