Starting this Monday is school lunch week and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) is promoting a program that allows school cafeterias to serve locally produced fruits, vegetables, meats and dairy products. The program called From Farm to School seeks to be part of the solution.
There is no doubt that having access to healthy foods benefits health, but about 20 million Americans live in what they call food deserts where they have to travel more than a mile to find fresh food and for many school-age children, The main source of nutrition is school.
Alberto González, of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service, warns: “we know that every school day almost 30 million children receive nutritious school meals and school meals are the main source of nutrition for almost half of those children.”
That’s why the Department of Agriculture recently announced changes to the food that will be served in school cafeterias to include foods with less added sugar, fat and sodium. Additionally, they established the “Farm to School” program that encourages schools to incorporate locally grown, raised or harvested foods into their daily meal programs.
“We know that when there are opportunities for children to understand and learn about where the food they have in the class comes from, where the food they have in the class comes from, when they learn the importance of eating healthy it affects them positively,” says Alberto González.
And part of eating healthy is eating fresh foods that were harvested locally. In our global food system, a typical carrot travels more than 1,800 miles to reach the table, but with the Farm to School program, food is produced locally and, by not having to be transported hundreds of miles, it is reduced carbon footprint while benefiting the local economy.
In some schools they invite farmers to class to teach children the importance of what they are doing in the community. More than 67,000 schools in the country participate in this program that seeks to create solid eating habits in children and support local farmers.
With this USDA initiative, schools can now require that unprocessed foods such as fruits, vegetables, meats and dairy be grown, raised or harvested locally when sourcing food for their feeding programs. To learn more about this program you can visit the page FNS.USDA.GOV.
