WEBVTT - How We Feed Our Students 0:00:01.240 --> 0:00:03.800 Hey, this is a Citizen Chef and I'm Tom Calichio. 0:00:05.200 --> 0:00:07.680 On this episode, we're exploring the history of food and 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.200 education in America. I'm talking to professor and author Dr 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:14.440 Janet Popadick, who's gonna show us how school lunch has changed, 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.560 you know, our hasn't across the decades, and we'll think 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:19.760 about what's in store for the future of the lunch 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:24.360 period in our schools. I was I was kind of lucky, 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:26.240 you know, when I was a kid going to school. 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:28.480 I went to a Catholic school and I, uh, you know, 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:31.600 there was a regulation where if you live close enough 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.159 to school, you can actually walk home and and have 0:00:34.240 --> 0:00:36.760 your lunch at home. And I lived the block away 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:38.640 from school, and so my brothers and I would we 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:41.440 would go home for lunch. And also very fortunate that 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:44.720 my grandmother lived right next door, so we would go 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:49.040 to her house. And my grandmother, um was uh bipolar, 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:51.919 and when she was feeling well, she would just go 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:54.280 to town. You know, we would we would come home 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:56.960 and they would just be a feastly out and you know, 0:00:57.440 --> 0:00:59.840 she made an amazing grilled cheese sandwich and I still 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:02.840 or tomato soup that she made everything from scratch, and 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.080 she would roast chicken and always some home bake pie 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:08.919 or cake or something. We would walk back to school 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:11.880 kind of full and take our time, and it was 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:13.840 just always a great memory. And you know, also not 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:15.160 only the great food, but we got to share a 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.440 lot of time with both grandparents sat during that little 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:20.479 lunch break. And then later on I went to public school, 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.399 and I had a great fortune of having my mother 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:27.680 prepare lunch for well not only me, but probably two 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:31.480 thousand other students. My mother managed a school cafeteria in Elizabeth, 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:34.520 New Jersey. You know, it was always great that that 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:36.840 I got to see my mother from time to time. 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:38.840 You know, I'd pop by and you know, see how 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:40.800 she was doing. And the downside was that if I 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:44.360 ever got in trouble, she knew right away. So but 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:46.160 it was it was a little later on, I think 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:48.680 I was in my thirties, maybe my father had passed 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:51.160 away already, and so my mother she started to complain 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:53.560 that that she was, you know, starting to you know, 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:55.880 our feet were hurting her. So I, you know, suggested 0:01:55.920 --> 0:01:59.600 that maybe she's thinking about retiring, and you know, she 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:02.520 said thing that that that was just really profound and 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.200 and and really stuck with me for for a really 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:07.520 long time. In fact, it was much later on when 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:09.799 I became an advocate, and especially around school lunch, that 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.320 I remember this story and and I often repeated it 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:14.080 and if I was talking to members of Congress, are 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:16.480 anyone else trying to get my point across? When I 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:18.239 asked her, you know, to retire, she said, no, I 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:20.400 think I have a few years left. And I'll tell 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.280 you why. She said, I know a lot of the 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.280 kids who are coming in and out of my lunch 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:27.919 room that this is the only meal they're getting all day. 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.320 And I have to fight like hell right now to 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:33.360 make sure that we have fresh fruits and vegetables and 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:35.040 that we're cooking a lot of the food from scratch. 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:38.160 And my supervisor constantly pushing me to go to you know, 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:41.480 all pre prepared meals. We can cut payroll, and we 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:43.440 can you know, maybe cut down on some waste and 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:45.960 stuff like that. And she said, you know, I'm fighting 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:47.919 to make sure that these kids have healthy food. So 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:50.600 I have a few years left. And you know, again, 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:52.760 at the time, I didn't think much about it until 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:55.680 I started to become an activist, and I those words, 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:58.160 I remember those words. I remember what she said. And 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.040 and you know, now now we're looking at these cafeteria 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:03.280 workers very differently. I mean, they're on the front lines. 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:06.920 They are the essential workers. And in fact, in New 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:09.280 York and I'm sure many other cities and states and 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.360 towns when school, when when the kids went to distance learning, 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:14.840 those cafeteria workers still had to go to work. They 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.520 put themselves in danger because they still had a community 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.040 to feed. And so I didn't Again, I didn't really 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:21.760 think much about what my mom was doing. And then 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:23.800 it was just there was a job, and and but 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:26.320 now I realized that it was, you know, so much more. 