Changing School Lunches

Take a trip to your average school cafeteria, and you’re probably not going to be surprised by the menu. Things haven’t changed too much over the decades. You’re still likely to find plastic trays filled with chicken chunks, tater tots, pizza and cartons of chocolate milk. Kids have groaned about school lunches for generations. But these days, childhood obesity and diabetes are causing grave concern across the country, and some say it’s time to confront the issue of unhealthy lunch menus in our schools.

Chef Ann Cooper has made it her mission to improve the food we serve students. She calls herself the “renegade lunch lady”. She’s transformed meal plans at schools in New York and California, replacing greasy, starchy fair with fresh, healthy meals that would make some adults wish they were back in school. Ann has written several books, including Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed our Children. She joins us on Word of Mouth to talk about her work.

All this talk of school lunches may bring up memories of the quintessential lunchroom side dish: tater tots. The starchy, greasy potato nuggets established themselves as a cafeteria standard decades ago. They popped-up in the cultural imagination again when they were referenced in a much-quoted scene in the 2004 film Napoleon Dynamite. Now, the tot seems to have transcended its humble origins, appearing in trendy bars and restaurants all over America. Producer Guy Hand put together this story about the history and future of the tater tot. It comes to us from the Northwest News Network.

Watch a video of Ann Cooper at the 2007 Entertainment Gathering conference:

(Photo of tater tots by jandazza. Photo of Ann Cooper from her website.)