Balance of Food

Celebrating Full Frontal with Samantha Bee for fighting for a better food system

As an actual journalist, I bemoan what passes for food journalism. The best reporters on the food system in the United States have been comedians, such as Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and yes, Samantha Bee.

For 7 years, Samantha Bee took on topics real journalists were afraid to confront. Samantha Bee might have been afraid yet she did segments on important issues such as school lunch funding.

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee on TBS ended its run over the terribly awful Warner Bros. Discovery merger with the new TBS management making several stupid mistakes, one of them cancelling the show. We had hope the show could find a new home but that seems highly unlikely.

Having a half hour a single day a week meant the show couldn't cover as much as The Daily Show did. Still, we would love to celebrate what we had.

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee makes the case for universal free lunch

The stigma of lunch debt. The pandemic led to the USDA to waive price as an issue for the cost of school lunches. Those waivers pretty much expired about a year ago.

The economic numbers don't reflect the number of people unemployed or sharply underemployed, many of whom have children who go to school. Feeding lunch to children is crucial to their ability to learn, which benefits everyone in society.

Since the GOP controls the House, there will be zero legislation to improve the situation.

The food system is also about who is involved in your food

The impact on immigrants, no matter their status, makes a gigantic impact on the U.S. food system from farm workers to restaurant workers and even chef/owner immigrants. Samantha Bee is an immigrant from Canada (that counts) so Bee and Padma Lakshmi, host of Top Chef, talked about the impact of immigration on food.

"I think the food landscape in this country would be completely different without immigrant labor," said Lakshmi. "We all have a responsibility to reach down and pull up the people who really break their back for you day in and day out."

Bee spotlights Cristina Martinez, who runs a popular barbacoa restaurant. Martinez explained in Spanish that she came to the United States to escape her abusive now ex-husband.

The food insecurity coverage in most mainstream journalism during the pandemic was about the visual of long lines for food pantries. Once again, Samantha Bee points out the food insecurity before the pandemic and the loss of school lunches since children weren't going to school.

BalanceofFood.com school lunch coverage

BalanceofFood.com U.S. food policy coverage

BalanceofFood.com television coverage

The Daily Show is in transition after Trevor Noah left. The future of these late-night shows, once so crucial to supplementing journalism, is really up in the air.

What's Eating America devotes cable news time to important food issues

How Trevor Noah and The Daily Show poked fun at the food supply

The MSNBC series was brief and mostly got on the air thanks to the popularity of Andrew Zimmern. This is the exception in cable news, not the norm. While the Trevor Noah version wasn't as diligent about the food supply system, Roy Wood Jr. could have his own show on the topic.

In a TikTok world, the idea of 7-8 minutes for a segment devoted to a food policy concern with humor and significance finding a happy partnership feel wonderful but may be only a pipe dream.

The Food Network and Cooking Channel, both owned by Discovery, the group that took down Samantha Bee's program, would be the ideal place for a block of programming once a week on actual food policy issues. Over the air stations are required to run educational programming. We could check that box, though cable channels don't have that requirement.

photo and video credits: Full Frontal with Samantha Bee/TBS

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee makes the case for universal free lunch

The USDA waived any requirements during the pandemic, allowing all school children to get a free school lunch. As Full Frontal with Samantha Bee points out, that policy expires at the end of this school year.

We found during the height of the pandemic that many children rely on their schools to give them food and nutrition they weren't necessarily getting at home.

Lunch debt has been a real thing. The program explains nuances such as subsidies not reflecting the cost of food and financially strapped school districts really need the money.

We see samples of children raising money to help their fellow kids get out of "lunch debt." While those stories are heartwarming, their efforts should be unnecessary.

One way for schools to reduce the money to spend on school lunches is scratch cooking. Unfortunately, a lot of schools can't make that happen due to a lack of facilities.

California and Maine have passed universal free lunch on a state level. The federal waiver expires June 30. Bee makes a strong case for universal free lunch.

How school lunch can teach children about vegetarian options

Vote for a better food policy on Election Day

Daily Show addresses increased junk food in school lunches

BalanceofFood.com school lunch coverage

BalanceofFood.com television coverage

One more school lunch related note mentioned in the segment: give these kids a proper amount of time to eat lunch. The segment mention that some school lunches are served at 9 am.

