Monthly Archives: March 2010

Guest blogger: An American teacher in Japan

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*** Please welcome Mr. Ferguson from Japan (check out these lunch photos) ***

Hi everyone, my name is Daniel, or Daniel sensei as I’m called at school. Every day, I eat lunch with my little students at 3 nursery schools near Hiroshima, Japan, where I teach English.

Earlier this month, a little after I began to read Mrs. Q’s blog, we had a special lunch in celebration of hina matsuri, a holiday where an ancient story of a Japanese prince and princess is remembered through displaying ornamental dolls and preparing traditional food.
Our menu (from the left): white fish, aemono (cold vegetable dish) with carrots, cabbage, broccoli and sesame seeds, and strawberries,
sushi rice with carrots, broccoli, and shitake mushrooms, wrapped in egg or seaweed, representing the princess and prince,
soup made from konbu dashi (broth from seaweed) green onions, enoki mushrooms and colored rice dumplings.
I spoke with one of the cook teachers, as they are respectfully called in Japan, who came back from maternity leave to help with the cooking. She explained how the aesthetic for Japanese holiday foods is “komakai” meaning detailed and carefully made. It’s designed to be colorful, use several kinds of foods, and is all prepared by hand. For me, however, this meal was only to a greater degree more detailed than lunches usually are at school, which are always handmade and served by the children to other children, with real plates on tablecloths.
At lunch, we waited until all children, about 60 total, had been served soup, fish, and sushi before saying “itadakimasu”, a kind of secular grace said before eating in Japan, meaning thanks to those who prepared the food. The cook teachers also joined us and everyone thanked them for the meal they had been preparing all morning. Then they walked around the room responding to children saying “oishii” meaning delicious. And as they always do, the children ate everything, stacked their dishes, and put their chopsticks and cup away to be used again tomorrow.
As I watched children enjoy lunch, I thought about all the love being shared in the room that day, with nothing to compare it to in my experiences of school lunch in America. The most love I think I showed children at my previous school during lunch time was opening their packets of ketchup or dressing they got everyday to cover their meat or quarter cup serving of salad. I opened them because they weren’t made for 5-year old hands to open. In fact, little of those lunches were made with children in mind, I thought. Everyday, children threw away their tray, carton, napkin, fork, and their unwanted food into trashcans as tall as them. Everyday a lost opportunity to nourish, educate, and show our love to children.
So when I started working in Japan, I immediately noticed the difference in how children and the food they are given is valued, in and out of the lunchroom. At the nursery schools, I have picked sweet potatoes and strawberries with children. I’ve seen several cooking lessons, including soups, curries, traditional foods, hot cakes and cookies. A few days after hinamatsuri, parents were invited to the school to make sushi rice with their children, just like what they ate for lunch. 

Throughout the year, teachers turn recipes into big books that are read as part of their literacy instruction. Cause and effects of mixing batter and milk are discussed like science experiments. Every year, the 5-year olds of one school plant rice in a nearby field, cut it in the fall, then that rice is cooked in the winter and used to make mochi during an annual festival. All the while they are writing and reading about the experience as part of the curriculum. These nursery schools are not representative of all Japanese schools, but for me, it is reassuring just to know that this way of taking care and educating children does exist. I hope it is for you too.  

Daniel Ferguson
http://www.mrfergusonsclassroom.com/

***

Thank you so much for your magical post, Mr. Ferguson! I just want to float over to Japan. My first thought is that it’s no wonder Japanese students beat our students at most subjects. I have a couple follow-up questions. Do you have overweight students? How much time do the kids get for lunch? Do they get recess?

Mrs. Q

NOTE: I set up guest blog posts to auto-post during the day the night before

Day 42: cheese lasagna

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Today’s menu: cheese lasagna, peas, pear, milk, bread, butter

Wow. Truly monumentally bad. I couldn’t get through the main entree. I was hungry too… I bit the cheese lasagna and it didn’t even pass muster as pasta! Al dente? No, al crappy. The pasta couldn’t hold its form and it crumbled. I ate two bites and I was done. Yuck.

