To me, Revolution Foods is a company which has a noble goal: to bring fresh healthy meals to “as many students as possible”. Their first customers were schools in low income neighborhoods where, before Revolution Foods arrived, school lunches consisted of cheap meal made from simple carbohydrates, salt, fat and processed sugar. In other words, they weren’t very healthy.
The meals served by Revolution Foods are made almost entirely from organic ingredients. They include fresh vegetables, whole grains and meat raised in natural settings. They also use ingredients from local, sustainable sources.
Organic food is pesticide free. It is also free of hormones, antibiotics and isn’t genetically engineered.
Locally grown means the food hasn’t been transported 1000’s of miles to get here, which saves fuel and helps slow global warming.
I’ve always been impressed with what Revolution Foods is trying to do, which is nothing less than change the way all of us eat. By starting with school kids, they are hoping that good eating habits will filter up through each kid’s family at home.
There was only one problem. The food they made wasn’t very good. When Revolution Foods first started providing Park School with hot lunches, the food was more likely to end up in the trash than in a kid’s stomach.
Revolution Foods then did another remarkable thing. They listened to you. They sent representatives to all of the schools they served and took surveys. They offered taste tests. As a result, their meals got a lot better.
Today, I’m happy to say, the food is much improved. I personally enjoy the Chicken Teriyaki, Baked Ziti and Cheese Lasagna (the pizza still tastes like cardboard).
The kids seem to agree. The Green Team is no longer swamped with uneaten Revolution Foods meals.
When they first started, Revolution Foods provided lunches to schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Today they provide lunches to schools all over Northern and Southern California, Colorado and Washington D.C.. They’ve truly begun a school lunch revolution.
In order to gain a better understanding of why organic food from local sustainable sources is better for you, to understand why the least healthy food which is also the least expensive and why this is the real cause of the nation’s obesity epidemic, try reading “Fast Food Nation” by Eric Schlosser,
“The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan
or see “Food, Inc.”
You'll never take your food for granted again.
2 comments:
Thanks for posting this! I am very passionate about this topic and believe it's really important for kids to know about, and act on.
Thanks for your comment. As I watched Food, Inc., I kept thinking that this would be a good film to show to students. Highly illuminating & informative while maintaining an objective tone. Lots of great talking points, too. It would probably put kids to sleep if you showed it all at once, but the film is nicely divided into chapters as if they had a classroom setting in mind. If I had the time, I'd show it one chapter at a time followed by a class discussion....
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