HHS launches DEPEND, a $32.5 million initiative funding schools to test ways to replace highly processed foods and prove which healthier lunch approaches last.
I guess you've never worked in a school. Most schools use an outside company to supply food, "cook" it and serve it. Like a caterer. The schools have ovens and refrigeration, but the food is like the pre-made food from Costco (maybe it actually is 🤔). It's not real food, except for low-fat milk in cartons, which is also processed to remove the fat 🤮. Mystery meat burgers and chicken, no-real-cheese pizza, and Bimbo bread. It's awful.
So, how to get real, un-pre-cooked food delivered to the school based on the daily or weekly menu, make the recipes, cook it fresh that morning, and not have a bunch of waste? These are experimental grants. Most schools won't bother to try. The ones that do, and create a working plan, can share their ideas. Conceive, Believe, Work, Achieve, Share.
I tried to get my local school to stop serving sweetened milk with cheese pizza and a sugared fruit cup for lunch 3 times a week. It turned out that that was the favored menu because the school could get reimbursed from the Federal gov for that meal. I wrote a comic novel about it called Locus Amoenus. "Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said... that the government will no longer spend taxpayer dollars on food that undermines their health.” That's a good first step. Do no harm.
Seriously? The old teach a man to fish doesn’t apply here? Healthy eating isn’t rocket science. Kids will only truly learn in a holistic model. Stop making their lunches and teach them how to prepare food without a microwave! Teach them how to shop for nutritious foods. Our education model has become so dumbed down that we treat basic survival skills like it’s in need of a $33M revamp. Homeschooling is more appealing every day.
In the 1930s, when I was a baby, I was fed bananas. They were the cheapest food during the Great depression. I am still eating lots of bananas today. In the morning I have them with a large mug of Cacao bliss with coconut milk, sweetened with Stevia. It gives me plenty of energy. I am out the door after 6:30 in the morning for a 100 minute,. non-stop walk of 5 miles. I also have bananas at lunch and even at dinner with eggs from our own chickens. and steamed spinach, several times weekly.. Bananas have more protein than most other fruits; plus bulk, fiber and nutrients. I have no health complaints at 92. and take no drugs. I was trying to think what children could eat at school. I put fruit into my children's lunches along with a tuna sandwich made with whole grain bread years ago. One day, i went to my daughter's school at lunchtime and was appalled to see the garbage can loaded with apples and other fruits, which the children discarded. Then, I found out my daughter traded her whole wheat sandwich with a friend for a white bread sandwich made with peanut butter and jelly.
Live next door to banana plantation, plenty of free racks. Have about 8 trees maturing myself. Avocados just started. Love them on daily basis. Make a smoothie with banana, hemp hearts, spirulina, and greens. Plenty of tomatoes and more cucumbers on the way.
Lettuce just finished. 7 wild hens, give the eggs away. Lots of papaya, planted a dozen pineapples, takes over a year. Liloquoi incoming.
The girl traded wisely her PB & J sandwich. All people make decisions, many not guided by sound reasoning.
Also have cacao based smoothie option on occasion with Maca. Lots of variety.
We know they can be cooked at the schools, and they can be made healthier. The issue is, the kids have been raised on drive thru windows, and snacks/candy. Good luck getting kids with that palette to eat the healthy food. Most will end up in the trash, and the kids will sit with empty bellies.
Why not spend the effort getting mRNA injections banned? That would truly protect the children! Ih wait, the mRNA flu shot was just approved. So much for protecting the kids.
If it’s ok for the children to go hungry, maybe we shouldn’t feed them at all. Save the $33 million, and future tax dollars, if you say the kids can just “go hungry”.
Big P has always controlled the ABC agencies. The responsibility for health falls on every shoulder, there are no shortcuts. If there was a huge decrease in customers Big P circles the bowl. The same is true for confidence in the Medical Cartel.
Voluntary, or not, if they are removed from being offered altogether, then fear won’t drive parents, who have zero clue because the media just calls them “vaccines”, won’t be able to kill their kids by allowing an injection that can cause myocarditis, pericarditis, and myopericarditis.