Luckily I keep peanut butter in my desk. I used the two pieces of bread that came with the lunch and made a peanut butter sandwich. The spork was my snife. I would have been so screwed without my little snack stash today.

The pear and the peas were good. If it had been a fruit cup, I probably would have cried.

The cheapest possible

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One day last week I wore a pair of pants to work that I bought for $5 (online and on sale). I love to get a bargain when I shop for clothes. I know full well that I’ll probably get a year out of them and that’ll be it.

It has taken me most of my life to realize that there are things that you buy on sale and things that you spend more on. Over the past year I took stock of my shoes and realized that I had bought too many “for the right price” and too few for their quality. When I analyzed how many pairs I actually wore and why, I figured out that my favorite pairs are high quality shoes I spent a lot of money on. So I threw out all the pairs that don’t fit right or my foot jiggles in or the ones that rub my ankle raw if I don’t wear them with socks (inevitably I forget that fact and wear them to work without socks). I spend the whole day on my feet so quality shoes are a priority. Then I bought myself a couple new pairs that cost me a lot, but I realize the high cost up front pays off: my back and feet don’t hurt!

My husband and I are the rare duo that both enjoy food shopping and we buy quality food. We are lucky to be able to splurge on little indulgences and bigger ones sometimes too. For our family, organic options matter. I enjoy cooking (my husband doesn’t know how to cook, but he can boil water) and shopping is the natural extension of that experience. We’re passing on a love of food to our kid and we make sure to buy the best that we can afford.

Why can’t we give all children the best possible food we can find while they are at school? Why do they have to get the cheapest stuff? If their health and wellness is truly a priority, then we need to pony up and find a way to feed them as if they matter. Children are not “little adults.” They are learning and growing every day (I’m only growing out not up). There are some things you spend extra money on and that would be this nation’s kids.

Linky love

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  I’d like to have a comprehensive list of links on the side of the blog so that people interested in school lunches, nutrition, food politics, food journalism, food service, foodies, mommy meal planners, school gardeners, school lunch companies, etc. But I don’t have time to hunt each of you down and figure out your blog URL, etc.

If you want to have a link in a new list to the side of the blog, please comment below with your blog’s name, URL and how it might possibly relate to the discussion we have as a community around school lunches. I’ll add and update the link list slowly over time (you know, when I get some!) Thanks!

Open thread: Nutrition

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I’ve really enjoyed the comments from nutritionists and other experts about school lunches.

Please discuss the nutritional requirements of school lunches and optimal nutrition for children. There have been some interesting comments about the fat and carb needs of kids being different than those of adults. I’m just wondering what to believe. Thanks!

Day 41: pizza

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Today’s menu: pizza, carrots, applesauce, ranch dressing, milk

Now that I know pizza like this contains 62 ingredients (thanks Ms. A), it tasted less appealing than ever before. You’ve seen this lunch before so there isn’t a whole lot to say…. All I know is that it’s actually quite simple and fun to make pizza at home. It’s very easy. I wish more parents and people in general knew how to cook.

Just a reminder that I skipped posting some lunches this week (I’m eating them still of course) to have content for spring break….which can’t come soon enough!

Guest blogger: Pizza perspectives

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***Meet Ms. A, our resident (anonymous) food service director contributor. She will be offering a semi-regular pieces about her struggles to better the food environment for youngsters. Before working in school food service, she worked in restaurant kitchens for several years as a cook, pastry chef and sous chef.  She began working for her school, a large private school a couple years ago.  She’s trying to improve the quality and nutrition while reducing the environmental impact of the 500+ lunches served each day. She can be reached at bravenewlunch@gmail.com and her new blog Brave New Lunch.***

I want to change school pizza, and I might be able to.  I began working for my school in 2008 and was charged with improving lunch.  Prior to this, I worked in upscale restaurants in New York City where I cooked most things from scratch.

My first Friday at school, I ate school pizza for the first time in many years and wondered, how is this soggy mess even related to pizza?

