fast food

McDonalds, Burger King, Hardee’s, Subway, Arby’s, TCBY, Taco Bell, Sbarro. Anything sound good? Didn’t think so. When a family hits the open road in the U.S. of A. and the excitement of the first few hours of tunes, wind, and unfurling pavement has worn off to be replaced by boredom and hunger, it will have little choice but to pull into an oasis to eat. Unfortunately, our oases give oases a bad name. Far from a place to relax and replenish, our U.S. highways seem to be lined with not much more than loud flushing toilets and purveyors of junk food. I always fantasize about the small, family-run diners tucked into the towns we roll by; but realistically, when you have three kids and seven hours of driving ahead of you, there is no extra time to dilly dally in search of homemade chicken soup and apple pie.

I recently had the chance to sit down with a handful of sixth graders at Sanford Middle School in Minneapolis. The students had been complaining that the lunches they were being served tasted bad and made them feel sick, and their teacher asked me to come answer questions, provide context, and make suggestions.

For an hour, these thoughtful students and I discussed healthy food choices, growing a garden, being pressed for time (a 12 year old girl told me she didn't have time to put an apple in her backpack in the morning), eating on a budget, and how to affect change. I've been thinking about the discussion ever since.

Dear Santa:

Here's an excellent video of a radio interview with Michael Pollan, conducted by WNYC.org in May of 2009. In the clip, Pollan discusses his latest project - an attempt to collect food traditions - along with the perils of fast food. It's a 4 minute video, packed with all sorts of good things. Check it out.

Great recent post by Jill Richardson in La Vida Locavore entitled Fast Food Makes You Stupid (Yet We Serve It In Our Schools). Here's an excerpt:

[A recent study found that] children scored between 58 and 181 points in the reading tests, gaining an average score of 141.5. But after taking other factors into account, pupils who ate fast food between four and six times a week scored almost seven points below average. Children snacking once a day fell 16 points, while pupils indulging three times a day dropped by 19 points. Similar trends were noted in maths. In total, children scored between 47 and 151 points in the test, with average results of 115. But those pupils eating fast food dropped by between 6.5 and 18.5 points.