Friday, October 2, 2009

Baltimore Schools Feed Kids Unbalanced School Lunch

Baltimore schools adopt Meatless Monday
October 1, 2009 by Ken Anderson

The Baltimore City Public Schools system is the first school system in the U.S. to adopt Meatless Monday.

Meatless Monday is a campaign that encourages people to cut meat from their diet one day a week. Baltimore school officials say they hope their Meatless Mondays will help students understand there are other options than just “meat and potatoes” for every meal.

In conjunction with Meatless Monday, the Baltimore school system is working with local farmers to provide it with fresh produce. It has also introduced what it calls “a teaching farm” and has plans to establish a garden at each of the systems’ more than 200 schools.

Among those praising the Baltimore schools’ effort is controversial Cal-Berkely author Michael Pollan, a frequent critic of modern production agriculture. In his words, “If Baltimore can pull this off, it will be a sign that the effort is worth making.” Link

So rather than teach kids how to properly eat a balanced diet every day, they are going to encourage a radical fad diet that encourages ignoring an entire food group. School officials stated that they want students to understand that there are other options. Apparently it’s to show that there are options other than a balanced diet. This was obviously a political decision that’s being forced on students. As a parent, I want my kids to eat a diet in which they get the proper servings from all of the food groups.

5 comments:

Capn Coconuts said...

Protest Meatless Monday by bringing a lunchbox to school... with a big, juicy ham sandwich.

Yeah, MM is a stupid idea.

Anonymous said...

So the Baltimore school's choice for their feeding the kids protein on MM (Meatless Monday) is to load them up on beans and veggies? That should make for an explosive afternoon! Lucky teachers!

RJ Schaefer said...

Hey Captain Cook, why not add bacon to that sandwich?

Anonymous said...

hate to break it to you sweetheart but those kids weren't eating real meat to begin with.
furthermore the point of movement is not to eliminate meat from their diets completely but to teach them that you can get some of the same nutrients from different foods.
also, out of curiosity how many fruits and vegetables to your kids eat daily? because those are considered food groups too.

RJ Schaefer said...

Can you please explain what your definition of real meat is?

And I don't have any children but I eat 5-6 servings of fruits and vegetables each day.