The crusade for better school meals - a real change

The crusade for better school meals - a real change

Lately, the media have reported new knowledge about the increase in children's diabetes and its bad consequences. This message has again raised the alarm in view of the growing obesity epidemic in our children and adolescents. The problem is so serious that experts recommend a drastic change in our children's diet. But could compliance, denial and ignorance in the adult population prevent our young people from gaining help and education that they need for these drastic changes?

dining tables and tablets for the school canteen

With a recently carried out school screening visit to a high-ranking east college for one of my daughters, I had the opportunity to ask questions about the quality of the food that is offered in the campus cafeteria. Was the food in your school free of pesticides? Wasn't it genetically modified? What about meat sources? Were hormones and antibiotics injected to the students in factory farming? Were there natural, healthy and biological food options in the cafeteria, which were adopted by some of the most modern schools across the country such as Yale, UC Berkley, Duke and Oberlin Colleges?

The question seemed to amaze the college employee. She said she was not sure about the quality of the food in the cafeteria. She did not know whether the focus was on offering natural, vegetarian or biological options to the students. It was not clear that the school provided nutritional food that appealed to some of the serious health concerns with which Americans are faced with ever younger age ...

This reaction seems to be typical for school experts at all educational levels. I recently had the opportunity to question the restaurants of our local educational institutions about nutritional quality and education in primary, middle and high schools. I was told that children would not eat healthy looking food and that they only wanted to eat that you can find in every fast food restaurant. In addition, they implied that it was not the responsibility of the school system to provide healthy food for children. That is the task of the parents.

I agree that healthy eating habits start at home and that parents have to demonstrate their children in the kitchen and at the dining table, but that does not release our education system from its responsibility to teach good nutrition. Our schools have to inform about the elements of good nutrition and train and proceed with a good example. That means clean, healthy canteen meals. And healthy means and should not mean "uncomfortable for the taste buds of children". Healthy, natural food, prepared with good recipes, can be far more delicious than the fast food that is on the lunch menu of the school canteen today.

Unfortunately, political concerns have hindered the progress of the campaign for better school lunches. We cannot afford to close our eyes and allow the school canteen to dominate the eyes on this important topic.

Healthy food from the romper room to retirement

The basis for a lifelong healthy eating begins in early childhood. If we bring children healthy, natural food closer, give them nutritional knowledge and teach them how to prepare delicious meals, they will probably continue good eating habits until adulthood.

We need a revolutionary approach to change our nutrition system. The intake of canteen meals is of crucial importance if we want to ward off overweight in childhood, malnutrition and diseases caused by a poor diet of our youth. The development of food on our planet depends on a gentle but determined revolution of the market, the kitchen and the canteen.