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee airs on TBS on Thursdays at 10 pm Eastern.

photo and video credit: Full Frontal with Samantha Bee/TBS

How school lunch can teach children about vegetarian options

"Children should learn about vegetarian options as part of their curriculum. Learning is all over, not just in the literal classroom."

"Where in the school day is there time to include vegetarianism in the curriculum?"

"Children eat lunch; They learn in the cafeteria by eating vegetarian options."

This was part of a Facebook exchange. The first and third sentences come from your humble narrator. The second sentence is from a woman in the exchange.

The context was Plant Forward Thursdays, a program in the Chicago Public Schools to encourage vegetarian alternatives. Our friend Monica Eng has been reporting on this for Axios Chicago. One of the items is the Lentil Joe sandwich. Not a fan of actual Sloppy Joe's but somehow a lentil version might be more appealing. At least I wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

We've seen Jamie Oliver go into a classroom, asking young students to identify vegetables. Most classrooms don't have that opportunity to have a camera crew with a famous British chef asking them questions.

BalanceofFood.com reality TV coverage

BalanceofFood.com television coverage

There are a few schools that have gardens as a way to introduce vegetables to children. Field trips to a garden or a farm offer educational possibilities.

The woman in the social media exchange has a valid point. The school day is filled enough already. This was true even before the pandemic did a number on education.

The stories we have heard is that children have to rush through their lunch hour. Eating in shifts, the process feels more like a pit stop in a NASCAR race where time is crucial.

Offering a day of vegetarian options at school lunch with even a bit of instruction can go a long way, especially in a school system where they can't throw in extras during the school day.

South Park explores the effects of a processed plant-based diet

Daily Show addresses increased junk food in school lunches

We get so caught up in the literal classroom as if that is the only place children learn what they need to know. Children can learn about vegetarian options in the cafeteria. The school could put up a basic sheet kids can read in line while waiting for school lunch. Lentils, peanut butter, avocados, beans, tofu, seitan, tempeh, quinoa, yogurt: some of the many ways to get protein without eating meat or fish.

That same sheet could be e-mailed to parents to help their children understand why lunches one day a week will be different.

Your kids watch enough fast food commercials full of hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, fried chicken, and sub sandwiches filled with meat. One day of alternative proteins is a way to introduce the idea to slightly counterbalance the images they see outside school.

Lentil mystery at CPS solved (Axios Chicago)

Mystery of the disappearing lentils at CPS (Axios Chicago)

CPS launches meatless Thursday (Axios Chicago)

Eng's reporting has shown that not all the schools are getting vegetarian options. Her efforts to see for herself were initially denied.

BalanceofFood.com school lunch coverage

My introduction into the meatless concept did not come from a school cafeteria. My mother mistakenly used a jarred spaghetti sauce with meat for a meal that wasn't supposed to have meat. She shrugged, citing that the sauce had so little meat that it wouldn't matter.

I was filling in on a radio show where I was supposed to do an interview with Casey Kasem, yes that Casey Kasem. He was an advocate for meatless options. I got a bunch of reading material to learn about the subject. I do remember being very cynical, eating Burger King hamburgers while reading the research. This was my introduction to what essentially was Meatless Monday (as I remember it).

Kasem spent much of the interview talking about slaughterhouses in a time of day just after my radio audience just had lunch. I steered the conversation more about healthier options.

Other than listening to a few vegetarians at college, I knew nothing about the vegetarian options, much less those who went vegan.

This was about 3 years before The Simpsons came out with the Lisa the Vegetarian episode from Season 7 in 1995. Lisa bonds with a lamb at a petting zoo and vows to give up meat. She gets guidance from Apu as well as Paul and Linda McCartney, real life vegetarians.

Your humble narrator has learned a lot about vegetarian and vegan options over the years. Learned about complete proteins. How nutritional yeast is good for vitamin B12 and is a complete protein.

"Where in the school day is there time to include vegetarianism in the curriculum?"

