Notes From The Food Revolution: Part Two of Two

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This is what the national drive to reduce childhood obesity comes down to at the local level: four people sitting in a room trying to reduce the amount of fat children consume. I have seen movements do this before. It either starts with a simple issue like ranch dressing and expands to the larger problem or it stays stuck and never transcends.


We sat in the room talking about dressing and condiments. I'm the systems guy. I proposed finding a pump dispenser that gave children the exact amount they needed and no more. The nutritionist talked about ladles. The cook talked about alternatives to ranch dressing. I proposed looking at alternative such as tomato based condiments or my personal favorite: salsa!

After a short period of time the cook felt comfortable. She realized she wasn't under attack and she began to participate in the solution focused discussion. We all talked about creating condiments with less fat, sodium and sugar. We talked about yogurt based dressings, low fat buttermilk dressings and even no dressings! What if we used what the spices our ancestors used?


The food problem in schools distills to a few key points:

• What is healthy and nutritious?
• What will kids eat?
• What is affordable?

The last point is critical. Despite the much vaunted recent federal legislation mandating healthier school lunches, the bill only allots six cents more per meal per child. Most schools go in the red to provide meals so providing an all organic tasty meal is just too far out of range at the present time. Finding the balance between what kids will actually eat and what is healthy and nutritious is the true Gordian knot of this equation. Between evolutionary conditioning to accumulate fat and cultural conditioning with the expectation of fat, sugar and salt, the issue becomes how to retrain an entire generation in how to eat.

We all left that meeting feeling that while we had not necessarily solved the problem, we had generated a lot of options. I had accomplished another task of generating a student panel that directly influenced the food that the school bought from the vendor. The cook left feeling that she was doing the best she could operating under a limited budget. The nutritionist left confident that he would eventually succeed in reducing childhood obesity and business manager was just happy that we were all in one room talking about health.

I am the kind of person who generates ideas an hour or two after the meeting. When my mind has time to clear and completely separate from the issue, other ideas and solutions emerge. I was walking through Goldendale on one of my power walks when I started thinking about the nuns. Just outside of town there is a Greek Orthodox Church complete with retreat center and convent. To raise funds for the project, the nuns operate a Greek restaurant and espresso stand just off the freeway. As we all explore diet alternatives, one topic that continually emerges is the Mediterranean diet. Study after study shows that the Mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest diet in the world and they have the best dressings.

I called the business manager with my idea. Why don't we have the nuns teach us how to make healthy and tasty dressings? AHA! I will keep you posted. Namaste Jeff