Lunch Wars: The Underworld Of School Food*

Lunch Wars by Amy Kalafa is exactly what the book purports to be, a guide on “how to start a school food revolution.” Filled with facts about local produce, the business of school meals, the impact of nutrition on children’s behavior and overall well being, as well as practical advice on who to approach in your school’s food program when working for change, templates for letters and petitions demanding better lunches, and lists of resources to get you started, Lunch Wars is the ultimate how-to guide for building a healthier school cafeteria.

Kalafa takes what would seem to be a daunting task – weaning children away from sugar and snacks to healthy meals while staying on budget and getting the school system’s support – and breaking it down into manageable and logical steps.

She never claims that the transition will be easy, but her determination and success stories are inspirational.

When I started the book, I was pretty sure Kalafa was preaching to the choir, and while she was doing that with gusto, I wasn’t always enjoying the read. (When the idea of foregoing candy on Halloween for other sugar-free activities came up, she almost lost me.)

I am not a mom, but I have had my own experiences with school lunches as well as spending time in cafeterias as a substitute teacher.

In my elementary school, the “cool” kids brought their lunch from home. I went to private school my entire life, so bringing lunch from home wasn’t a show of money, it just meant that if you already had your lunch in hand, you were guaranteed a spot at the cool table rather than having to wait in the lunch line and risking that the only seats left would be on undesirable cafeteria real estate. We also always had half an hour for lunch, so time was never a concern.

In my high school (also private), lunch was included in the price of tuition, so everyone ate at school. Also, since my high school was populated with both boarding and day students, you could eat three meals a day there. Our lunches included the standard hot fare of pizza and fried burritos, but we also had a baked potato bar and salad bar. There were healthy options, and when one attractive high school girl takes a salad, the rest tend to follow.

(My school was founded on the motto “learning through living,” so at one time it had been an actual working farm with students tending to cows and going to class. That ended pretty quickly since taking care of a farm can be too time-consuming when there’s other book learning to be done.)

My high school remains ahead of the trend in the “lunch wars” by Kalafa’s standards. Today, students grow a garden on the grounds and sell their produce at a local farmer’s market throughout the summer. 

With my experience based only on private education and wealthy school districts, and conscious of the socio-economic makeup that seems to dominate my Saturday visits to the farmer’s market, I had concerns about less affluent schools that have trouble finding money for books, let alone freshly grown produce.

As a former managing editor of a magazine, I visited a school in an under-served area when the kids were given a playground as part of a grant from Kaboom!. I kept thinking that if playgrounds are a hard sell, what happens to school food – especially when government regulations are involved.

However, Kalafa changed my thinking on that. Her examples and anecdotal evidence come from all kinds of school districts throughout the country. Her data and commitment are compelling, and the end of Lunch Wars convinced me that healthy eating must be a priority in our schools and culture. I began to re-think my own eating habits, and I would recommend this book to anyone interested in food politics and the ever-changing landscape of how and why we eat the way that we do.

(Not that I'm ready to give up all of my bad habits yet, Cadbury Creme Eggs will always have a special place in my heart.) 

* This was a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.