Lisa Simpson and real people such as your humble narrator didn't learn about vegetarianism in school or even through school lunches. We learned this outside the classroom. Learning about vegetarianism won't, in itself, turn your kids into vegetarians. Most likely, they will learn a more balanced system of foods where they can incorporate vegetarian and vegan options into their diet.

photo credit: Chicago Public Schools
video credit: ABC

Vote for a better food policy on Election Day

Today is Election Day in the United States. A chance to get a conversation going on food policy. A chance to have a reasonable, likely useless Secretary of Agriculture. A chance to get food processing back into the United States instead of sending previously live animals to China for processing.

We discussed a lot of that last Tuesday between the presidential candidates. The pundits often say the vice presidential candidates are really important but isn't always so. Fair to say in 2020, for once, they might be right.

Age and/or COVID-19 risk make Mike Pence and Kamala Harris a lot more relevant.

The picture (above) and video (below) is from a September 22 campaign stop in Flint, MI where Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) were touring a farmers market. If there is any major politician on a major party ticket who gets the need for good food, Kamala Harris is that politician. 

Harris is from Oakland in the East Bay where they have access to some amazing food at markets in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley. The area around the Bay Area has amazing soil and growing seasons. I know this from many visits and meals.

The farmers market visit in Flint is also more significant because of the fight to get access to poor communities and communities of color. Harris understands this plight.

Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump: Who will be better on food policy

We would love this to be a reasonably balanced battle. Republicans arguing for increased nutrition but asking how that gets paid for out of the budget. Dems responding with creative solutions to do both. We are not there.

We would like to get equal time with Mike Pence. Pence was a Congressman and Governor of Indiana, a state definitely into farms. The side of the political equation that is into babies being born aren't as concerned about their nutrition factors once they are in school.

BalanceofFood.com school lunch coverage

We've seen the divisive and petty squabbles over making kids eat for cheaper and with lesser nutrition standards in school lunch. They are the people who will lead our country in the future. They will be better people with school breakfasts and lunches.

Republicans are into large farms, corporate farms where cows are closer together than people piled into a Volkswagen in the late 1960s. Small farms are being bought out by larger farms since farmer debt has climbed in the last 4 years.

5 questions you should ask presidential candidates about U.S. food policy

There is only a single VP debate as opposed to 3 (scheduled) presidential debates. We do have a good sense of how Pence and Harris approach food policy if they get a promotion. 

As we've noted, your job isn't done once you voted. Good that you voted but you have to continue the fight for a better food policy. Our future will be better shaped with an improved food policy.

photo and video credit: MLive

Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump: Who will be better on food policy

The U.S. election is on November 3. Many have voted early. Hope that voting democracy isn't too damaged where you live.

Food policy hasn't come up in the campaign. We don't know where Joe Biden stands on food policy or how he thinks about food. We do know he isn't Donald Trump and won't make things worse.

• Earlier this year, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service allowed the sale of chicken meat made from birds that have had diseases for human consumption.
• The U.S. sends meat and seafood to be processed in China and the food comes back to the United States.
• Rollbacks on the nutrition standards of school lunches from where they were under Barack Obama.
• The horrible tariffs that impacted farmers for no logical reason. The American Farm Bureau points out that debt in the farm sector is projected to increase by 4 percent to a record $434 billion. Farm bankruptcies continue to rise.

This is not the whole list by a long shot. This would be a 30-minute read with the whole list and the Internet does not want a 30-minute read.

Obama signs school lunch bill, still waiting on food safety bill

Blanche Lincoln, who worked hard to cut school lunch increase, lost her Senate race

BalanceofFood.com school lunch coverage

The Democratic Party has had control of the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the White House for 4 years between 1981 and the present. Bill Clinton had that level of control from 1993-1995 and Barack Obama from 2009-2011. During the Obama time, there was a lot of political work that went into a 6¢ school lunch increase, the first such non-inflationary increase to school lunches since 1974.

Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) worked so hard to reduce the increase to 6¢.

The Dems taking back the Senate is possible but will be a difficult task. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris might get elected but without the Senate, they won't be able to get much done, especially on the food supply.

We would love to have a policy debate with a pair of parties that cared about the impact of nutrition and food policy. We barely have one at times.

