Book Review: Lunch Wars

Lunch Wars, by Amy Kalafa, had me reeled in on the first chapter of statistics. Did you know that "only 2 percent of school-age children eat the USDA's serving recommendations for all five major food groups [and] half of America's school-children eat less than one serving of fruit a day?" This book hit me with a lot of hard facts. I never thought about it until now, but reminiscing on my own grammar school lunches made me realize that I probably fell into that 2 percent.

Being a kid, you don't realize exactly what your body needs or what's healthy for you. You just eat what tastes good. Most of the time, it's in the form of highly processed sugars (remember icee juicees?). It's the parent's responsibility to take control of the child's lunch menu and be aware of their eating environment. If we don't, then the future generation has no hope for a healthy lifestyle.

Throughout the book, the city Berkeley is mentioned quite a bit. Little did I know that I was living in the city where the school food revolution all started! I had no idea how different the elementary schools are here than from the ones back home. They have a jug of milk that kids dispense their wanted amount from (to reduce throwing away milk and reduce the amount of waste from cartons) and gardens that the kids maintain and cook from. If I had all of that in my elementary school, I'm sure I'd be more inclined to learn about eating good food at a younger age.

Kalafa does three things in the book. She identifies and makes you aware of the problem, proposes many solutions, and then gives you a guide on how to act out those solutions. Kalafa has done all the work herself so that moms everywhere can simply follow her simple guideline on improving school lunches. One person may not seem like a lot, but moms uniting across the US have created a movement together... a school food revolution!

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