A look at the ingredient list is frightening: the crust has about twenty-five ingredients, sauce fourteen ingredients, cheese four ingredients, and cheese substitute nineteen.   That’s a staggering sixty-two ingredients and a lot of reasons to take it off the menu.

I knew we should really get rid of this stuff.  Well, how could I take it off the menu three out of four Fridays, and what would I replace it with? It is a year and a half later, and pizza is still on the menu every Friday.  Why?

Kids like pizza.  It almost doesn’t matter how it looks, smells or tastes.  They still like it more than many other school meals.  Just mention the word pizza. It has the ability to elicit smiles from kids.

The kitchen likes pizza too.  It’s a simple meal to prepare, perfect for Fridays when everyone is tired and ready for the weekend.   Pizza comes ninety-six to a case, frozen and ready to plop onto a paper-lined sheet pan.  Since the pizzas are rectangular, they fit perfectly onto the pan and maximize the entire surface area.  Here’s a nice tip: if you place the slices to avoid the sides of pan, the cheese doesn’t burn onto the pan.  It was learned after doing this every week.  All this means it’s less work and clean up is a breeze.

The health/safety director:  Pizza’s an easy meal.  It is a familiar, safe choice, even for preschoolers, who sometime burst into tears when they are faced with unfamiliar food.  Kids can also eat it with their hands, so they don’t need silverware – one less thing to worry about.  With all the food allergies out there, it is nice to have a consistent meal one day a week.  Those who are lactose intolerant or have a wheat allergy already have alternatives set up for them.

Last year, I came up with new menu ideas such as cream of chicken made with evaporated milk and lots of bright veggies, like carrots, broccoli, and peas and a chicken stir-fry with bean sprouts, peppers, and brown rice.  I did try these out, with some success, but never on a Friday.  How do you replace a meal that is so universally loved or at least tolerated by people of all ages?  I didn’t brooch the subject because it seemed so absurd.

I did, however, dream of replacing the frozen stuff with better quality ingredients.  I found a local bakery that makes focaccia by the sheet pans. The ingredient list reads unbleached unbromated wheat flour, filtered water, sea salt, yeast, and olive oil.  Note: no dough softeners, conditioners, or preservatives.   Nothing I wouldn’t want to eat.  My plan was to make our pizzas in-house using foccacia as a base.  I would cut up the foccacia, ladle marinara sauce from a can, and top it with a part-skim mozzarella.  I made a test batch and sent it out during the last of our lunches.  It tasted great, but there are down sides:  It is a lot more work.  It is a lot messier.  It is also a change to a Friday institution that has been around for years before I came along.

I put changing pizza on the back burner as I worked on a few easier changes.  However, now that I have a growing number of collaborators– a few teachers, parents, administration staff – who have been supportive of changes, might it be time to try it again?

NOTE: all guest bloggers have contacted me of their own free will, have given consent, do not know me personally, and are not receiving compensation.

Guest blogger: School lunch news roundup

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***Meet our newest guest blogger: Brandon Smith. He has generously offered to investigate the latest in school lunch news and related stories and share them with all of us.***
Greetings, everyone. I, also, am not a nutrition expert per se, but rather a student journalist who has followed environmental and agricultural issues for a few years. I’m a junior at Columbia College Chicago and major in science journalism. (I blog at brandonsmith.com and tweet at twitter.com/greenletters.) I also cook for the “underground” supper club Clandestino. If you’re a Windy City gastrophile, come eat my food.

I’ve been interested in school lunches ever since, well, ever since I asked my mom to make me a peanut butter sandwich every day instead of succumbing me to the food the school served. It just seemed like common sense that food that looked, smelled and tasted like that wouldn’t have much nutrition. I later learned I was right. (Whodathunk!) I’m fortunate my family could afford to pack me a lunch.

Believe it or not, my football, track and cross country coaches all suggested my teammates and I not eat the school lunch because it was too fattening and lacked the nutrition we could get if we packed a balanced meal. They were blunt about it. They also didn’t seem to have much hope for the situation ever changing. Without hope, there’s no action. Then again, without action, what good is hope? (Jerrick Jensen of Orion Magazine taught me that one. The coolest writer at the best environmental magazine, Jensen’s columns make you think.)

