Georgeanne Brennan at Terman Middle School

Today, on October 25, 2011, several Palo Alto parents met at Terman Middle School to eat the school hot lunch and listen to Georgeanne Brennan, award-winning cookbook writer, reporter and specialist in school lunches.

Georgeanne shared her experience in helping the districts of Oakland and Los Angeles to improve their hot lunch programs. She also gave an account of her trip to France, to explore the French school lunches. Georgeanne picked France because of the low obesity rate among children in this country. Highlights of her trip are included in her report attached to the resource page of this website. Georgeanne explained that the success of the hot lunch program in France is not only due to the variety of the menu. Their success is also linked to other factors, namely that lunch follows recess, children must stay at a table during a minimum of 30 minutes, and the food is served in real plates with real knives and forks.

Salad Bar at Terman Middle School

As parents from the Palo Alto district, we then had a healthy discussion about our vision for school lunches and the challenges we need to overcome. In a single hour of discussion, we came up with a flurry of suggestions. They included involving the kids as panelists in the selection of new school lunch items, replacing “sporks” with real
forks and spoons, trying out recess before lunch, inviting parents and grandparents to sit down at the table with the children to encourage mealtime discussions, requesting transperence on the origin of foods served in our district, banning certain items from the menu altogether, putting microwave ovens in the schools for children bringing their own lunches to school, setting up a “foodboosters” program for parents to contribute financially to the hot lunch program, expanding the seating options for children to eat lunch, involving local gardens in the food program, and many more ideas.

If we can come up with these many ideas in 60 minutes, imagine what we can do with perseverance, patience and determination throughout this school year. Palo Alto Tasting Week gave us a glimpse into the wonderful possibilities of discovery through food and cooking. This celebration has started a meaningful dialogue on the improvement of food in our schools and the impact of food on our community. This is where it all starts.