And I think most doctors are too trusting, and believe what the salespeople tell them, and what they hear at CE conferences. Let’s remove the products and eliminate doctors’ ability to be shills for them.
I’d ban a lot of the pharmaceuticals, probably 85%.
Actually, my original message was why the food idea is a waste of funds. Maybe people are like turkeys and wake up in a different world every morning. The healthy school food was implemented under the Obama administration. It was one of Michelle Obama’s initiatives. It did not work. The food ended up in the dumpsters. Hasn’t anyone paid attention the last 15-20 years? Must we try to reinvent the wheel? Or can we find a way to spend money wisely?
For the first year and a half of school, I lived in a rural area where local women cooked real food for our lunches. We moved to the "city" where the meals were not tasty. The highlight was dessert, which we didn't have so much in the first school.
My comment is directed specifically to Secretaries Kennedy & Rollins.
Acknowledgement...That's a start going in the right direction... addressing the upstream issues contributing to the downstream health crisis our children are facing. DON"T STOP THERE...
What's needed of equal, if not of greater importance is the educational piece - a wellness literacy curriculum - to run concomitant with this first step... outlined as one of the major strategic implementations proposed in the HealthReform2026.org Executive Summary @ https://tinyurl.com/58zkrsrp
• "Introduce school curricula to include “wellness literacy” education, from early grades through high school, to empower our future generations with the life skills necessary to optimize their health and human potential and minimize illness and disease."
"Wellness Literacy" (def) The knowledge and ability to understand, evaluate, and apply information that supports physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being. The capacity to make informed, value-aligned decisions that sustain personal and collective health through awareness, critical thinking, and responsible action.
We live in exciting yet challenging times. The real question... Do we have the passion, compassion for humankind, as well as the testicular fortitude necessary to launch these policies and strategies? The challenge & battle reminds me of the following quote:
"There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those that profit from the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order.
– Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince and The Discourses
You need to spend crazy money to test how to cook healthy food? Have we all turned stupid? Meat/Veg/fruit/dairy/whole grains. If it comes from God/Earth, eat it If it's synthetic/comes from a lab, don't.
I avoid nightshades.. Will eat a tomato occasionally, but don't eat cucumbers or peppers. i did Creator-guided -nutritional consultations for (28 of 30) years. Everyone is unique...but many people could not handle cucumbers. People in the Middle East can handle eggplant. They have adapted to it. However, it is a very toxic nightshade for most Americans. Tobacco is in the nightshade family of plants. The wrong food can silently break down an internal organ.
The problem is not so much what to serve, it is getting the kids to eat it. I remember years ago Jamie Oliver making and promoting relatively healthy school lunches in the UK. My overriding memory of that is irate (supremely healthy? ) mamas passing McDonalds through the railings to their deprived children. The poor darlings had been served a delicious chicken pasta or something, nothing as exotic as broccoli.
It would take 20 minutes to suggest how to provide nutritious food for school children.
Spending 33 mil is a ridiculous waste of funds. Pathetic
Not at scale, nope
no need to reinvent the wheel T, regardless the "scale"
you are making excuses, in any case parents are responsible for feeding
their kids
I guess you've never worked in a school. Most schools use an outside company to supply food, "cook" it and serve it. Like a caterer. The schools have ovens and refrigeration, but the food is like the pre-made food from Costco (maybe it actually is 🤔). It's not real food, except for low-fat milk in cartons, which is also processed to remove the fat 🤮. Mystery meat burgers and chicken, no-real-cheese pizza, and Bimbo bread. It's awful.
So, how to get real, un-pre-cooked food delivered to the school based on the daily or weekly menu, make the recipes, cook it fresh that morning, and not have a bunch of waste? These are experimental grants. Most schools won't bother to try. The ones that do, and create a working plan, can share their ideas. Conceive, Believe, Work, Achieve, Share.
Parents are responsible for feeding their offspring.
It really is that simple. Why people thing different is
telling.
I tried to get my local school to stop serving sweetened milk with cheese pizza and a sugared fruit cup for lunch 3 times a week. It turned out that that was the favored menu because the school could get reimbursed from the Federal gov for that meal. I wrote a comic novel about it called Locus Amoenus. "Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said... that the government will no longer spend taxpayer dollars on food that undermines their health.” That's a good first step. Do no harm.
