How To Promote Organic Foods at My Child’s School

Have you ever seen the food that is served at your child’s school?  Have you visited there and shared a cafeteria meal with your child? When many parents were young, there was no such thing as a hot lunch. They had to bring their lunches to school and it usually consisted of the same types of foods: a sandwich, a drink, and a snack. It then become policy for schools to offer lunches for children.  Menus were created and millions of children had access to delicious, healthy meals every day. Suddenly school budgets started to be cut, and one of the things that suffered was the kitchen meals and staff. The schools would hire cheaper companies to prepare the food ahead of time, most of which cut corners any way that they could, many times simply by buying everything frozen and deep frying it.

If you’re curious about what types of meals your child is receiving, visit the school during lunch one day and buy a plate. Most schools have no problem with parents coming in for lunch to visit their child, and this will definitely help you to see what type of foods your school is offering to your children. If you’re one of the lucky ones and have delicious, healthy foods being offered, then that’s terrific! If, however, your child’s school is like thousands of schools across the country, you’re likely going to want to try to encourage them to serve healthier and more natural foods.

Principal

The principal is the one at the school who is supposed to keep everything together. They’re the glue and they’re also the one that you should go to if you have any sort of complaint, like about the health and nutritional value of meals at your child’s school. Make an appointment to discuss your concerns with the principal before you do anything else and speak with them about the meals in the school. Explain the concerns that you have with the food and see if they have any ideas as to how the foods could be better prepared and possibly using natural and organic ingredients. If they do, then ask how you can help initiate such a plan. Ask the principal if there is anything specific that you can do to help the children receive better foods, and explain why you believe that they should be serving organic foods. If that doesn’t work, it’s time to go to the next level.

Petition

It the principal is not responsive to your concerns, you may have to take the next step.  The next step you can take is to circulate a petition. There are a number of websites online that can help you draft a petition if you’ve never done it before.  Once you have one made, start speaking with all of the parents that you can. Ask them to speak with other parents and to sign the petition, which can request that healthier foods, and organic foods, are served at the school. Once you have received a number of signatures, it’s time to plan a meeting with the school board. Explain the situation to the school board and show them the signatures.

An Idea

The trick in getting things changed is not only to complain, but to have an idea of what to do to make things better. School boards hear complaints all the time, but what they want to hear are ideas for solutions. Brainstorm some ways that your children can have organic food, such as making a deal with local vendors, having parents grow a few rows of vegetables or fruit for the school and then having them donate it, or having the school itself have a garden that the children can work on. All of these are great ways to get healthy, organic foods into your children’s lunches, and are actually fairly easy to set up.

Once you have received permission to try some of these techniques (and don’t give up until you do), then you can start showing children a whole new world of foods. Try offering them a taste test once a month of different fruits or vegetables. It’s likely that they’ve never tried certain vegetables and fruits, and if you have them taste the fruits or veggies in front of their classmates, they’re likely to give it an honest try instead of automatically dismissing the food.

Grants

If you have difficulty getting the school board to listen to you, the next step may be to start looking for grant opportunities. There are many grants available that you can use to help you to get organic foods into the school system. The grant may not be perfect; for instance, it may be only written to get organic food into the school during snack times, but getting some organic food into the children is better than getting none.  This can go a long way towards not only helping them to grow healthy, but also in helping them to learn to enjoy foods that are different and new and that are healthy for them. You can make a difference in your child’s meals; it just takes some perseverance.