Celebrating the Michelle Obama legacy for food and nutrition

BalanceofFood.com endorses Michelle Obama to be First Lady for 4 more years

We don't make endorsements here at BalanceofFood.com. Our "endorsement" of Michelle Obama in 2012 was more about her efforts than her husband's efforts.

We know the famous rose garden in the White House was destroyed recently. We don't know what happened to Michelle Obama's organic food garden on the White House property.

If Biden and Kamala Harris get elected, perhaps Dr. Jill Biden will incorporate Michelle Obama's help once again.

Daily Show addresses increased junk food in school lunches

We mentioned in May 2019 that Higher Ground, Barack and Michelle Obama's production company, is working on a half-hour series for Netflix called Listen to Your Vegetables & Eat Your Parents. The program will “take young children and their families around the globe on an adventure that tells us the story of our food.”

That program is still in development. As we have noted, government can do some good but other forces need to be part of the process. We hope some adults learn along with children about the value of vegetables.

Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump on how they approach food

5 questions you should ask presidential candidates about U.S. food policy

The Obama Administration brought in a "nutrition czar." Sam Kass served as a senior policy adviser for nutrition policy and executive director of Let’s Move! Kass was there from the administration start until December 2014. Debra Eschmeyer, co-founder of Food Corps replaced Kass in those roles.

Eater through Civil Eats covered a lot on Dems work on climate change and agriculture.

Biden served as vice president in the Obama Administration. A "secretary of nutrition" would be a vital resource as opposed to a secretary of agriculture. The United States hasn't had a significant secretary of agriculture in a positive sense in a very long time.

We hope to have more positive coverage of school lunches and overall food policy in the next 4-8 years.

photo credit: Kevin E. Schmidt/Quad City Times
video credit: McDonald's

Canada milk producers threatened with invasion of cheaper American milk

Being a classic regular milk drinker, if you suddenly had a milk option come into your local market that was significantly cheaper, would you automatically switch to the cheaper milk?

Milk is already pretty cheap in the United States. The cost level depends on your interest in organic, regular, UHT, shelf-stable milk.

Canadians have rather good milk. They pay a hefty price for milk, but they get quality milk.

The newest trade deal between the United States, Canada, and Mexico (CUSMA | USMCA) means Canadians will get access to cheap American milk. Depending on the import costs, the savings could be $1-$2 for 4 liters (slightly more than 1 gallon).

UHT milk provides longer shelf life but nutrition and taste are lost

Farmers benefit more than consumers with Canada supply management

There is one distinct difference between the standard milk in both countries: recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), the artificial growth hormone allowed in American milk but banned for Canadian milk.

Canadian milk is already very good milk. Unfortunately, as we've noted in other stories, food budgets in the two countries are tight thanks to wage shrinkage and job growth in certain industries.

If you live in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes, your milk could come in a bag. The individual liter-sized bags are placed in a pitcher; the user cuts a diagonal slice into the top corner closest to the spout in the pitcher. The process (pronounced PRO-cess in Canada) is easier than it sounds. You won't find American milk in a bag.

The American milk will need to be labeled in English and French, since Canada requires bilingual food labeling.

American dairy companies might try to get around this by shipping its products to be used in cheese, yogurt (yoghurt in Canada), and butter. The milk products should be identified as American; as we've seen from meat classification between United States and Canada, country of origin labeling has been a concern. Consumers should know where their food comes from, especially with rBST.

CUSMA passes through U.S. Congress

NAFTA 2.0, er, USMCA is a nightmarish trade deal for Canada

Canadian milk is more expensive because Canadian dairy farmers get better compensation. The U.S. government encourages overproduction of American milk so trade deals are engineered to dump cheap American milk onto other countries, such as Canada.

The supply management system in Canada is politically protected. Liberal, Conservative, NDP: all behind supply management.

Given the number of U.S. dairy farms that are going under, Americans should consider a smarter dairy management system with better compensation.

Consumer cost of milk, cheese, butter, and other dairy products needs to be weighed (whey-ed) against the quality of the product and the compensation for farmers.

