To which I can only say . . . GAH!!!!!!
People, there is so much to take issue with in yesterday’s Sunday Review piece by Kate Murphy, starting with that ridiculously hyperbolic headline, I hardly know where to begin.
Needless to say, I spent much of yesterday composing my letter to the Times editor and while I’d love to share it here, doing so would preclude it from publication in the paper. If the Times rejects the letter, however, I’ll certainly be posting it on TLT later in the week. In the meantime, a few thoughts:
The overarching point of Murphy’s piece is that the new nutritional standards of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) are a dismal failure, resulting in “trash cans . . . overflowing” with healthier food “while [cafeteria] cash register receipts are diminishing as children either toss out the healthier meals or opt to brown-bag it.”
Murphy then soft-pedals the current attempt to roll back those nutritional standards in Congress in a masterful spin job, telling us that HHFKA opponents only seek “to relax a few of the guidelines as Congress considers whether to reauthorize the legislation, particularly mandates for 100 percent whole grains and extremely low sodium levels, so school meals will be a bit more palatable and reflective of culinary traditions.”
Let’s break that down, shall we?
First, Murphy makes a big factual error right off the bat. The current whole grain standard is not “100% whole grain,” which indeed might be unpalatable to a lot of kids. It’s a 50% whole grain standard, meaning that foods like bread and tortillas can still contain up to 50% white flour or other refined grains. And, by the way, if “white whole wheat” flour is used, in my experience most kids can’t even tell the difference.
Second, “relaxing” standards to make food “a bit more palatable” sounds totally innocuous – even desirable, right? But let’s be 100% clear about what’s at stake. Depending on how this battle plays out in Congress this year, 32 million kids will either be served fruits and vegetables or they’ll be able to go back to the all-beige tray. Every. Single. Day. They’ll either be offered whole grains in accordance with Institute of Medicine recommendations, based on hard scientific evidence, or they’ll be eating too many health-harming refined grains. Every. Single. Day.
It’s a zero sum game and the well-being of our most vulnerable kids hangs in the balance.
Then there’s Murphy’s comparison of America’s rushed, highly-processed school meals to the four-course, two-hour repasts in French schools, which include items like salmon lasagne, fondue, and cucumbers in vinaigrette.
As I’ve said many times here (most recently in my widely shared post, “Why I’m Fed Up With Those Photos of School Lunches Around the World“), comparing American school meals to those in France is a truly pointless endeavor – unless one is willing to look at the entire food culture of both countries. Yes, school meals in France are indeed superior to ours, but that’s reflective of a government so supportive of raising good food citizens that it actually provides state-sanctioned “taste training” to all preschoolers, puts warnings on junk food ads, and funds school meals at a far higher rate than our own government. It also reflects a larger societal food culture that places tremendous value on eating well, discourages snacking between meals, and condemns rushed, solitary eating in favor of slow meals shared with others.
Looking at our school meals in a vacuum and finding them inferior to France’s is a no-brainer. But ignoring the big picture and instead attributing those disparities to – of all things – our recently improved school meal nutritional standards, is so misguided it makes my head spin. If Murphy thinks “relaxing” school nutrition standards is going to make our school meals look one bit more like the meals in France, I think it’s fair to conclude she never set foot in a school cafeteria before the HHFKA standards were in effect.
Finally, Murphy’s piece is rife with sweeping inaccuracies. She tells us trash cans are “overflowing” with healthful food, but did she read three recent studies — from the Harvard School of Public Health, the University of Connecticut and the Baylor College of Medicine – which found no increased plate waste due to the implementation of the new meal standards? She tells us kids are running from the school meal program, but did she look at data showing meal participation has actually increased among kids on free and reduced price lunch, i.e., the very kids for whom the National School Lunch Program exists? Oh, and by the way, those kids apparently aren’t just grudgingly eating school meals because they have to. A peer-reviewed study in Childhood Obesity tells us that among this critical segment of kids, almost 70% actually like the new, healthier food. But I’m guessing Murphy never read that study, either.
The sad thing is this: When a paper as venerable as the New York Times publishes a seemingly fact-based piece with the headline, “Why Students Hate School Lunches,” it can have profound real-world consequences. Even as we speak, I have no doubt that a link to Murphy’s piece is being sent to Congressional offices by those who hope to undermine school nutrition standards during the upcoming Child Nutrition Reauthorization.
