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School Lunch (image: krikketgirl/flickr)
You could smell the schadenfreude — not that most of big-meat-industry organ Meatingplace’s readers or writers would know the word, much less be able to spell it — a mile away (full article viewable by free subscription only):
Participation in the [LA Unified School District's] lunch program, which serves 650,000 meals daily, dropped by the thousands, and principals reported uneaten meals thrown away en masse.
This was after the district switched to a healthier menu and ditched things like strawberry-flavored milk.
But here’s what Meatingplace — which cribbed its piece from a Los Angeles Times article — won’t tell you: The kids rejected the new meals not because they preferred Cheetos to real tamales, but because all too often, the meals had been prepared or stored improperly, leading to burned, watery, and/or moldy food. From the original LA Times piece:
Andre Jahchan, a 16-year-old sophomore at Esteban Torres High School, said the food was “super good” at the summer tasting at L.A. Unified’s central kitchen. But on campus, he said, the chicken pozole was watery, the vegetable tamale was burned and hard, and noodles were soggy.
[...]
Among other complaints, Vanderbok said salads dated Oct. 7 were served Oct. 17. (Binkle said the dates indicate when the food is at its highest quality, not when it goes bad. They have been removed to avoid misinterpretation.)
[...]
Van Nuys history teacher Doug Kayne turned the discontent into a class assignment, asking his 11th-grade U.S. history students to write five letters about the food to the mayor, the media and First Lady Michelle Obama. In class recently, students complained about mold on noodles, undercooked meat and hard rice.
As the article notes, the food got high marks in the test pilot, where it was well prepared. The problems occurred when it came to being entrusted to LA’s school cooks, a large number of whom I suspect were used to being able to pour pre-made, preservative-laden industrial slop into warmers as opposed to actually cooking real food from scratch (not to mention making sure that the real food didn’t go bad as unlike fake food it can’t be stored for decades on end).
But if you’re a typical Meatingplace reader, who never clicks through to see the original articles from which Meatingplace cribs (much less reads for comprehension), you will never see any of this. (Exercise for the Mercury Rising/MyFDL reader: Register at Meatingplace, surf to their version of the LAT article, and leave a comment pointing out what the Meatingplace folks left out. Then let me know how long it takes before you’re banned from commenting.)
(Crossposted to Mercury Rising.)
38 Comments
$1.42 for labor and benefits.
12 cents for supplies.
18 cents for operating expenses.
77 cents for food.
“in 2007, the school board voted to give its 2,300 part-time cafeteria employees a fourth hour of work each day, up from three. The purpose was to qualify them for full health benefits — family medical, vision and dental. It was a huge win for organized labor, but it cost the already cash-strapped district $105 million over three years. Every penny paid for benefits is a penny not available for food.”
http://www.laweekly.com/2011-06-16/news/why-los-angeles-school-kids-get-lousy-meals/
No, I’m not blaming everything on SEIU Local 99 and neither is the author of this long but excellent article. Still, when you’re spending almost twice as much on labor/bennies as you are on the actual meals something’s a bit off…
I have to wonder if those numbers aren’t a bit off, too. $105 million over three years for 2,300 part timers? That’s over $15,000/year each: does LAUSD really pay that much for benefits?
20 hours a week at 15,000 is NOT a princely sum, no.
This could all be solved with a modest proposal.
Soylent Green never spoils, always tastes just like chicken.
Great catch PW, and Irony, leave it to you to question unionized working men and women, at minimum wages, part time to be the problem as to why school kids can’t get fed right, nor the food budgets funded properly.
More dog whistling about them union workes, in this case, mostly Hispanic and Black.
Funny, how that works out if ya ask all the right questions.
Harumph.
Something I learned from talking to a school cafeteria worker:
Okay, I admit that this was about 17 years ago. The contracts for school food supply went through a big conglomerate. Yep, that’s right. Marriot was the Corporation that won the school districts bid to provide food.
Also, there were still some people employed that actually knew how to cook. However, the largest part of the meals were as PW says. Packaged and only needed to be heated. Aside from veggies, the chicken, fish, pizza, and burgers were all pre-made.
Just keep that Corp/Conglomerate tip in mind when reading these things. You might be surprised to find out that our children are also the lab rats for all kinds of GMO products.