Canada election 2019 is underway and food policy should be discussed

BalanceofFood.com Canada food policy coverage

The new trade deal is expected to go through on July 1.

photo credit: Dairy Farmers of Canada
video credit: YouTube/pincstuff

South Park explores the effects of a processed plant-based diet

"I thought you guys were all trying to force me to eat healthy. But I've learned that a lot of this stuff is made in a factory and processed with tons of salt, just like all my favorite foods. Spaghetti O's, Rice a Roni. Here I was thinking what you wanted was stuff from a farmers market. I just didn't want my food to change. School cafeteria meat is processed crap that comes in a box. And this is just processed crap that comes in a box. I don't have a problem with it. All I wanted was to be able to eat the same garbage I always have. And this is definitely garbage. And hey, if it happens to be more ethical and sustainable, well, I guess I'm fine with that too." — Eric Cartman, South Park, Let Them Eat Goo

The message from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone is that fake burgers are heavily processed. Eric Cartman keeps having heart attacks just from the idea of eating plant-based foods. After his first heart attack, the school goes back to eating meat. After his second heart attack, a mysterious man comes to town to set up plant-based replacements for all the meat in town under the label of Incredible Foods.

The substance is green goo that is shipped through pipelines, hence the episode title Let Them Eat Goo. The goo man is serving "synthetically modulated plant protein" where "shitty food" is served by people who already eat "crappy food."

The secondary arc in the episode is Randy Marsh's Tegridy Burger from Tegridy Farms using the waste products from marijuana production to make a plant-based burger. They start selling their Tegridy Burger outside the Burger King and its Impossible Burger.

The Tegridy burger tastes really awful but the more you eat it, the better tasting the burger gets. The implication is that eating the Tegridy burger gets you high. The actual Tegridy Burger slogan is "Tastes like shit, you won't care."

Beyond Burger has a lot of ingredients but doesn't qualify as ultra-processed

Changing definition of processed food doesn't change the concern

Review: The Beyond Burger

We did talk about the processed level of the Beyond Burger and Impossible Burger. Our argument was that if you ate the burgers every so often, you would be fine. Most of the ingredients are pretty obvious, which is why we labeled them as processed not ultra-processed.

You could take a portabella mushroom, remove the stem, marinate the mushroom with balsamic vinegar and some garlic powder. Put the marinated mushroom on the grill, outdoor or indoor, and place on a hamburger bun. Not processed and makes for a nice sandwich.

Processed food from better ingredients is better than processed food from lesser ingredients. There are plant-based foods that are minimally processed and processed to the hilt. Make a choice but make smart choices within that choice.

Some Canadian fast food companies want to talk about sustainability

BalanceofFood.com fast food coverage

Cartman fought the battle over plant-based meat 2 seasons ago when he fooled his vegan girlfriend Heidi into eating Kentucky Fried Chicken under the guise of Beyond KFC.

Parker and Stone are mocking the whole plant-based experience but more specifically the idea of replacing processed foods with processed foods. The taco meat filling at Taco Bell is also processed. Eating more simple can involve meat, vegetables, and mostly a bit of both.

photos credit: South Park/Comedy Central

Daily Show addresses increased junk food in school lunches

The news on American school lunches has not been good since January 20, 2017. Roy Wood Jr. and The Daily Show team along with Margo Wootan, vice president for nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, compare and contrast the school lunch approach under Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

"Flavored chocolate milk" returned to the menu.

The segment allows Wooten to paint a picture of what lunch was like not so long ago. Food "is supposed to help you learn, not make them fall asleep," Wootan explained. "We give kids choices but all of those choices need to be healthy."

CSPI’s @MargoWootan discusses school lunch with @roywoodjr on @TheDailyShow: Trump administration putting politics before kids’ health by rolling back school nutrition standards. https://t.co/p9v066dV7n

— CSPI (@CSPI) May 7, 2019

She notes that the previous lunch program would reduce childhood obesity numbers by 2 million kids and save $800 million in health care costs.

"Three-quarters of kids who get school lunches come from low-income families," Wootan noted.

Wood takes on a drill sergeant motif to convince the kids to not eat the junk food. Wood's mantra of "nutrition now, nutrition tomorrow, nutrition forever" is a homage to "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" from George Wallace's 1963 Inaugural Address in Wood's home state of Alabama.

This illustration gives a sharp contrast filled with subtlety. The color of the bun indicates more whole grains and leaner meats have less visible fat. Carrots vs. French fries is a bit more obvious, even if Wood points out the potatoes also grow in the ground. Carrots are high in natural sugar compared to most vegetables but checks off more nutrition boxes than French fries.

