Another article that is not about low carbing as such, but very interesting nonetheless:


The Daily Telegraph
London, UK
Published 16 September, 2006


Despite the best efforts of Jamie Oliver, British children continue to gorge on junk food. Meanwhile, in America, they are growing their own fruit and veg at school. Rose Prince visits a ground-breaking scheme in California that puts our school dinners to shame

Alice Waters - chef, restaurateur and philanthropist - shelters from the California sun under an arbour of kiwi fruit in the kitchen garden of the Martin Luther King Junior Middle School in Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco. A few yards away, in a place they call the Edible Schoolyard, students at this state-funded school are preparing a herb bed as part of a lesson.

There is much cheerful banter as the children turn the soil and harvest their crops. Maize, amaranth and quinoa grow in the garden alongside salad leaves, tomatoes, kiwis, figs, purslane, kale and cavallo nero, the Italian black brassica. Every bed is companionably planted with flowers for cutting. Later, the children will cook what they pick as part of their school lunch. "You learn so many things you wouldn't at home," says Zoe Salnave, 12. "When I have planted something, I can't wait for it to sprout," adds Brenda Orellana, 13.

These two girls are just the sort of pupils the British Government would like to target for cookery lessons. In his announcement last week, Education Secretary Alan Johnson declared that, from 2008, all secondary school children under 16 will be offered the chance to learn to cook with fresh ingredients. But the approach in the Martin Luther King school is broader than Johnson's plan. The lessons in the garden and kitchen form an integrated part of the curriculum, with each child receiving between 18 and 40 hours tuition a year in the Schoolyard. What the children eat at school has changed: a good part of the food grown here is used in the school's daily dinners.

British parents might be surprised that such a healthy initiative, which celebrates its 10th birthday this year, is flourishing in the country which brought us McDonald's "Happy Meals". But the American food scene is changing fast as politicians such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, turn against the provision of junk food in schools.

Meanwhile more fast food is now eaten in Britain than in any other European country. A recent report based on Department of Health research warned that one in five British children will become obese within four years.

Over on America's west coast, Waters has been campaigning to improve the diets of children for a decade. One of the most influential figures in American food, she is best known for championing local, seasonal and organic food at Chez Panisse, her restaurant in Berkeley. She got the idea for the Edible Schoolyard when the principal of the Martin Luther King school heard Waters give a talk on public education. "I was feeling sad that the schools here were so dilapidated - how could the children learn anything? The principal said: 'Come and beautify my school.' The great part was that he let me do what I wanted." Waters insisted that any change in school meals must be woven into the educational side. "I never wanted it to be just an upgrade of school lunch," she says. "It had to be something that was deeply integrated."


Food activist Eric Schlosser and Alice Waters sit with the pupils

In 1996, Waters launched the Chez Panisse Foundation to raise funds for the Edible Schoolyard and the School Lunch Initiative, which aims to provide all 10,000 students in Berkeley's public schools with good food while also placing food at the heart of the curriculum. Waters hopes other states will repeat the model.

"We have such an obesity epidemic that teaching about food cannot be left to parents," she says. "The children are eating fast, cheap and easy. There are endless resources for that stuff. In lots of schools they are dropping PE, but in this programme we incorporate it."

Marsha Guerrero, director of the School Lunch Initiative, explains how it all works. "This is not a production garden but a teaching garden," she says, picking sweet peas to put on the children's lunch table. "More than 300 children participate each week so we would need a lot more land to feed them all."

Organic foods from nearby farms make up the shortfall for the Edible Schoolyard's lunches, while food for the regular lunches at the school are prepared with fresh ingredients, locally and organically sourced when possible.

During a typical class, there is plenty of garden activity - clearing the pumpkin patch, building a wormery, planting seedlings - but it's not just a potter in the yard. There is a constant emphasis on creating a sustainable environment and academic projects are always attached. In one class the children are asked to choose one part of the garden that is their personal spot for the entire year. They then begin a journal, observing and recording what happens in this spot as time progresses; making notes about insect life, the soil and changes to the plants. "Journaling" is viewed as an essential part of experimental learning.

Classes in the kitchen, taken by the appropriately named Esther Cook, involve cooking lunch, but also link into classroom academic subjects. Cook, who has been at the Schoolyard since the beginning, is seen as the "spirit of the place": a brilliant teacher who can hold a class of children, formerly uninterested in food, totally spellbound.

Food cooked here ranges from bread and pasta to stuffed vine leaves and frittata, the delicious Italian omelette filled with herbs and vegetables. Recipes are dictated by seasonal abundance. "We focus on method," says Cook. "We show how to make a basic soup, and do the same with the dressing."

Science is taught through nutrition and cooking technique; geography through seasonality and global eating habits. A lesson on European serf diets in the Middle Ages ends with the children cooking roasted root vegetables with herbs and garlic. History, art, maths, languages - all get co-opted.