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:31.040 And then more recently, you know, we've seen the stories 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:32.600 and the news of these kids who go through the 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:34.679 lunch line and they they've run out of money on 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:36.880 their cars, and lunch is taken away from them and 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:39.440 they're given a cold cheese sandwich. And you know, I 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.280 I talked to my mom about that recently, and she said, yeah, 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.120 that that would happen, and I would just let the 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:46.840 kids go through. And she said, you know, sometimes my 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.160 counts were off, my supervisors would give me a hard time, 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:51.080 but she said there was no way that I could 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:53.440 take food away, especially when I know these kids are hungry. 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.400 I couldn't take food away from these kids, and so 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:58.800 I would just let them go. This is also part 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:01.640 of the reason why I really truly believed that that 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.720 school should be free for all. It shouldn't be the 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:07.200 three tiered system that we have. And and I thought 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.960 the best person to have this discussion for for our 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:14.400 school lunch episode would be the woman who wrote the 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:18.960 book Free for All, and that is doctor Janet Popendick. Janet, 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.480 how you doing. I'm okay, Tom, How are you well? 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:26.920 You know, considering we're We're okay, We're okay. The hardest 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:29.840 thing these days is the distance learning for the kids. 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:34.520 That's that's that's UH challenging. I'm an older one that's 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:38.520 a college student, but he's getting by. UM. So we're 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:43.720 talking with Dr Janet pomit Dick. She is the UH 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.080 Senior Faculty Fellow at the Urban Food Policy Institute at 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.719 the City University of New York and also the author 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.000 of Sweet Charity, Free for All. In breadlines breadlines knee 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:58.120 deep in wheak, it was a slogan during the Great 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:01.400 Depression breadlines need deep in We are surely the handiwork 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.840 of foolish men. We we we do know each other. Um. 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:09.320 When my wife Lorie uh in her partner Christie Jacobson 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:12.080 um made the film A Place at the Table, Um, 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:14.599 you were one of the people that we relied on 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:19.279 to sort of explain uh various issues around hunger, especially 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:21.599 the school lunch program. And so I think that's where 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:25.640 I want to start. Um. Uh. You know, most people 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:30.680 who are um uh you know, don't don't sort are 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.640 aren't steeped in hunger and hunger related issues, and um 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.880 uh in in some ways to to alleviate hunger, they 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:43.720 don't think in terms of school uh, school breakfast, school lunch. Um. 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:45.560 You know the lunch room is one of those things 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:47.719 when you were a kid, you you kind of it 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.960 broke up your day. Um. You know you try to 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:54.320 avoid the food fight in most cases. Uh. If you 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:56.760 had access to outside, you you spent as little time 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:58.680 as possible as you can so you can run outside. 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.120 But you know, there are thirty million children who use 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.240 our school lunch program and a good amount of those kids, 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:07.919 UM that's the nutrition they get for the for the 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.880 entire day. So I just want to ask you briefly, 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.040 so how did the school lunch program start? Why did 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:14.479 it start, and then we'll talk a little bit about 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:16.760 about the challenges that we see today in school lunch 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.280 program So, school lunch programs in the United States date 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:24.400 back to the early years of the twentieth century UM, 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:30.080 when compulsory education began to be the norm UM in 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:36.279 the United States. UM. Many very poor families UM had 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:40.520 relied on the work of their children to help meet 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.599 the family budget, and when kids were required to be 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:49.279 in school, UM, poor families found themselves even less able 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:53.080 to meet their food needs. And so schools began providing 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:57.280 meals because kids were coming to school hungry. But this 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.560 was not a federal program in any way a perform 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:05.280 This was typically started by a charitable organization or a 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:10.440 voluntary group of some sort, and in large cities rapidly 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.920 taken over by municipal government. So there was a network 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:16.960 of these programs throughout the United States at the time 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:21.640 that the Great Depression hit, and again at that point 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.720 when children were visibly suffering from hunger and malnutrition and 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.840 families were desperate, school lunch programs expanded in a lot 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:34.080 of communities. In New York City, UM, the records show 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.920 that the teachers gave money to expand the school lunch 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:41.800 program to be able to include more children. The federal 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:47.200 government got involved because they had agricultural surpluses and needed 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.680 a way to dispose of them. UM. In the Great 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.280 Depression of the nineties. The farm economy had been in 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.600 trouble since the end of World War One. You know, 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:02.440 farmers expanded a bridge and planning during World War One. 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:06.280 They were getting high prices, there was huge demand. At 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.720 the end of the war, Congress canceled the war credits 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:14.160 that had enabled our European allies to purchase American farm products, 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:17.720 and the farm market collapsed and it never really recovered. 