Seriously? The old teach a man to fish doesn’t apply here? Healthy eating isn’t rocket science. Kids will only truly learn in a holistic model. Stop making their lunches and teach them how to prepare food without a microwave! Teach them how to shop for nutritious foods. Our education model has become so dumbed down that we treat basic survival skills like it’s in need of a $33M revamp. Homeschooling is more appealing every day.
Homeschooling was always the way forward decades ago...
Baby steps, Sara. Gotta start somewhere.
Almost $33M is a massive baby step.
Totally agree. This is not teaching a man how to fish - but teaching a man how to eat fish. How has it got to this?
the lower level of stupid competition
Every school should have a vegetable garden and teach the kids how to maintain it and use those vegetables during their lunches.
Nope, a feed lot for animals. Vegetables are a waste in many ways and ae terrible for the soil.
A very small subset has done this, a great solution.
Off season there are educational tools.
The "food pyramid" whether inverted or not is un-necessary
Suckling cows, is ill advised.
Organic fruits and vegetables for the win. Minimal processing of
"cooked" entrees. A revolving menu consisting of 10-15 nutritious easily prepared
meals is a couple hour project... This 33million "study" is worse than stupid.
It is not "negative" to call out exorbitant waste of funds, it is responsible for
the benefit of all. Food options are simple.
In the 1930s, when I was a baby, I was fed bananas. They were the cheapest food during the Great depression. I am still eating lots of bananas today. In the morning I have them with a large mug of Cacao bliss with coconut milk, sweetened with Stevia. It gives me plenty of energy. I am out the door after 6:30 in the morning for a 100 minute,. non-stop walk of 5 miles. I also have bananas at lunch and even at dinner with eggs from our own chickens. and steamed spinach, several times weekly.. Bananas have more protein than most other fruits; plus bulk, fiber and nutrients. I have no health complaints at 92. and take no drugs. I was trying to think what children could eat at school. I put fruit into my children's lunches along with a tuna sandwich made with whole grain bread years ago. One day, i went to my daughter's school at lunchtime and was appalled to see the garbage can loaded with apples and other fruits, which the children discarded. Then, I found out my daughter traded her whole wheat sandwich with a friend for a white bread sandwich made with peanut butter and jelly.
Live next door to banana plantation, plenty of free racks. Have about 8 trees maturing myself. Avocados just started. Love them on daily basis. Make a smoothie with banana, hemp hearts, spirulina, and greens. Plenty of tomatoes and more cucumbers on the way.
Lettuce just finished. 7 wild hens, give the eggs away. Lots of papaya, planted a dozen pineapples, takes over a year. Liloquoi incoming.
The girl traded wisely her PB & J sandwich. All people make decisions, many not guided by sound reasoning.
Also have cacao based smoothie option on occasion with Maca. Lots of variety.
Obama lunches were consistently thrown away.
We know they can be cooked at the schools, and they can be made healthier. The issue is, the kids have been raised on drive thru windows, and snacks/candy. Good luck getting kids with that palette to eat the healthy food. Most will end up in the trash, and the kids will sit with empty bellies.
Why not spend the effort getting mRNA injections banned? That would truly protect the children! Ih wait, the mRNA flu shot was just approved. So much for protecting the kids.
Great reason to feed them junk food at school. geeze.
This very proposal has been tried before. The kids threw the healthy food into the trash.
But, some people have to pee on that hot wire for themselves. Waste the money again to try what’s already been tried, and failed.
Then they go hungry...so sad, too bad. It would be a lot less wasted than that $33million.
If the government is going to feed them using our tax dollars, they have an obligation to serve healthy food.
If it’s ok for the children to go hungry, maybe we shouldn’t feed them at all. Save the $33 million, and future tax dollars, if you say the kids can just “go hungry”.
Big P has always controlled the ABC agencies. The responsibility for health falls on every shoulder, there are no shortcuts. If there was a huge decrease in customers Big P circles the bowl. The same is true for confidence in the Medical Cartel.
Hunger is a serious motivator...
