The school year began a week ago for a lot of kids. Mine won’t go back to school until Friday. And that’s a good thing, really, since I’ve been out of commission for the past so many days. If your kids are like mine, then the school year opening also means no more sleeping late into the morning. It’s back to the old routine of preparing breakfast at the crack of dawn and packing school lunch boxes.
It isn’t my idea that the kids bring lunch boxes. If I had things my way, they’d be buying their snacks and lunches from the school canteen. But school canteen food is school canteen food and it’s nothing like home-cooked meals. So, I pack their school lunches five days a week.
Still and all, should they have a change of heart about buying their lunch from the canteen, I have not much cause for worry. My kids go to a school where junk food has no place in the school canteen and I don’t have to stress myself out silly about whether the kids are eating properly or not.
Sadly, that kind of school canteen policy constitutes the exception rather than the rule. In nine out of every 10 school canteens I have visited in the past couple of years, there are concessionaire stands selling hotdogs, pizza, ice cream and soft drinks. The snack counters are filled with pouches of chips, candies and all sorts of junk food. So much for children’s nutrition. For many school owners and administrators, it is more important to collect monthly rent from the concessionaires rather than assure our kids’ health.
A year or so ago, I mentioned a lock-out program instigated by a multinational food corporation. The corporation was building a network of independent contractors whose job was to approach school owners and administrators to convince them to allow the corporation to acquire concessions in the school canteens on an exclusive basis. Meaning? Well, meaning, if the corporation sells chocolate milk, no other brands of chocolate milk would be sold in the canteen. If the corporation sells fruit juices in cartons, the canteen would carry their brand exclusively.
The come-on was a lump sum payment (I’m talking seven figures here) to the school in the form of an incentive, a percentage of which would be paid as commission to the independent contractor who managed to clinch the deal with the school owner or administrator.
The horror and hypocrisy do not even end there. In one of the schools that my kids attended in the past, teachers emphasized the importance of Grow, Glow and Go food in science class. Come lunch time, teachers lined up at the canteen for their daily dose of soft drinks while the pupils were banned from buying the same. Worse, when the school owner’s daughter-in-law decided to become active in the family business, she took a portion of the canteen where she started selling French fries served with powdered artificial cheese or sour cream flavoring.
It’s hard to teach what one does not practice. In the case of teachers, they lose a lot of credibility when they keep harping about eating healthy and the students find them frequenting the nearby sari-sari store to buy Coke or the barbecue stand a few blocks away for a dose of grilled isaw (pork intestines). It somehow turns health education into a joke–a mockery even–when teachers say one thing in the classroom and do the opposite outside.
Truth is, you can’t start eating healthy early enough. I’ve been a proponent of natural food and cooking for years but what I’ve managed to stuff inside my body during my childhood and adolescence had done irreversible damage. My mother was no cook and we lived on canned goods and restaurant-bought food from high school through college. Little did I know that the accumulated fat content had been building stones inside my gall bladder for years. That was why I missed three consecutive columns. I had to undergo surgery. Then, I needed time for recovery.
Just a few weeks ago, I mentioned a movement in Australia about banning junk food TV ads to lessen the impact of the very pervasive junk food culture on children. The movement was meant to address the rising incidence of obesity that had afflicted a lot of First World countries. But obesity is not the only consequence of unhealthy eating. We’re also talking about clogged arteries, mangled digestive systems and high blood sugar levels–the latter commonly associated with a culture obsessed with soft drinks, powdered juices and sugar-laden iced tea.
Considering how advertising–and junk food ads constitute a huge chunk of advertisements–drives mass media, it might not be that easy to keep them off the idiot boxes, radio, newspapers and magazines. But we can keep the junk food off the school canteens and that’s a big step. I doubt if government officials will take any initiative. Instead, I urge parents to utilize fora like Parent-Teachers Associations and to petition their Congress representatives, mayors and city councils to help draw up guidelines on what can be, and should not be, sold in school canteens. That would be a giant leap indeed.
Hmmm… I must check what my daughter’s school canteen is feeding its students. If I don’t like it, I’ll force my wife to prepare her meal nalang.
Blogusvox, try asking your wife nicely and informing her of the benefits. She’s more likely to do it cheerfully.
pinathekmi, “ask” pala, hinde “force”. Wrong choice of word. I forgot, ako pala ang pino-pwersa sa bahay… hehehe.
HAHAHAHA Love you both!
i remember years ago-and I studied in the public school that our canteen had native delicacies for merienda (bibingkang malagkit, puto, binatog, ) and of course, sunkist in triangular packs and soft drinks like pop cola. There was dirty ice cream outside and sno-cone. Oh my! My age is showing.
But mom ordered the help to make sandwich and milk (yukkkk) for baon.