Makes the old commercial about Mikey not eating anything kinda special. Especially when it is laden with sugar and other things to make it taste good when it is really not good.
Many children have no idea where food comes from. Nor do the workers who are responsible for getting it onto the luncheon trays. A great deal of connection with human biological needs have been subverted by packaged food industry. Let’s keep blame where blame is due.
Exactly. As PeasantParty (and I hope I) tried to point out, the comglomerates can sell us fake food because fake food’s seen as being easier to prepare and consume. Oooh, real rice is soooo complicated — ya gotta boil the water, then put the rice in it, then put a lid on it and let it sit for fifteen minutes. Agony! Here, try this Minute Rice. Yeah, it tastes like mashed-up toilet paper, but it’s so EASY!
Last Thursday went to pick up 1/4 steer from farmers who raise and slaughter only 1/year. Grass & grain fed.
Wish I could communicate the connection between knowing how your food was raised with how it tastes and how its nutritional content.
It’s a whole other world.
Interesting that you bring up rice. That was one of my first intros into real food. I tasted minute rice and regular rice and the rest was history.
As a high school teacher with LAUSD I can report that Sharon, our highly qualified and responsible cafeteria manager is overworked just with heating up the pre-packaged food, dishing it out, maintaining sanitation and following through on the piles of paperwork she has to do every day.
However, the change in food this year was startling. Many of the kids like it, but some of it looks strange and goes to waste (especially the quinoa salad). But some of the food has always gone to waste, and at least the students are getting an education in nutrition.
If the military can serve decent food, so can the schools. It’s horrible to think that children are being given moldy food and week old salads.
Absolutely!
It all goes to prove who is the most valuable to the PTB.
eCAHNomics,
That is so true! The beef for consumers in the stores doesn’t taste anything like the beef I was raised on. There is no depth of flavor in it and the store stuff is tough. Even the very expensive cuts are still lacking in taste and tenderness.
But if we talk about it too much like Oprah did then the big Beefers Industry will come after your butt.
There was an article in NYT about a year or two ago. One of the dorms at Yale decided to serve only local foods in season. (Two exceptions: coffee & bananas). Dorm was, of course, named Berkeley.
Students loved it, so much so that there was stealing/counterfeiting/other trickeries for non-Berkley residents to eat there.
Cost: 50% MORE than regular meals at Yale.
It’s very expensive to go nutritious. That is one of the major reasons for manufactured/monoculture ag success. Cheap.
$6/pound if you buy 1/4 steer. Mixed cuts from ground beef to sirloin. Not many people can afford teh $$ & time to do their meat this way.
As I understood it, the $105 million over three years isn’t their salary: it’s the cost of the benefits. On reflection, though, it might also include the cost of going from 3 hours/day to 4: a move not made because the extra time was needed, but just to qualify them for full benefits.
That is true. I think if more people actively took part in raising some of their own foods it would cost less. Most of the old farmers in my area no longer produce anything. They have been routed out by big Agrabiz and can not compete. I think if we went back to a more sustainable community model those farms would work again.
Local organic ag only economically viable if middle/upper income folks like me decide to support them. It’s not a sustainable economic model.
In contrast to what other schools feed their children around the world, it’s no wonder so much food is thrown away and wasted:
http://freshpics.blogspot.com/2011/04/school-lunches-from-around-world.html
Try living in LA with that kind of money. Gas alone out there could put someone in the poor house.
Most of the restaurant management I have know through the years have told me the same thing; the labor and overhead is far more expensive than the food ingredients.
How else is this food supposed to get prepared and served to the people?
How much cheaper are you going to get than 4 hour a day workers?
It’s not just that, many schools don’t even have the infrastructure to cook meals. Some districts have a central kitchen that does most of the work, and they deliver the stuff to the schools individually for reheat.
Even if they had real cooks, they wouldn’t have invested in the right equipment and infrastructure to take advantage.
“leave it to you to question unionized working men and women, at minimum wages, part time to be the problem as to why school kids can’t get fed right, nor the food budgets funded properly.”
And leave it to you to defend family medical, vision, and dental for 20 hour/week workers when it comes out of children’s food budgets. The budget is $2.49/meal, of which a whopping 77 cents is actually spent on food.
