Comments on: Dear Mom-In-Chief,

By: D.Piccinin

D.Piccinin — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:12:29 +0000

To the person that stated their family spends 62 cents/meal, I would like to see the formula of spending that you use and how much of your foods are not purchased or possibly donated. I would also like to see the nutrient profile of the meals you prepared at 62 cents and see if it meets the daily recommended intakes of school aged children, that is a requirement of the program. Remember of the $2.57 that is reimbursed/meal, $1.47 goes to labor/production of the food and 22 cents to pay for milk (a requirement of the National School Lunch program), leaving only 78 cents/meal.
Adding an extra dollar for the meals is much less expensive than the epidemic of obese children leading to nearly 1 in 2 ethnic minority children developing diabetes. By 2050, our ethnic minority population is projected to nearly equal of our US population at approximately 45%. Either we invest in adding a mere dollar, looking for innovative ways to improve the quality of the food for the National school lunch program or we as a society support youth that will be disabled due to diabetes, With 32 million children in the National School Lunch Program, we can invest 32 million dollars or pay later the 174 BILLION to care for those children that later on go to develop diabetes and never become productive members of our society due to disability such as blindness, amputations, early heart disease and stroke. in. Note: the annual cost for diabetes was published in Diabetes Care 2007 and does not take into account the forecasted increased number of people that will have diabetes as our current generation ages or take into account other indirect cost of the diabetic patient, such as care providers to help the blind person ambulate within their home or the person recover from above the knee amputation.

By: Chef Ann Cooper : Renegade Lunch Lady » Blog Archive » Letter to the First Lady

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:58:18 +0000

[...] Dear Mom-In-Chief, [...]

By: Walter Jeffries

Walter Jeffries — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 21:20:39 +0000

Do we need to spend more than $1 per meal? Our family averages 62¢ per person per meal over all meals. Since supper is more expensive so lunch is really less than 62¢. A lot less.

Given that schools are preparing meals on a much larger scale they can make cost savings in bulk purchases unavailable to you and I as individual consumers.

See my “Food for a Week” which was inspired by the Time article.

Rather than how much is being spent perhaps it would be better to focus on what is being eaten. A lot of what is prepared for kids at schools gets tossed in the trash – the kids don’t want it. What they are eating is apparently not all that great either given the news about recalls of peanuts and beef that went into the school programs.

Speaking from direct experience, the farm-to-school program is a failure. It is way too complicated to deal with, to jump through the hurdles to supply schools. We have had several schools try to do this with our farm. The only case that worked was they actually bought our all natural hot dogs through a local store instead of buying them directly from us. That was a solution that worked but took way too much effort to make happen.

Of course, I would rather see more spending on feeding the nation’s children than what has been wasted bailing out the auto industry and investment bankers. Bah.

By: The Ethicurean: Chew the right thing. » Blog Archive » Digest - Blogs: Cali drought, Rebecca takes on “Judy,” Dear Mom-in-Chief

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:22:34 +0000

[...] The buck stops here: The Ethicurean’s Debra Eschmeyer writes an open letter to Michelle Obama, asking her to help change the policy that spends just $1 per meal to feed kids in U.S. public schools. (Civil Eats) [...]

By: Jill Richardson

Jill Richardson — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 03:31:10 +0000

WELL DONE Deb!!!! I could not have said it better myself.

By: shash

shash — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:25:09 +0000

great post!

By: kacie

kacie — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:19:54 +0000

We are trying to get the First Lady and children out to the Washington Youth Garden. any ideas or particularly contact information for how we can get a formal invite to reach her?

(yes, we are already working the sidwell friends field trip route)

By: Dana MeckstrothBrown

Dana MeckstrothBrown — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:42:57 +0000

Awesome! How do we forward our support to Mrs. Michelle Obama?

By: Dear Mom-In-Chief « UEPI News & Commentary

Dear Mom-In-Chief « UEPI News & Commentary — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 13:37:22 +0000

[...] posted on Civil Eats Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Child Nutrition ReauthorizationThe Power of [...]