Putting the "Revolution" in Revolution Foods

First off, let me say that I'm totally in favor of what Revolution Foods is trying to do: provide healthy, organic lunches from sustainable sources to all of you.

The problem is that a lot of kids don't eat the lunches.

Each day after you are excused from your lunch tables to go play, the Green Team is bombarded with uneaten lunches. It's as if the kids are revolting against Revolution Foods. Not exactly what the company owners had in mind when they named the company.


This creates another problem: a whole bunch of unnecessary waste being sent to our already overburdened landfills.

To me, this is a classic example of the so called "law of unintended consequences" in which an attempt to solve one problem creates a whole different one.

Perhaps the greatest example of this is rabbits in Australia. There, in 1859, a landowner brought in 24 rabbits, along with some other animals, in order to have something to hunt. Rabbits breed early and often and in Australia, it has no natural predators (animals that eat rabbits), so there was nothing to stop the rabbit population from getting bigger. 10 years later, 24 rabbits had become millions.


There were so many rabbits that they ate all the crops and all the food meant for farm animals. A "rabbit proof fence" was built to keep the rabbits away from the farmland. The fence is 2021 miles long (to get an idea of how long that is, the distance between Mill Valley and Lake Tahoe is about 200 miles, so the fence equal in length to about 5 round trips to Tahoe).



Now I'm sure that Revolution Foods won't cause any wild consequence like that, but the fact remains that kids basically don't like the food. The question is why not and what can Revolution Foods do about it?

I think that the problem has a simple cause and a simple solution. See, I like the food. Kids don't. This suggests that the food is being made for adult tastes, not kids'.

Kid have undeveloped palates. My two nieces' favorite restaurant meal is plain pasta with parmesan cheese. Kids are capable of tasting 4 basic things: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Many restaurant chefs know this. Go to some upscale restaurant (semi-fancy) which serves some exotic food like "pan-asian fusion cuisine" to adults and you will find a kids menu offering things like macaroni & cheese and chicken strips (fancy chicken strips, but chicken strips nonetheless). Kids don't like exotic and fancy, they like simple (my nephew is an exception, but that is a story for another post).

I know that Revolution Foods is very serious about their business. Their food is better this year than last, so I know they're trying to make the food tastier for you.

Here's how you can help them: Every now and then, someone from the company comes to Park and asks kids how they like the food. If they ask you, be respectful, but honest. If you don't like something, like the sloppy joes, try to explain why. Don't just say "it's gross". If you give them good feedback("it's dry", "all I taste is bread"), they will take it back to their bosses and the lunches will improve. Then we'll have a real food revolution - healthy food that kids will actually eat!