RENEGADE LUNCH LADY ISSUES CALL TO ACTION WITH LUNCH LESSONS
Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children Hits Book
Stores Sept. 5
Who: Chef Ann Cooper, director of
Nutrition Services for the Berkeley Unified School District
(BUSD)
What: Chef Ann is at the fore front
of the movement to transform the National School Lunch Program
into one that places greater emphasis on the health of students
than the financial health of a select few agribusiness corporations.
Chef Ann's lunch menus emphasize regional, organic, fresh foods,
and nutritional education, helping students to build a connection
between their personal health and where their food comes from.
Chef Ann's newest book, Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We
Feed Our Children hit bookstores on September 5 and is bursting
with strategies for parents and school administrators to become
engaged with issues around school food-from public policy to
corporate interest. It includes successful case studies of
school food reform, resources that can help make a difference
and healthy, kid-friendly recipes that can be made at home,
or by the thousands for a public school cafeteria.
As childhood obesity in the United States has exploded from
5 percent to 17 percent between 1980 and 2004, the U.S. Department
of Agriculture's Child Nutrition Program has failed to properly
address this growing epidemic. With more than 28 million students
participating in the National School Lunch Program and no organized
national leadership in the battle against childhood obesity,
Chef Ann is demanding that the issue become a part of the 2008
presidential race. And she is calling for all parents, teacher,
school food service directors, family farmers - anyone with
a vested interest in the future of our children - to join her
in changing the way we feed our children, one school lunch
at a time.
Why: Chef Ann has proven her approach
to incorporate regional, organic and fresh foods into public
school menus can work and that simple changes within budget
can be made. Accompanied with wellness education, her model
of school food delivery can transform children's health and
their approach to eating. She has taken this program from its
pilot form at the Ross School, a private school in East Hampton,
NY, to public school systems in Harlem and in Berkeley, CA
- illustrating that change can happen anywhere with the support
of the community, the schools, local government and most importantly,
the parents and the kids.
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**Media Note: To request an interview please contact Brandi
Dobbins at (202) 331-4323 or at
bdobbins@vancomm.com.
Chef Ann is the director of Nutrition Services
for the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD), improving
meals at 16 public schools with a population of over 9,000
students. In addition to her work with BUSD and the Chez Panisse
Foundation in Berkeley, CA, Chef Ann collaborated with the
Center for Ecoliteracy and Slow Food USA to develop a Model
Wellness Policy Guide that provides language and instructions
for drafting school wellness policies that place health at
the center of the academic curriculum. Her newest book, Lunch
Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children (Harper Collins,
Sept. 2006) draws attention to and provides solutions for addressing
the dire predicament facing American lunch rooms.
For more information on Chef Ann or to request a copy of Lunch
Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children, visit www.lunchlessons.org
Click here to download a PDF version
of this alert.
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