It is not just the mRNA, but those are very very different issues.
Last I checked the jabs were 100% voluntary.
Howz about outing the Medical Doctors who profit and perpeptute this fraud??
Voluntary, or not, if they are removed from being offered altogether, then fear won’t drive parents, who have zero clue because the media just calls them “vaccines”, won’t be able to kill their kids by allowing an injection that can cause myocarditis, pericarditis, and myopericarditis.
And I think most doctors are too trusting, and believe what the salespeople tell them, and what they hear at CE conferences. Let’s remove the products and eliminate doctors’ ability to be shills for them.
You are making the case for banning pharmaceuticals. That would be a temporaty solution as people "believe" in them due to Medical propaganda.
That would create a black market for vaccines.
MD's are responsible for knowing, stepping far outside of a "trust" issue.
Knowingly or not, it is printing get out of jail free passes for the MD's...
I’d ban a lot of the pharmaceuticals, probably 85%.
Actually, my original message was why the food idea is a waste of funds. Maybe people are like turkeys and wake up in a different world every morning. The healthy school food was implemented under the Obama administration. It was one of Michelle Obama’s initiatives. It did not work. The food ended up in the dumpsters. Hasn’t anyone paid attention the last 15-20 years? Must we try to reinvent the wheel? Or can we find a way to spend money wisely?
Another positive voice heard from.
Sounds extremely expensive on the verge of ridiculous.
It is over the top stupid
Those 'in command' have to get rich somehow.
The top of this tree is Sec. Kennedy himself as the head
of the HHS. Appears to be pure grift.
For the first year and a half of school, I lived in a rural area where local women cooked real food for our lunches. We moved to the "city" where the meals were not tasty. The highlight was dessert, which we didn't have so much in the first school.
Amy, thank you for this post,
My comment is directed specifically to Secretaries Kennedy & Rollins.
Acknowledgement...That's a start going in the right direction... addressing the upstream issues contributing to the downstream health crisis our children are facing. DON"T STOP THERE...
What's needed of equal, if not of greater importance is the educational piece - a wellness literacy curriculum - to run concomitant with this first step... outlined as one of the major strategic implementations proposed in the HealthReform2026.org Executive Summary @ https://tinyurl.com/58zkrsrp
• "Introduce school curricula to include “wellness literacy” education, from early grades through high school, to empower our future generations with the life skills necessary to optimize their health and human potential and minimize illness and disease."
"Wellness Literacy" (def) The knowledge and ability to understand, evaluate, and apply information that supports physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being. The capacity to make informed, value-aligned decisions that sustain personal and collective health through awareness, critical thinking, and responsible action.
We live in exciting yet challenging times. The real question... Do we have the passion, compassion for humankind, as well as the testicular fortitude necessary to launch these policies and strategies? The challenge & battle reminds me of the following quote:
"There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those that profit from the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order.
– Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince and The Discourses
your wellness OG
You need to spend crazy money to test how to cook healthy food? Have we all turned stupid? Meat/Veg/fruit/dairy/whole grains. If it comes from God/Earth, eat it If it's synthetic/comes from a lab, don't.
I avoid nightshades.. Will eat a tomato occasionally, but don't eat cucumbers or peppers. i did Creator-guided -nutritional consultations for (28 of 30) years. Everyone is unique...but many people could not handle cucumbers. People in the Middle East can handle eggplant. They have adapted to it. However, it is a very toxic nightshade for most Americans. Tobacco is in the nightshade family of plants. The wrong food can silently break down an internal organ.
The government has no business running schools or providing lunch. Get government out of our lives. Everything they touch turns into a disaster.
The problem is not so much what to serve, it is getting the kids to eat it. I remember years ago Jamie Oliver making and promoting relatively healthy school lunches in the UK. My overriding memory of that is irate (supremely healthy? ) mamas passing McDonalds through the railings to their deprived children. The poor darlings had been served a delicious chicken pasta or something, nothing as exotic as broccoli.
Seriously? Just ask a few grandmas how to feed a kid. What needs to be 'studied'?
Get rid of sugar, grain products, seed oils and most vegetables and you've got healthy food. Simple and free..no $33 million required.