One of the advantages we enjoy here in Iowa is that we get to see our presidential candidates and their families up close and personal during our caucus process.  While I had seen then-Senator Obama give that stirring speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention, it was really a speech here in Iowa by his wife Michelle that made me a fan of his.  I figured if a lady this smart and classy married him he must be worth a look.

Many of us foodie-activist types were excited when Barack Obama was elected because we believed that maybe finally something could be accomplished for our agenda of “Good, Clean, and Fair” food for everyone.  Sure enough, that first spring there was the First Lady out there planting an organic garden on the White House grounds.  Say what you will about their former opponents, no one could imagine Cindy McCain doing anything even remotely similar.

So now a year has gone by and Mrs. Obama is launching a childhood obesity initiative the way such things get launched these days, on NBC’s Today Show.  It’s tradition for FLOTUS to have a cause such as this, and these causes are almost always worthwhile: literacy, homelessness, “Just Say ‘NO!’” etc.

Mrs. Obama’s initiative is no exception. The statistics are alarming–1 in 3 American children born in 2000 or after will develop diabetes before they are old enough to vote. Among minorities that ratio rises to 1 in 2.  There is no health system that can hope to cope with the implications of that no matter what her husband and Congress manage to accomplish.

So this week Michelle was on with Matt Lauer discussing the importance of feeding children healthy food (the formal launch of her initiative will be next week), and her official chef-partner in the effort, Sam Kass, was in a separate segment talking with the once-overweight Al Roker and preparing breakfast with some adorable school children.  Both of these clips were the appropriate kinds of fluff Today Show audiences are seeking first thing in the morning, but they managed to touch on vital issues: startling obesity rates, related health issues, education of our children, cooking and eating together as families, and our nations future.

A Today Show poll found that 52% of respondents “applauded” Mrs. Obama’s efforts.  Presumably Caitlin Flanagan is not among them, but I really wonder about the other 48%.  In my experience talking about these issues, the argument that comes up again and again (and again – humorously – in this recent episode of the NBC sitcom Parks & Recreation) is the old saw “I don’t want the government telling me what to feed my kids.”

Sadly though, while this is not what Michelle is trying to do, the government has been telling us what to feed our kids, very successfully, for decades.  And nearly all of it is crap.  Here I do not mean the 4 food groups I grew up with, or the food pyramid my kids learned in school.  I mean the millions of tons of federally subsidized carbohydrates and fat shoveled at our children every moment of every day through school lunches, drive-thru windows and the media.

In his recent budget President Obama proposed increasing the federal contribution to school lunches by 20 cents per meal.  While any increase on this line of the budget is welcome, we need one at least 5 times that size if he really wants to help his wife’s cause, and it needs to be specifically earmarked for fresh, local, sustainable food.  He could designate an additional $50 million to support existing (and create new) farm-to-school initiatives, and he could support removing junk food from vending machines in our schools.

You can help too, by signing on to this petition, supporting its goals, and writing or calling your congressional representatives to demand that they stop using our children as Dumpsters for Big Ag’s chemical-laden, federally-subsidized, fat-and-sugar-filled surplus.  They may be your kids, but they are our future.

WATCH: Michelle Obama and Sam Kass on the Today Show:

Yesterday the White House released a video featuring First Lady Michelle Obama and assistant chef and food initiative coordinator Sam Kass telling the story of the White House garden. The video is around seven minutes long, and features footage of the building of the garden, with Kass giving details about the history of gardening at the White House (there is even some historical footage from “Victory Gardens” a 1944 government film to encourage people to grow at home, which you watch in full here), soil amendments, the seeds from Thomas Jefferson’s Montecello garden, and even a time lapse video as the garden was growing.

This short film also features the Bancroft Elementary students who helped to plant it. “We wanted the focus to be on kids,” the First Lady said, “because you can affect children’s behavior so much more easily than you can adults.” She also said that the garden was largely about setting an example for other families through changing her own family’s diet, specifically through “eliminating processed and sugary foods,” and encouraging eating together around the table. She continued, “the garden is really an important introduction to what I hope will be a new way that our country thinks about food”

As Obama Foodorama reports:

The White House Kitchen Garden has been a critical part of the paradigm shift in the national conversation on health and nutrition that’s been steadily coming out of the East Wing since January. Mrs. Obama is the only First Lady in the history of America to actually have a food policy team, it should be noted, led by Kass, and including advisers Jocelyn Frye and Melody Barnes. Bestselling author Michael Pollan has referred to the Kitchen Garden as “the most important event in sustainable agriculture this year,” and he’s right. But it’s important for all other kinds of Obama policy initiatives too, including health care reform.

Check out the full video below:

One never knows from the outside what really happens in a marriage, especially a high-profile White House relationship. But Barack has been particularly candid about his relationship with Michelle – while he might be the Senator or now President, Michelle is the boss at home. And Michelle, despite her high-powered diplomas, has made her number-one position “Mother in Chief” to their two girls.

So, it seems a no-brainer to give all the credit to Michelle for this surprisingly political culinary appointment. And she follows the lead of many a First Lady who have pioneered healthy food policy, often against their Presidential husbands’ wishes. For example, it was Hillary who instigated the White House rooftop garden while her husband Bill was cavorting with his best buddies in large agriculture. And before that, it was Eleanor Rosevelt who planted the Victory Garden on the White House lawn – over the objections of her Presidential Husbands’ US Department of Agriculture. We have to go way back to 1918 to find a joint White House effort – when both President Wilson and First Lady Edith Wilson recruited a flock of sheep to mow and fertilize the First Lawn during World War I (Just imagine the reaction she would have gotten if Alice Waters had suggested that!)

Chef Kass’ is no stranger to culinary politics, having previously been a primary figure in the Hull-House Kitchen “Re-Thinking Soup” project that combines organic political discussion with a healthy meal.

Chef Kass is also a vocal opponent of the current federal school lunch guidelines, which kowtow to large agribusiness interests over the health and nutritional interests of our children. And while his White House appointment means that he will have to withdraw from his other activities, it has already given his ideas – which include local and organic cuisine as part of a healthy lifestyle – a considerable boost while allowing him to continue serving healthy lunches to First Children Malia and Sasha.

On the flip side, while Michelle Obama deserves more credit than she gets for all things Presidential these days, it is possible that this was the Presidents decision. Following the storm of criticism he received following his announcement of Tom Vilsack as the pick for Secretary of Agriculture, this could be Obama’s way of mitigating the political damage while ensuring that his daughters continue get a healthy lunch.