It was Food Revolution Day on May 20th. Created by the Jamie Oliver Foundation, the day is intended to highlight the importance of nutrition for school-aged children. Food Revolution ambassadors from all over the world are tasked with ensuring that children within their realm are given opportunity to eat something good for them.
The concept was developed in the United Kingdom where for 12 years, 26,000 schools have been providing free healthy lunches to hundreds of thousands of students.
Free is the operative word here.
Economic modelling by experts at Cambridge and Oxford universities has shown that these subsidized lunches offset health care costs associated with Type 2 diabetes, childhood obesity and mental well-being. The costs of ill health are epic in many regions of the world but particularly in the United Kingdom and North America.
It has been estimated that a whopping one per cent of packed lunches have adequate nutritional value for a developing body. Working with schools here in Delta, it is easy to see that our infrastructure was built at a time when the importance of nutritional health was not even close to being on the radar. There are only a handful of schools in our district and most others where cafeterias operate. Instead, packed lunches eaten in the classroom is the standard.
Mom and dad are busy and there isn't often the time and, in some cases, money to consider the best food options for our kids. Convenience is king but it is growing overweight children that are destined for health issues in the future.
Occasionally "special foods days" see opportunity for students to eat the semblance of a healthy lunch, depending, of course, on what the organizers deem as healthy. We are lucky that some producers from BC Fresh and other organizations provide free produce for our kids on a regular basis.
The Jamie Oliver Foundation has been able to convince political leaders that a tax on sugary drinks is appropriate. The revenues from these taxes go directly to health care costs associated with poor nutrition. The idea has been floated recently here as well.
The foundation is now targeting advertisements that promote poor food choices. Our kids are bombarded by these ads online and on TV. Just last night I saw a new ad from McDonald's that tells mom, dad and the kiddies that they get a free Franklin book when they order a Happy Meal. Using the loveable cartoon turtle to sell Chicken McNuggets is just wrong.
Food Revolution Day is actually Food Revolution Week around here and last week saw 450 kids plant 1,000 cucumber seeds for Project Pickle. The kids have also been snacking on foods that are growing, including peas, carrots, radish and lettuce. We have had several "tailgate parties" where the kids eat salad plates directly from the back of my truck.
And if you want to see something truly revolutionary, take your dog for a walk down at Boundary Beach Elementary where you can see the first Farm Roots field being planted.
The young farmers have nurtured seedlings over the past couple of months and they are now making it into the ground. Thanks to Seabreeze Farms, Century Group, Mainland Bobcat and to the others who made this possible.
Make sure your kids eat right. Mike Schneider is founder of Project Pickle and likes to write about growing, cooking and eating food. He is a Jamie Oliver Food Revolution ambassador.