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.880 So when the Roosevelt administration came into power, UM, they 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:27.360 took steps to try to adjust the farm economy UM 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:30.520 to remove surpluses from the market, and then they had 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:32.480 a problem about what to do with them. They were 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:36.760 a public relations problem for the government because so many 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:41.160 people were hungry, and so they began donating for farm surpluses, 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:46.840 purchasing from farmers and donating for relief through the emergency 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:50.640 relief agencies, but also through schools and orphanages and other 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.800 institutions that served children. So This was when the federal 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:58.280 government got involved in UH in school lunch, and when 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:01.480 War two came along and some of the Depression era 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:07.239 relief programs were cut back UM, the Department of Agriculture 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:12.240 lobbied for keeping and expanding UM contributions to the school 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.800 meal programs because they were very worried that at the 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:17.920 end of the war they would have another post war 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.520 slump in agriculture comparable to what had happened after World 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.520 War One. So so essentially this wasn't about nutrition. This 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.560 was about finding a market for commodities. Well, I think 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:30.920 it was about both. For the schools, it was very 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:34.480 much about nutrition. The products they got from the federal 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:38.240 government enabled them to serve far more nutritious lunches than 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.800 they otherwise could have done. How's how's the school lunch program? How? 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.200 How has it changed since then? UH? Over the years? 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:45.560 If you can kind of walk through some of the 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.440 big changes that you've seen UM in the school launch program, 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:51.000 breakfast and lunch program over the years. The first sort 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:53.520 of big change, I guess you would say, was the 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.200 creation of a permanent program in the National School Lunch Act, 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:03.120 and that was lunch only until the mid nineteen sixties. UM. 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:06.520 Think about the sixties, think about the civil rights movement, 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:13.319 calling attention to poverty in America. UM. After Kennedy's assassination, Johnson, 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:17.280 looking for UM a new theme in a sense for 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:21.679 his presidency, declared the War on Poverty. And that was 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:24.320 a point at which people began paying some attention to 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:28.440 what was happening to poor children, and educators argued that 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:31.600 school lunch came too late in the day for a 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:36.640 lot of kids. The morning hours are crucial for learning UM. 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.360 And that's when the breakfast program was begun in the 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:44.719 mid sixties as a pilot program. By the early seventies, 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:48.240 it was available to all schools and any school could 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:51.840 operate a school breakfast program that wanted to. Then some 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:56.559 of the energy shifted to state and local advocates who 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:02.120 began to press states for legislation requiring schools within the 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:04.920 state to offer the breakfast program. And I know the 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:07.880 sequence in New York was first they required it in 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:12.680 cities with a population of more than a hundred thousand UM, 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.040 and gradually we got to school breakfast in almost all 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:20.920 the schools. So the school lunch program, it is, the 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:24.440 entire program is subsidizes, essentially a three tier program. Can 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:26.959 you can you explain? Okay, sure, I can do that. 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.680 And you know, if you want to go back a 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.240 little bit, when the School Lunch Act was passed in 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:37.200 ninety there was just sort of a vague requirement that 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:41.760 in order to get the federal contributions, schools had to 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.840 agree that they would feed free of charge any children 0:11:44.840 --> 0:11:47.480 who were too poor to pay. But there were no 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:51.800 standards as to what constituted being too poor to pay. 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:56.600 And more importantly, there was no separate federal funding for 0:11:56.679 --> 0:12:01.000 those UH meals that were served free to children. The 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:07.200 federal government made contributions some money and um commodities from 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:09.960 that were purchased on behalf of schools, and then it 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.079 was left up to the schools to figure out how 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.959 to cover the cost of the meals that were served free. 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:20.280 And so you ended up with the situation in which 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:24.680 schools in middle class communities, those schools that were built 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:29.280 for the baby booms when we became school age, were 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:35.280 built with cafeterias and kitchens and had enough paying children 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:38.600 to cover the meals for children who were too poor 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:42.840 to pay. But schools in very poor communities in the 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:46.079 first place. Many of them were old inner city schools 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:50.040 that had been built without kitchens and cafeterias, and others 0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:53.680 were in rural areas and small towns where nearly everyone 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:57.320 was poor and there weren't enough paying children who could 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.400 pay enough to cover the cost of the meals for 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:05.200 children who were too poor to pay. So in the 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:10.959 mid nine sixties National Women's Coalition did a study UM 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.840 called Their Daily Bread of who was actually benefiting from 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.000 the school lunch program, and they found that only a 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:22.200 very small percentage of the nation's poor children where actually 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:27.079 had access to the program, It was primarily benefiting children 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:30.040 from the middle class UM. So this was the point 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:32.600 at which there began to be pressure for the federal 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:36.000 government to pick up the tab on the free meals. 