Thursday, March 8, 2012 For Shame...

I like to rant about what we feed our children in school. And by our children I mean your children because I don't have any human kids. In fact, I also like to rant about what you feed your children at home because, frankly, home cooking seems to be a lost art and the people who suffer that loss are the kids. Yeah, yeah, I know you can't cook every meal from scratch. But you know you need to do better. But that's not what this post is about.

Have you heard about the 7 million pounds of "pink slime" the feds are buying to feed your kids? You can't make this shit up. Here we are with a First Lady who claims to care about what you and your kids eat and the government is buying inedible, ammonia treated garbage to feed your kids! Talk about a reason to home school!

Now, I think it's kinda funny. I read a lot of articles about food and school lunch programs. It seems when the point of an article is to improve the nutritional value of the school lunch the writer highlights the lack of vegetables, lack of color (everything is a deep fried beige) and the reliance on processed, canned and otherwise unappetizing food.

But when the purpose of the article is to expand the school lunch program to include breakfast, and even dinner, then the writer will stress the importance of good nutrition and claim the school is providing proper nutrition for children who otherwise wouldn't get fed at home.

Um. Which one is it?

Never mind the fact that people who can't feed their children really shouldn't have had them in the first place. That opens up a can of worms that'll keep everyone arguing 'till the cows come home. The cows being the fat children who are fed crappy food at school and never go play outside. Either school lunch is good or it's not. And I think, if the feds are considering buying 7 million pounds of pink slime to feed the kids, it's not good. It's not good at all.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. And I'll keep saying it until someone fucking listens. Make lunch part of the curriculum! There's no reason every school can't have a garden. There's no reason every school can't have a compost heap. Aquaculture! Combining hydroponics and agriculture to grow veggies using fish.

Aquaponic greenhouse yields food for business: wtnh.com

If that isn't the coolest thing around I don't know what is. Can you imagine the powerful effect of seeing science at work and putting it into your belly? You can teach history through food. The possibilities are endless. Without food we have nothing! It's time we acknowledged that and passed it onto our children. And by our children I mean your children.

-HH

Sign the petition to get the pink slime off the spork.