Hungry for Change

Yesterday I saw Food, Inc. http://www.foodincmovie.com/

I went in thinking that it would be redundant information since I'd read Fast Food Nation and selections from Michael Pollan before. (I even do Mark Bittman's "vegan" thing before 6 pm most days.) But I was still 100% blown away/horrified/enraged/called to action. It's outrageous that the food industry is allowed to run ramshod over our food choices. These food fascists have no problem selling us corn in every way imaginable and WANTING us to become fat and addicted so we buy more and more. ENOUGH.

As I was watching, of course, I just kept thinking of my kids and the absolute garbage they eat. Pop tarts. Gallons of Arizona ice tea. 5 bags of potato chips for breakfast. To them, cheap, fattening food is literally the only option. Paying more than .30 for a bag of Wise potato chips is simply out of the question.

So I decided to teach Health last year to take this travesty on. I taught them how to read food labels and the "five ingredient" rule. I taught them that most of the sugar in their diet comes from soda. I taught them that there were other ways to cook chicken besides frying it. And yet: I still had too many students who ate chips for breakfast. I also ran up against (good intentioned) colleagues buying them pizza, Dunkin Donuts, candy, etc. as a reward. It's as if it's impossible to be an educator in the New York City school system and NOT (implicity or explicitly) endorse the consumption of bad food. When are we going to get it?! FOOD IS FUEL. The cliche is true: We ARE what we eat. And our students, who have failed and failed and failed, and truly believe that they're academically wortheless, are eating GARBAGE.

This was the one quote in the movie that made me tear up: Every person deserves access to good, healthy, affordable food....Make sure your farmers' markets take food stamps. Just as a quality education is the right of EVERY child, so is access to affordable, healthy food. As educators to low income, "inner city" students, it's our job, no responsiblity, to promote and teach them that they DESERVE organic, healthy food. We need to demand that school lunches become healthful instead of harmful. We need to tell them over and over and over again that food is power and that voting for apples instead of hot fries will start a revolution.