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:40.600 And in nineteen seventies seventy one it was a whole 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:45.440 rend what nineteen pieces of legislation that addressed school meals. 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:52.840 But within those were legislation to guarantee reimbursement to the 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:56.240 schools for the meals served free UM if they were 0:13:56.280 --> 0:14:01.160 served to children who qualified UM and nash a standards 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.400 for who qualified. So this is where you began to 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.920 get a three tier. As you said, system of free 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.600 lunches for children with incomes below a hundred and thirty 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:16.320 percent of the poverty level and reduced price lunches which 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.080 were very cheap. UM four children between a hundred and 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:22.920 pent of the poverty line, and at that point it 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:27.400 was a hundred and nine of the poverty line. Later 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:31.120 that got pushed down at the outside of the Reagan 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:35.600 administration two hundred and eight. But a group that we 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:39.160 might think of as near poor um qualified for the 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:43.800 reduced price and then all other children paid a full 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.560 price that was determined by their local school system. There 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:51.160 wasn't a national price. So in your book Free for All, 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.560 you you you uh make an argument for why school 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.720 launch should be free. Uh stigmas part of that, part 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:00.520 of that, But what what other arguments you lay out 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.160 in the book for making free school lunch avault to 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.960 all thirty million children who use school lunch rooms. Well, 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.280 first of all, we have about thirty million children have 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:13.400 been eating the school lunch, but we have fifty five 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:17.800 million children in school um, so part of the question 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:21.400 is okay, so what's happening to the other million children? 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.120 And we know that a lot of them are getting 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:30.520 by on a a package of chips and a soft 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:32.800 drink that they bring from home or pick up at 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:36.680 the corner store. That they're eating unhealthy foods in lieu 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:42.320 of a balanced, nutritious meal. UM. We know that a 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:47.080 lot of kids just forego lunch altogether, especially in um 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:50.400 situations where lunch may be scheduled towards the end of 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:52.520 the day or at the last period of the day. 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:57.120 They just get out early. UM. So, so that's one 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.720 reason to make it free for all, is so that 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:03.960 it can begin to reach the kids who have UM 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:09.800 not been participating. Secondly, the issue of stigma that I mentioned, 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:14.080 even for the kids who who needed the meal and 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:18.200 wanted it and decided to to eat it, even if 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:21.640 they were cheesed, that's no way to eat lunch. Lunch 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.600 in a school should be something that brings us together. Um. 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.200 Did you ever go to summer camp? Um? I did 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:32.600 not go to summer camp, but I uh, I did 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:35.400 eat lunch in the cafeteria most days if I wasn't 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.240 eating it in my coach's office. UM. But I also 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:40.080 would go to lunch room for another reason, and that 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.120 that would be to say hello to my mother who 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:44.880 managed a school cafeteria. Lunch program. Well, the reason I 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:48.240 asked you about lunch at summer camp is because if 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:51.800 for those was who did have the pleasure of summer 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:56.000 camp UM as children, meal time was something that everybody 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:59.640 looked forward to, it was a great kind of unifier. 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.400 And school meals could be that way to school meals 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:07.280 can be appointing the day when when people look forward 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:10.080 to seeing their friends and sharing a meal. But that's 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:12.479 not going to happen if people have been kind of 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:17.200 classified as you know, poor enough to eat free, reduced 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:21.399 price and full price. So that's a second kind of 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:25.440 reason for UM that I argue for universal free school meals. 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.040 Third is that I think it's our responsibility. The children 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:40.239 are in our care during those hours, we should feed them. 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:42.199 I guess, I guess the other I guess the other 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:44.520 argument one can make is is and this is not 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:46.600 for just feeding them, but for feeding them healthier foods 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:50.320 and mandating healthier foods. We saw under the Obama administration 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:54.160 the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act change some of those 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:57.320 standards in the school lunch program. And even though the 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.560 bill passed and it increased uh you know, took sugar 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:02.720 out of the school lunch program, and increased the amount 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:04.919 of whole weeks in the school lunch program, got rid 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.359 of vending machines. Uh. You know, in some cases, school 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:12.240 cafeterias are just an extension of uh fast food operations. UM. 