Now those of us who support healthier meal standards are going to have to work double-time to try to undo the damage. But unfortunately, as many have said before, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its boots on.”
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Karen says
What would make Kate Murphy write such a piece of trash? Apparently she is a “journalist in Houston and writes frequently for the New York Times.” Do we know her? Is she often ill-informed? Is your letter to the Times for the editorial staff or the ombudsman?
Bettina Elias Siegel says
I don’t know her but since she lives here, we need to track her down, Karen, take her out for margaritas and talk some sense into her. 🙂 She talked to many excellent sources for this piece, such as Bertrand Weber, Karen Le Billon and Chef Ann Cooper – but clearly she went into the exercise laboring under a false premise: she seems to think that our “nutritionism” culture is what’s producing subpar school meals and that if we’d just apply more common sense to our diet, we’d suddenly see France’s salmon lasagne on American school trays. But that overly simplistic thinking ignores so many critical pieces of the puzzle, most especially the dismal underfunding of school meals by the American government but also the many cultural factors I raise above. And to answer your question re my Times letter, I sent it to the editorial staff.
Karen says
You can follow her at https://twitter.com/mskatemurphy
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Are you sure that’s the same author? I wasn’t positive so I haven’t been including her in my tweets.
Karen says
I am as sure as I can be without knowing her personally. I’m not sure I remember exactly how I connected the dots, but it seems that her byline was similar or the same in both places, and she has written about Texas at The Nation.
Maybe the best option would be to follow her twitter account and see what happens.
Sally at Real Mom Nutrition says
Bravo, Bettina! I was shocked by that story as well. Thank you for calling out the inaccuracies and exaggerations. I hope the TRUTH is spread far and wide–and I hope your letter gets published!
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Thank you!
Donna says
How such inaccurate articles get published is beyond me. Thanks for your cogent arguments in support of better meals for our kids!
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Thank you!
Lenore Welby says
This was my response on my friend’s wall when she posted it:
“Wow. Did the food services lobby write this? I will be curious to hear what Bettina at the lunch tray has to say. I’ll post her response. In France, children do not snack incessantly. They don’t ever have a party at school where they are permitted to consume their entire daily calorie allowance. No one is selling an extra meal and snack to them as they leave school for the day. They eat reasonable portions. Just off the top of my head.” (Fyi. the extra meal is the 1 or 2 slices of pizza, ring pop and gatorade the kids get to by at the pta fundraiser once a month–an hour or so after lunch.) I posted your response today. The more I think about it, the more I think the writer either was just super lazy and had her talking points in her head before she even started or had an agenda. It’s so bad, like you said, when NYT reporters write stuff like that. And, the headline (which she probably didn’t write) will be taken as fact. Our school district already made a decision (not after consulting the community of well educated people) to refuse federal lunch money for our high school. Their take is the kids don’t like it and the football players are hungry…In a nutshell.
Karen says
I don’t think Kate Murphy is a “NYT reporter.” She appears to be a freelancer who “often writes for the NYT.” She used to write for Texas Monthly and currently appears on the masthead for The Nation and the managing editor.
I agree with you, it surprises me to see such a piece of lobbying in the Times, but this is in the Opinion section, so expectations for journalistic integrity might not be so high. Still, it bugs me, and I think a letter to the ombudsman might be in order.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
I think what really bothered me was that this piece was a hybrid of “seemingly accurate news piece” and opinion. Opinion is obviously totally apppropriate in the Sunday Review, and if she wants to wax on about gorgeous school meals in France and how poorly they compare to ours, she’s entitled to do so (though, again, to what end?) But on the “news” side of her piece, I felt she hadn’t done her homework. At the very least, she needed to say that there are conflicting viewpoints on the degree to which the new standards might be affecting waste or participation, not make these sweeping declarations without qualification. And because it’s in the NYT, readers are unlikely to question the veracity of what she’s saying. Sigh.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Lenore – thank you for sharing my piece on Facebook and for your comment here. Since your district dropped out of NSLP, what’s your take on the new food? Or has that not gone into effect yet?