Connie, I agree with you 101%. The Parent-Teachers Association should petition all government officials starting with their local barangay to have all the schools ban junked food from their premises. The PTA should also allow a day where all parents have lunch at school to make sure the food they are serving are not junked or fast food.
I agree. School lunches need to be reformed. Big time!
i can just imagine the canteens at public schools there. is junk food cheaper than real food — maybe economics also play a part? although i’m sure capitalism plays more.
my son’s school here has a full-time chef that cooks hot meals daily. typical menu includes baked chicken, steamed veggies, and some starch. plus milk and water. snacks are not sold but kids are free to bring their own from home. candies, juices, and junk food are not allowed for the kids to bring to school. you can just imagine how i love it — this coming from me whose kid “hates fast food!”
Here in the Philippines there is not much attention placed on healthy eating–in fact it’s just been a few years since Filipinos have given exercise a serious thought. Unlike in Australia, joggers and bikers are common sights.
If ever our school canteens opted to serve healthier food still we cannot avoid children to venture outside of the school in search for junkfoods.To discourage this we should always remind our children the importance of healthy eating and of course cross our finger and hope our children will listen..he he he..
i’d like to share with you and your blog readers this safe, natural way of cleansing the body of gall stones, which my husband and i have done a couple of times, resulting in thousands of tiny stones (in my case; my husband’s are a bit bigger) eliminated through bowel movement…hope you’ll find this helpful.
Internal Cleansing (remove liver stones/gall stones)
12 pm: – Resume to normal meal
1) Have a meal without oil before 2 pm; at this time, stop eating. Drink water as needed.
2) 6 pm: - Mix 1 tbsp Epsom salt with ¾ cup freshly squeezed grapefruit
3) 8 pm: - Repeat above
4) 10 pm:- Mix ¾ cup extra virgin oil with ¾ cup grapefruit (about 2 grapefruits).
- Shake well until watery
- Can be prepared earlier and refrigerated
- Go to bed right away and have a long sleep if possible.
- By around 4 or 5 am, you might feel like going to the washroom
5) Morning: – Upon waking up, take 1 tbsp Epsom salt with ¾ cup grapefruit
6) After 2 hours – repeat above
7) 10 am: – Eat light meal such as oat meal or yogurt or fruit and water
Note: You will feel as if you’re having diarrhea – this is normal as the cleansing is getting done. Don’t worry it will stop eventually.
here in california (maybe in all the states, too?), the school district has a hot lunch program. the kids gets issued a 4 digit code to access their “lunch credits” (that way kids and the “lunch lady” does not need to handle cash). daily menu includes a couple of choices for the main entree (usually a protein & carb combination like spaghetti, chicken drumstick & mashed potatoes, enchirito and beans, pork eggroll with rice, sub sandwich, etc…), salad bar that includes veggies and fruits, small treat (a cookie, or apple sauce, carrot cake…) and milk. kailea’s school has pizza as one of the options every other wednesday.
i let kailea pick one day per week when she’ll have hot lunch. the rest of the days, i pack her lunch. (i also pack her snack for her morning recess- no candy, gum or soda allowed in their snack/lunch boxes). sometimes when we’re in between grocery shopping, or if i wake up late, i ask her to get hot lunch as well.
oh- and the cost per lunch is only $2.25. lower income families can even qualify for free lunches.
i don’t think kailea’s school has a concession stand and there are no stores or vendors outside the schools like in the philippines. and she’s not even in a private school. we are lucky, i guess
purplegirl, re “my son’s school here has a full-time chef…” WOW, if we can just have legit nutritionists is school canteens here, it would be a big help already.
mixednuts, Philippine climate and pollution aren’t exactly friendly to bikers and joggers, I think.
Inna, is that a Schwarzenegger program or has that been in place even before he was governor?
hi connie…i didn’t go to school here, so i’m not that familiar with it, but i believe its a USDA (dept of agriculture) National Lunch School Program.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/ChildNutrition/
our school district site…can view a sample menu, etc…
http://www.slcusd.org/pages/district/departments/foodserv
it sounds geeky- but your post made me do some reading…interesting…thanks for great post
http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdenutritran/download/pdf/SEC26.pdf
Ah, during college days (that was at least 5 years ago), the college Im attending banned softdrinks, most junk foods after students, some professors and administrative officials realize they had to promote health and nutrition. A nutritionist and dietician make the menu at the school canteen, which was cooked by the HRM students. At the other canteen, there is a concessionaire who had to be subject to daily inspection. I find it great, though they offer limited variety and insufficient to the total population of the school. And since college na, those who crave for fastfood meals, very accessible naman sa labas.
And thanks for the links, Inna!
Pinaygourmand, when I think about the kids who got poisoned from the cassava sold outside their school (big news a couple of years ago), I wonder whose responsibility it is the patrol ambulant vendors especially outside elementary schools.