From now on I’ll be doing a roundup for Mrs. Q about once a week, of news relating to school lunches. Who knows—maybe I’ll even get to interview one of the big players: Ann Cooper, Jamie Oliver, or Michelle Obama. With any luck I’ll talk to the Chicago reporters who cover education and nutrition and see where they are in their work. If any of you have more suggestions for articles or important people I could call to talk to, feel free to list and/or link them in the comments.

Just FYI, this first update will include links to items that are kind of old. I’m not trying to be timely this time, but rather establish a knowledge base on which we can all build. And thank you for all the great book suggestions on that one post. Now I don’t feel bad neglecting all the great long-form writing out there.

Here, a coalition of famous people and big corporations work to get “low-fat, low calorie” drinks in schools and ban other stuff. But the writer seems to be more into celebrity star power than what goes in kids’ mouths, because crucial details are lacking: what does “low fat, low calorie” actually mean? Some chocolate milks have nearly as much sugar as soda, and the bottled “teas” do have that much, barring brands like Honest Tea. Another question: what other metrics should we be using to measure the healthfulness of school food? Simply lowering fat and lowering calories doesn’t solve the problem of nutritional deficiency.

Another question good journalists should ask: Who benefits from these changes? I’m always wary of situations where companies seemingly try to limit their own ubiquity for the greater good. They always seem to get the revenue back in some other way. This recent expose explains that big polluters sponsor many environmental organizations in order to get on their good side and, in effect, shut them up.

Re: “who benefits from these changes?” All the following milk manufacturers are now owned by Suiza Foods Corporation: Dean, Borden, Lewis Trauth, Reiter, and, at least in part, Horizon Organic. Right this moment portions of opensecrets.org is down, or else I’d tell you how much Suiza spends on lobbying.

Since Mrs. Q is an Illinois teacher, a lot of food-centric thinkers in Chicago follow her. All you Chicagoans won’t want to miss “the midwest’s premier local food event,” the Family Farmed Expo. Running March 11-13, this thing should be a blast. Just about every local farmer will be there, selling CSA (community supported agriculture) shares, talking about their upcoming crops, and (hopefully!) getting financing from investors. There’ll be a local-produce dinner, seminars for young and old about all things responsible food, and cooking demonstrations from the likes of Rick Bayless and other famous Chi-town chefs.

Some of the biggest food news in Chicago recently was that the city went berzerk on some responsible food businesses using a shared kitchen. But the story should get all of you thinking about whether your local laws are prohibiting responsible food startups.

Good magazine recently had a contest for its readers to come up with the healthiest school lunches, and these are the winners. I think you all should start posting pictures of good packed lunches on the Flickr page. If school lunch officials ever look to this site for advice, they could get ideas from there.

Bad school food often comes down to subsidies. It won’t be enough to just add to the federal school lunch program budget—we’ll have to revamp what crops get free rides. Why a salad costs more than a Big Mac

That post also it includes a chart first seen here.

Here’s one of my favorite pieces on subsidies: a book review that encapsulates a work called Raising Less Corn, More Hell

A recent Washington Post editorial: To make school food healthy, Michelle Obama has a tall order

A decent summary of Jamie Oliver’s goings-on. (Oliver, a British chef, is trying to revamp nutrition habits in America.)

Here’s the Oliver TED award acceptance speech in its entirety (Previously linked-to by Mrs. Q)

Three TED talks that will change how you think about food. (The Ann Cooper one is really moving. I can credit it with inspiring my journalistic interests)

Cooper’s Mar. 5 column in the Washington Post

Cooper’s web site

I know these are bits and pieces of a much larger, deeper whole, but I’m trying to give you a smattering of ideas you could slog through in an evening. Kind of the anti-book.

NOTE: all guest bloggers have contacted me of their own free will, have given consent, do not know me personally and are not being paid for their kind services (there’s no money in this from what I can tell).