The pictured chocolate milk in the segment is skim milk, robbing kids of fat from milk that can make them feel more full.

Blanche Lincoln, who worked hard to cut school lunch increase, lost her Senate race

Chipping away at the few school lunch gains under Barack Obama

Donald Trump wants to gut food safety regulations

Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump on how they approach food

5 questions you should ask presidential candidates about U.S. food policy

BalanceofFood.com school lunch coverage

BalanceofFood.com Daily Show coverage

Just so this story isn't completely depressing, Higher Ground, Barack and Michelle Obama's production company, is working on a half-hour series for Netflix called Listen to Your Vegetables & Eat Your Parents. The program will “take young children and their families around the globe on an adventure that tells us the story of our food.”

Since the show is aimed at kids, this might be an animated series though that is purely speculation.

We have said, even during the Obama Administration, that government can only do so much to instill better eating habits. A Netflix show can help more than the current regime.

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah airs Monday-Thursday on Comedy Central.

video and photo credit: The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
Twitter capture: @CSPI

Argument is getting louder for Canada to have a federal school lunch program

Kids still in their snowsuits trying to hurriedly eat their brown bag lunches. The noise is rather loud and rambunctious with very little adult supervision.

We've seen a lot of press in Canada lately about the push for a national school lunch program. This imagery is shown to be an improvement over previous requests for a federal school lunch program in Canada.

Traditionally, Canada hasn't had a national school lunch program because kids would go home for lunch. Clearly those school lunch patterns have shifted.

There are schools that have school lunches, but that funding coming from provincial and territorial governments, municipal governments, and charities.

"What we'd like to see is a national school food program where all kids from across the country know that they can go to school and get access to healthy food and eat it in an environment that teaches them about what healthy food means and about nutrition," said Sasha McNicoll, coordinator at the Coalition for Healthy School Food, organized by the advocacy group Food Secure Canada.

McNicoll and Diana Bronson, executive director of Food Secure Canada, have been behind a lot of this press, including this op-ed column in the Toronto Star.

That is an ideal, as are the policies of numerous countries such as Japan, France, and Brazil. The fear is that a Canadian federal school lunch program might be more like the United States. A recent UNICEF report has Canada at 37 of 41 high-income countries over the lack of access to healthy food as compared to rates of obese or overweight children. Canada ranked below the United States and only ahead of Bulgaria, Malta, Turkey, and Mexico.

This clip from the 2015 film Where to Invade Next from Michael Moore demonstrates the gold standard for school lunches. Should Canada shoot for this ideal standard in setting up a federal school lunch program?

BalanceofFood.com school lunch coverage

BalanceofFood.com Canada policy coverage

Canada wouldn't quite have the hostility toward a federal school lunch program that exists politically south of the 49th parallel. However, there would be some conservatives that don't want to spend federal money on the nutrition of young children. The other countries have a better sense of food, where teaching about nutrition in the classroom or lunchroom is more viable.

So if Canada is going on this route and implement a federal school lunch program, here are some detours to navigate:

• Kids need time to eat lunch. This has been an ongoing issue in the United States where children simply don't have enough time to eat lunch.
• Don't hold school lunch funding increases in the hands of politicians. The United States has had one non-inflationary increase in school lunch funding since 1974. That increase was 6¢ per lunch.
• Schedule field trips to hydroponic and aquaponic farms. Canada is a cold climate in most areas so school gardens like you find in Berkeley, CA aren't as prominent. Children should see food being grown in some fashion.
• Parents and caretakers have to be part of the nutrition education process.
• Start out with high standards. This may seem obvious, but you don't want to have to negotiate quality over time. The standards can't be too high if the children aren't used to eating food that is less sweet and processed. They still have to want to eat the school lunch.
• Be ready to improvise with remote communities. Canada has a lot of areas that are difficult to get to, whether that be in Labrador, the territories, or northern communities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.

I would love to have the research time and money to answer this question: Is Canada still better off without a federal school lunch program than the United States is with a federal school lunch program. Yes, Canada has problems with school children not getting enough nutrition for breakfast and lunch. Food insecurity is a little too common in Canada. The hope is that a federal program in Canada would be able to do better for kids than the U.S. system does for its kids.

