Free for All: Fixing School Food in America

I knew a lot about our food system, and a fair bit about our agricultural system. What I didn't know a lot about was how those two joined together into our school food program. Jamie Oliver was right: our school lunch program is broken - possibly irreparably so. However, he is also naive about just why it is broken and why it is not an easy fix.

Poppendieck explains how today's school lunches are the culmination of over a century of policy and legislation that were put into place for a variety of different reasons. There are competing goals in place: supporting the US agricultural system, providing a market for surplus food, ensuring adequate nutrition in school children, fighting hunger, etc.

It was especially eye-opening to learn just show more why children are served monochromatic fast-food, and why that would be difficult to change. The answer isn't simply "just give them better food." It's tied into a large suite of requirements schools are required to meet regarding nutritionally content, servings, what counts as reimbursable, who qualifies for free or reduced lunch - all with the eye of the bottom line. Tie that in with stigma (children can be relentlessly cruel) and administrative red tape, and the end result is a program that is deeply flawed.

Fascinating and disheartening at the same time. The title "Free for All" points to what Poppendieck concludes is the solution to ensuring that hungry children can eat without jumping through hurdles - both socially and logistically. I'm less convinced that is a workable solution for a number of reasons - first being the appropriations necessary to fund this and the reluctance (failure?) of Congress in this financial climate to spend any money not towards defense.

It also doesn't solve the problem of the quality of the food being served in schools. Poppendieck acknowledges this and points to several programs around the country that are working on sourcing locally, cooking from scratch, etc. But there is heavy reluctance in the vast majority of schools to adopt such measures, and in many schools an impossibility due to infrastructure.

Still, a very compelling and much needed book. It certainly got me thinking. show less

An excellent book if you are interested in school food. However, it is not a casual read. The writer is a professor of sociology at Hunter College whose academic focus is on hunger. The book is very comprehensive and covers the history, politics, and technical nature of the school food system (procurement, nutrition requirements, economics, etc.). It's accessible to the general reader or casual concerned parent but perhaps it is a bit overkill and it's really those who are school food reform advocates or in some other fashion part of the sustainable food movement who will have the patience and stamina to get through the book.