And leave it to you to be supremely indifferent to facts:
“unionized working men and women, at minimum wages”
Part time cafeteria workers in LA schools earn from $10.65 to $13.24 per hour.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/30/local/la-me-lausd-cafeteria-20110530
Was there an increase in the minimum wage that I somehow overlooked, or are you just lieing through your teeth?
It would seem you’re not the man to ask “the right questions”.
There’s also the food subsidy issue.
Alot of that junk food is just reformulated combinations of corn and soy, which are heavily subsidized so that Goldman and Morgan Stanley can make derivative bets on their prices.
The left over bullshit food is just a byproduct, and it’s price reflects that….
WOW! Big difference in the US. I am sure those children in other parts of the world are not required to eat their meals in 15 minutes or less.
TWOOPH! The corn and other grains that are needed for livestock, chickens, etc. raise the prices. Small home farmers can break that cycle with trade offs.
That’s a good point. I had forgotten about that issue. I think my son had 20 minutes.
I do live in LA. 75 degrees on Christmas, haven’t shoveled snow since I got here decades ago, lots of hot women, and yeah: gas prices here bite.
How is that relevant?
The article I linked to above mentions kids who don’t even try to eat at the cafeteria since they know lunch break will be over by the time they get their tray.
It’s not a cheap place to live. Gas is bad, but housing is even worse.
I’m talking about cheap processed food made from wheat, soy, and corn. E.g., cheap baked goods, fried foods, corn syrup laden beverages, etc.
That’s what most industrial agribusinesses focuses on, no?
http://news.consumerreports.org/safety/2011/12/new-study-focuses-on-arsenic-in-rice.html
Gobble, Gulp, Hurry-Hurry, great for the IBS:) What’s this about if the military can serve decent food, the schools can? They really have the same issues, corn fed beef contributing to the diabetes epidemic for example. The military’s three hots and a cot is part of their window dressing, semi-different animal. But, I know some school meals are the best regular source of nutrition some children get day to day. Isn’t it a shame we don’t have the time to send the children to school with a real brown bag lunch without high fructose processed food from a Wall St. corporation in it. How can a hot lunch program that the parents don’t really have much say in comply with gobbledygook regulations strewn with brother in law politics for the administration? I wouldn’t make it too regimented, maybe all the schools should provide are some real bread, and butter, clean water, and bovine free milk.
Yes, it is: How is that relevant?
Our “modern” diet of starch, sugar and meat, while cheap to produce is resulting in 1/3 of our population becoming obese (and 2/3 rds over weight) with all the health problems inherent in that kind of a lifestyle. Our children will be the first generation to be less healthy than their parents. This, in part, starts with school lunches which teach our children to crave high fat and high sugary/starchy foods and does little to teach them about where food comes from and what alternatives are healthier. Yes, healthy food is more expensive but the the rise in health care cost from a high populaiton of its citizenry ill from cancer, diabetes, obsity, high blood pressure, strokes, etc.. is a direct result of this western diet. Read the China Study and understand how our diets are killing us. Also, eating meat is, according to the UN Study on Climate Change the cause for almost 50% of the carbon increase in our atmosphere. Animal consumption is literally killing us. A plant based diet is the best hope for our children and the planet’s future. Most people, even progressives cannot accept that fact even with the evidence staring them right in the face.
Since World War I, restaurant management has standardized the recommended ratio of food being one-third of product cost, with personnel and site taking up the other two-thirds. This ratio has been successfully used throughout the Western world.
How many of those restaurant managers gave full family medical, vision and dental to their 4 hour a day workers?
At a glance it seems the cost of the benefits may exceed the cost of the gross salaries.
Interesting: thank you.
In this case food is 30.9% (a bit low by that formula) but personnel is 57% (which I suspect is high by that formula).
You see, for a restaurant “overhead” includes rent, utilities, taxes, permits, and a host of other expenses that are not coming out of the schools’ food budget. The schools’ overhead is 12 cents for supplies and 18 cents for operating expenses: only 12% of the total. With $2.19 left to split between food and personnel do you think maybe we could give kids a meal that costs a whole damn dollar?
Harumph, indeed.