Waters visits the school regularly, watching its progress and showing it off to others. The day I visit, she is accompanied by fellow activist Eric Schlosser, the investigative journalist and author who has put a spotlight on the fast food industry. In his book, Chew on This, Schlosser levels the accusation that the fast food industry both feeds and feeds off the young. The book is a reworking of Fast Food Nation, his exposé of American eating habits (the US spent £78 billion on fast food last year). Written for the age group that loves Harry Potter and Alex Rider, Chew on This is set to make a generation lose its appetite for junk burgers and fries. "Eric shows the children the immorality of that industry," says Waters.

Berkeley is the heartland of North American free-thinking activism. "There is no question that California is the laboratory of mainstream American culture," says Schlosser, referring to Silicon Valley and Hollywood. "But for decades it has also been the heart of the counter-culture. During the 1960s, when hippies from Berkeley went 'back to the land', they found some of the most productive farmland in the country. Northern California soon became the cutting edge of the organic and sustainable agriculture movement." It comes as no surprise that 13 of the16 state schools in Berkeley now have kitchen gardens similar to the Edible Schoolyard.

But persuading other regions that have an entrenched fast food culture is a monumental task. "In schools in West Virginia you will find chicken nuggets, potato chips, soda and burgers in schools," says Schlosser. "Some schools even have branded fast food. The consequences are so disturbing that it has to change."

There are, however, some positive signs from unlikely political quarters. "Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing to get junk food and soda out of all schools in California," he says. "And in Arkansas, you have a conservative governor, Mike Huckabee, promoting healthy eating." Obesity in Arkansas increased by 77 per cent in the 1990s and Huckabee, who was obese but has lost weight, has since started a campaign that encourages and gives accreditation to restaurants that put healthier food on menus.

While McDonalds and KFC have not set up shop in British schools, the food served up in Britain often doesn't rate any higher on the nutrition standard scale, although low quality meat, fizzy drinks, crisps and chocolate have been banned from school canteens and Jamie Oliver's high profile campaign to improve school food has had an effect.

Some Education Authorities are radically changing policy and £280 million will be spent improving school dinners over the next three years. But no extra money has yet been found for the return of cookery lessons and campaigners are frustrated by the slow progress. There has also been an uptake of junk-food packed lunches, much to the annoyance of Oliver, who blames the parents. ("If you're giving your young children fizzy drinks, you're a tosser," he said last week. "If you give them bags of crisps, you're an idiot.")

For its part, the British catering industry is grumbling that it can't take up contracts to provide meals if 50p is the budget for each primary schoolchild. (Oliver says that the sum should be 70p.) As a result, some schools and parents are simply taking matters into their own hands.

At my own children's primary school, a kitchen was installed in the summer holidays and they are now into their second week of food cooked freshly on site, some of it with organic ingredients. Previously, the food was so terrible that both my children were on packed lunches.

The bigger question is whether upgrading the quality of meals will mould a generation that will go on to feed their own children well. By connecting lunch to the curriculum, Alice Waters has extracted from American schools the essential teaching commitment, and in some cases funding for specialised staff and building kitchens. She also opts for private funding, gaining support from Berkeley businesses as well as the foundation.

Jamie Oliver has pushed the British Government into promising cash, which is to be welcomed, but it is not enough. There has beena huge take-up of his "Feed Me Better" scheme (www.feedmebetter.com), so much so that the starter pack has sold out. "Jamie Oliver and I are good friends," says Waters. "We are in two places; he is stirring up food in delicious ways, and he understands cookery. My viewpoint is that school meals must be deeply integrated in a child's education. There should be teaching, but also deliciousness and beauty."

Back at the Martin Luther School, it's time for lunch: home-made pesto and tomato sandwiches, with a big vegetable salad. Everyone is eating. Toto Tumurbaatar, 13, says he has changed the way he eats. "I can now cook and grow things," he says. "I don't know yet if I will in the future but I know I can. I have changed my attitude, I like some herbs and lettuce and I use less salt. It's been fun, the teachers are nice - and there's no homework."

Tumurbaatar has been in the US for only three years. In that time he has learned to speak perfect English, something his teachers attribute to happiness at school.

But has Alice Waters succeeded? Is the Edible Schoolyard model the way forward for frustrated British schools and schoolchildren? Judging by the happiness in this garden among a mixed bunch of ordinary children, Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, should fly to California as soon as possible.

"When kids get obese, they become isolated," says Waters. "But picking, smelling, cooking and eating the vegetables and fruits in this garden makes them care - and it shows them that we care. Just seeing a child saying to another, 'Would you like some?' - that is the essential thing."

Starting your own

The only national organisation offering help for schools which want to start organic vegetable gardens is Garden Organic for Schools. Sponsored by Duchy Originals (the Prince of Wales visited the Berkeley Edible Schoolyard last year), the scheme offers teaching material, games, seasonal gardening instruction and free historic seeds from Ryton Organic Gardens.

There is no funding for staff, but 2,700 schools have signed up to the programme. Some now run vegetable stalls, selling their produce to parents.

Schools that have only tarmac or small playgrounds are turning to local allotments or sites outside school for their gardens. Many, like the Edible Schoolyard in California, use the vegetables they grow for cookery courses and in school lunches.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/wine/mai...6/ixedmain.html

Along the same lines, in the New York Times, yesterday.