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:17.040 And yet the whole time, UM, the president and and 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:20.760 and and Michelle Obama, they were under assault from the 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.280 right uh um sort of essentially saying we don't need 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:26.640 a nanny state, we don't need we don't need adults 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.359 to tell children how to eat, which I thought was 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.480 kind of strange, because I tell my children what they 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:34.840 should eat. Um. If I didn't tell them what they eat, 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:37.040 they eat candy all day and junk food. And in fact, 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:38.639 if I didn't tell them to take a shower at night, 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.040 they probably go, you know, weeks without showering either. So 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:43.400 you know, I think we are the adults in the room, 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:45.760 and we do have an obligation to our our children 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:49.960 to too. Yeah, you know, have standards and and and 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:52.680 make sure that they are getting the proper nourishment and 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:56.000 especially for uh, for kids who aren't getting that proper 0:18:56.000 --> 0:19:00.959 nourishment at home. UM. So absolutely, And it's also a 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:05.040 matter of I I believe very strongly in the idea 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:09.440 of food education a much broader concept than just nutrition education, 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:14.560 because we have a lot of food miseducation that goes 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:18.720 on in our economy all the time, the advertisement of 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:22.720 of foods to children. So we are as a society 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:28.639 up against a lot of disinformation and misinformation and misleading presentations, 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.480 and we need our schools to be able to to 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:36.119 teach children not only what the nutrients are and what 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:38.399 they do for you and why you need them, but 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:43.719 to enjoy um a variety of healthy foods, and school 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:46.760 meal programs are one way to do that. And you 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:52.320 can't really integrate school food with the curriculum unless it's 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.520 available to everybody. And so that's another reason that I 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.320 think we really need to move to a universal model. 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:02.560 We're making making progress in New York. We are a 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:04.879 little by little. Um. It's funny. I was at a 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:08.439 panel discussion recently and there was a converse Um Collers 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:12.040 from from New York, who um uh started going on 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:13.880 and on about how bad school lunch was in New York, 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:15.560 and I kind of stopped him. I said, actually making 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:17.880 some pretty good progress here. It's not as bad as 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:21.199 you think it is. Um and um, But yeah, New 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:26.040 York is making some progress, but there's still um uh 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:29.720 you know, right, there's definitely a ways to go. But 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:32.480 we hear the news stories all you know, all the 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.280 time of kids who uh their money is run out 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:37.720 of their account and they get a cheese sandwich. Then 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:41.080 they get taken that a line and then they're really ostracized. Um. 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:45.280 And then and I wanted to ask you about this 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.840 because the reaction to that is there almost seems to 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:52.080 be a charl response where there are are various charities, 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.400 are are are people who are looking to do good, 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:57.640 who who think that they should just fund those accounts 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:00.240 for kids and and and then again we have h 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:06.240 a a charity uh response to an issue that we 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.879 shouldn't have in the first place. Um. And I know 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:10.840 this is something else that you you often write about 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:12.919 as well, is whether or not we should deal with 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:15.800 some of the these issues around hunger, um, you know, 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:19.960 through charteral response or a governmental response. Well, we could 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:22.040 get to that in a moment. But the the issue 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:25.359 you raise of the so called school lunch shaming, it's 0:21:25.400 --> 0:21:29.800 really a fascinating one because in that case, the stigma 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:31.960 is attached not to the kids who get the free 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:36.280 lunch because their accounts don't run out. It's kids in 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:40.480 the reduced price lunch category and the full price lunch category. 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:44.960 And you know those standards of a hundred and thirty 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:48.240 percent of the poverty line, and it's the top for 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:54.120 reduced prices of the poverty line. We're established back when 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:57.160 the poverty line was a little more realistic, a little 0:21:57.240 --> 0:22:01.880 closer to reality. The poverty line gets adjusted every year 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:05.040 for the cost of living, but it doesn't ever get 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:08.400 adjusted for changes in the way we live. So if 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:10.879 you think that was actually based on a study that 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:13.600 was done in the mid nineteen fifties that found out 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:17.240 that families spent about a third of their income on food. 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:20.560 So the idea was, if by allocating a third of 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:25.200 your income you couldn't um by a minimally adequate diet, 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:29.679 then you were officially poor. And now families on the 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:33.160 whole spend less than ten percent of their income on food. 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:38.760 So the whole way we spend our income has shifted. 0:22:38.800 --> 0:22:40.760 Think about all the things that we need to spend 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:44.160 money on now that didn't exist in the mid nineteen fifties. 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:48.240 Those aren't luxuries, those are necessities. Right now, if you 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:50.720 want to be a participant in the economy if you 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:53.320 want to be able to get a job or you 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:56.640 need those things. So we have a situation in which 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:00.600