Wendy says
Thanks for sharing this. I don’t want to see the little bit of healthy that I get to put on my students trays rolled away but I have to add that it is still far from perfect. I still have kids who pick fruit slushies over fresh strawberries and can’t seem to get those slushies off the menu. I have students who can’t tell the difference between between peas and green beans. That ask me what kiwi is. We serve “Dutch waffles” which are really just whole grain funnel cakes. I’m disappointed in our current menu and if the regs get ruled back I don’t know if I can stay.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
That’s how I feel, too, Wendy. There is so much we need to fix, and the author of the Times piece got that right. But rolling back the nutriitonal improvements is not the answer!
Mary Wellemeyer says
Thanks for correcting the information in that article on hating school lunch.
I am looking for ideas about how to make school lunches more attractive to my picky 8 year old. Kate’s piece was muddled, all right, and while I rejected the idea of going back to white flour, it did seem to me that they might have gone to far with “low fat.” Low fat can be quite tasteless. I also came away thinking that the amount of time allowed to eat lunch might have something to do with the lack of satisfaction. The girl in question takes a collection of bags and packages and eats some at snack time, some at “lunch” time, and some after school, because there isn’t time for an actual meal. I’ll have to read more of your posts to find out what your ideas are.
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Hi Mary! Thanks for your comment on this post. And for good lunch-packing resources, be sure to check out this link on my Resources page. Hope it helps!
Dana Woldow says
Bettina, this is such a great, clear and cogent explanation of the many very biased claims this piece makes, which are not supported by facts, just anecdotes and wishful thinking. I took a look at lunch participation numbers from the USDA to see what the recent trend was for numbers of kids choosing school lunch. What I found is pretty interesting, and perhaps Murphy’s article might have come out differently if she too had looked at these numbers.
My article is here:
http://www.beyondchron.org/nyt-school-lunch-story-ignores-data/
Thanks again for all you do!
Kasandra Griffin says
Hey, Bettina. Thanks for the great article correcting various bits of misinformation. I appreciate your work and your clear writing.
FYI, I’d love to share this on my organization’s facebook page, but I can’t, because the title reinforces the wrong information (with the authority of the NYT,) (see “Don’t Think of an Elephant,” by George Lakoff, and think about people just skimming their facebook feed, rather than clicking through for the full story) and there aren’t any (relevant & appropriate) images associated with this (your) article. If you’d like people to circulate your content through social media, you may consider that in future posts… or in an update to this one.
Keep up the good work!
Bettina Elias Siegel says
I agree 100%! It’s rare that I’d make that mistake – my only excuse is the post was written very quickly! But good news: this version of the post on the HuffPo (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bettina-elias-siegel/do-students-really-hate-s_b_8210036.html) has a much better headline and photo, so please share if you’re so inclined. Thank you!
Heather E. Caparoso says
I just subscribed to this site a few days ago. So glad I found it! I am a retired lunch lady and could ( and do!) go on and on about the lunches we serve out children in the public schools. So loved your rebuttal to the NYT reporter. You “dotted your Is and crossed you Ts!!”. So good to see all of your facts laid out like that. Chef Ann Cooper is one of my big heroes, so wish we could have served the type of food she serves. I would almost be embarrassed at the food we would give these little elementary children. And some seemed so hungry. It would almost break my heart.
I love your site and think you do a fantastic job.
Thank you for all the work you do!
Heather Caparoso
Bettina Elias Siegel says
Thank you, Heather, and welcome!
Lola says
Your allegations are not true. I’ve actually seen these school lunches with my own eyes, as well as photographs. They indeed disgusting. They are tasteless, and most of them end up in the trash (which is often not monitored by school officials). If participation rates are higher, it is because children are forced to buy the lunches, or forced to take whole fruits or whole wheat breads that they throw in the trash. The waste alone is appalling!
One of the biggest complaints is the tiny portions; they are as much as half the size as previously. They treat every student as if they were a petite 5’2″ girl on a diet — when half the students are BOYS, who are growing and in sports, and require more food.
Your lies and deceit are really shameful. We used to know how to make good school lunches, at a far price — when I was a student decades ago. The system has gone off the rails. And it has nothing to do with “France”.