Think Kids Should Have Healthy Lunch Options? 3 Days Left to Vote!

The second round of voting in the Ideas for Change in America project is wrapping up--you have until 5 p.m. Eastern time this Thursday, January 15,  to get in your vote(s), to affect what ideas will make it into the final top 10.

I posted on the vegan school lunch options idea during the first round (here, for example), but the text of the idea has been expanded since then. A relevant video I shared with you not long after this blog's launch is included now as well. I am including in this post the additional information that's been added to the idea since I last wrote on this topic, but I'll let you go to the idea's page to see the video (and vote). Remember to again keep strategy in mind as you vote in these final days; this isn't just about voting for all the ideas you support--it's about voting strategically and selectively.

Healthful School Lunch Options

Require USDA to facilitate healthful plant-based (vegan) school lunch options to promote public health, freedom from hunger, environmental quality, nonviolence, and kindness to animals.

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The Problem

Under the mandate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National School Lunch Program, school cafeterias routinely serve meals laden with saturated fat, cholesterol, excess protein, hormones, drugs, and salt. This diet  flouts U.S. Dietary Guidelines and promotes obesity, diabetes, hypertension, other chronic conditions, and food poisoning.

Consider the following:

• School lunches contain 33% of calories from fat, including 12% from saturated fat, while U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommend 30% and 10%, respectively.
• Less than 15% of children eat the minimum daily recommended servings of fruit, and 35% eat no fruit on a given day.
• Only 17% of children consume the minimum daily recommended servings of vegetables, and 20% eat no vegetables on a given day.
• 15% of children ages 6 to 19 are overweight.
• 25% of children ages 5 to 10 suffer from high cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure, or other chronic conditions.

The Solution

A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and grains is largely free of these problems and essential to good health. It supplies nearly all essential nutrients, contains little fat, fewer pesticides, and no cholesterol, hormones, antibiotics, or heavy metals. It also provides special nutrients that reduce the risk of cancer. It is conducive to more energy and improved academic performance.

A healthy diet for children is a critical indicator of future health,  because children's bodies are still developing, because their dietary choices are still being formed, and because their poor eating habits become lifelong addictions.

In addition to its obvious health benefits, a plant-based diet offers the only long-term solution to the world hunger epidemic. It avoids the massive deforestation, water pollution, and global warming caused by the meat and dairy industries. Last, but not least, it spares billions of cows, pigs, and other innocent sentient animals from the atrocities of factory farms and slaughterhouses.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has the ability and the obligation to provide a wholesome food supply for our nation, starting with our children. It should not be using the school lunch and other national feeding programs as a dumping ground for surplus commodities of the meat and dairy industries.

Vote. And spread the word to a couple thousand of your closest friends.