Culinary high school programs could solve multiple food issues

We have seen some good anecdotal evidence over what Canada can do with a school lunch program. We wrote about a program in Edmonton where students can learn culinary skills. First Nation formed its own Natoaganeg Community Food Centre last fall to educate children about the importance of healthy food. The community food centre even has wild meat and fish provided by hunters from the community. Canadian Feed the Children has worked with the community on its school lunch program.

Canada offers a lot of advantages over the United States. The population is 11% of what the U.S. has. The society respects that school lunch is important. Canadians are more trusting of government. They can learn from the mistakes that other countries implemented with a federal school lunch program. If the Canadian can surpass the United States, that would be progress.

Unlike in previous years, the people fighting for a federal school lunch program has a clearer image of where we are and where Canada should go than we've seen in past years. Canada is the only country in the G7/G8 without a federal school lunch program. The Liberals under Justin Trudeau have a lot of their plate (pun intended). This would be an ideal time to get Canada on the list of countries with a federal school lunch program.

photos credit: Sweetgreen
video credit: YouTube/Where to Invade Next

Chipping away at the few school lunch gains under Barack Obama

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos hints she may cut free and reduced lunch school programs for poor children https://t.co/otuN97ICak

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) February 27, 2017

Betsy DeVos, who amazingly is the actual Secretary of Education in the United States, made a recent crack about "free lunch." Given the GOP speed at proposing to eliminate the gains in the school lunch in the Obama Administration and go beyond, the "free lunch" joke didn't go over well in the Twittersphere.

By the same logic, the classrooms, teachers, library (if you have one), gymnasium, chalk, and desks are also "free." School programs are subsidized by taxpayer dollars. The government, in all forms, have worked really hard to make sure as little money is spent on those school lunches. Republicans and conservative Democratic politicians, in particular, have worked hard to make sure the food served is as non-nutritious as possible.

The GOP is also looking into making qualification into the program more difficult and reducing nutrition standards. 

If you are going to use taxpayer money for education, then you should get the best return. Healthy school lunches can be efficient in making that happen.

Blanche Lincoln, who worked hard to cut school lunch increase, lost her Senate race

BalanceofFood.com school lunch coverage

The lack of a solid immigration policy has hurt farmers in recent years in terms of workers to harvest the food that ends up on American plates. We are hearing rumblings of that situation being that much worse this summer. How much damage will need to happen before the MSM starts to pay attention? You would think the answer would be "a lot" but this may be a trick question since they likely will never pay attention.

Food prices would go up with food left unharvested, but that connection is difficult to find in the thinking of major media.

Donald Trump wants to gut food safety regulations

Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump on how they approach food

FDA sets 2018 deadline for added sugars on food labels

U.S. should copy minister of urban agriculture idea from Venezuela

Canadian Senate suggests food policy changes U.S. should copy

5 questions you should ask presidential candidates about U.S. food policy

Sonny Perdue is still the choice of the new administration for Secretary of Agriculture. Perdue's nomination has run into problems with the Office of Government Ethics over possible conflict-of-interest concerns should Perdue be the ag secretary as well as ethics concerns while governor of Georgia.

Perdue's paperwork hasn't even reached the Senate, the body that would confirm his nomination. One of those senators is his cousin, Sen. David Perdue (R-GA).

Perdue has worked in agriculture, a rarity for those in the chair of the Secretary of Agriculture. He once ran a grain and fertilizer business. Environmental groups are concerned about his record.

Whether Perdue or someone else ends up being the Ag Secretary, we won't know until they are confirmed as to how policy will change. No one expects improvements; more about lessening damage.

Celebrating the Michelle Obama legacy for food and nutrition

However symbolic the White House organic garden may be, the garden is staying. Michelle Obama took steps to ensure the garden will stay and Melania Trump has also said the garden will stay.

We are still very early on in the process of this new administration. Given his love for fast food and disdain for vegetables, combined with the GOP narrow view of quality in the food supply, we have to keep an eye out for what may happen next.  

Twitter grab: Twitter @BenjaminNorton