Fed Up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project: How One Anonymous Teacher Revealed the Truth About School Lunches --And How We Can Change Them!

209 Pages·2011·3.8 MB·English

by  Sarah Wu Also Known as "Mrs. Q" Sarah Wu Also Known as "Mrs. Q&quot

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"Mrs. is a woman
after my own heart. ...
Her courage has inspired
me and j'm sure it will
inspire you.'
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ANO Y OUS ACHER V A D
T RU H A OU SCHOO UNCH S-A D
OW WE CA CHA GE M!
HOW ONE ANONYMOUS TEACHER REVEALED
THE TRUTH ABOUT SCHOOL LUNCHES-AND
HOW WE CAN CHANGE THEM!
SARAH WU
CHRONICLE BOOKS
SAN FRANCISCO
Copyright © by 2011 Sarah Wu.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Wu, Sarah.
Fed up with lunch: how one anonymous teacher revealed the truth
about school lunches-and how we can change them! / Sarah Wu.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4521-0228-3 (hardback)
1. National school lunch program-Case studies. 2. School
children-Food-United States-Case studies. 3.
Children-Nutrition-United States-Case studies. I. Title.
LB3479.U6W82011
371.7'16-dc23
2011018136
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Jennifer Tolo Pierce
10987654321
Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com
For Charlie, my son;
for my students, my inspiration; and
for lunch ladies everywhere, who work diligently
to feed millions of hungry kids.
Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................. 9
CHAPTER 1 / Mrs. Q Goes Undercover (Like a Beef
Patty Masquerading as Meatloaf) ...................................................... 1 7
CHAPTER 2 / Do You Want Guilt with That? .................................. 28
CHAPTER 3 / Pizza with a Side of Paranoia ...................................... 36
CHAPTER 4 / Food Is Personal .............................................................. 46
CHAPTER 5 / Peeking Out from Behind the Curtain .................... 53
CHAPTER 6 / I'm a Pepperidge Farm Goldfish! ............................... 60
CHAPTER 7 / Getting Chewed Up by Corporate America ........... 72
Baby Carrots Can't Go Outside to Play ................
CHAPTER 8 / 80
Mrs. Q, Unmasked and in the Trenches ...............
CHAPTER 9 / 91
A Return to Routine Food .................................
CHAPTER 10 / 119
Fruit Juice Is Pure Sugar (and Other
CHAPTER 11 /
Things You Already Knew) ........................................................
130
The Bagel Dog Stops Here ..................................
CHAPTER 12 / 140
Put a Spork in Me; I'm Done! ............................
CHAPTER 13 / 150
Mrs. Q's Guide to Quiet Revolution:
An Action and Resource Guide ................................................... 15 9
End Notes .................................................................................... 198
Acknowledgments ...................................................................... 203
Index ........................................................................................... 205
About the Author ........................................................................ 208
Note: Names have been changed to protect the identity of private
citizens. Ironically, Mrs. Q can now reveal herself!

Introduction
The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely
tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you
decide to do ... the process is its own reward.
-AMELIA EARHART
I n my five-year career as a teacher at a large elementary school
in Chicago, I had rarely set foot in the cafeteria. In fact, I hadn't
eaten a school lunch since eleventh grade. Why would I pay for
school lunch when I could bring exactly what I wanted from home?
But one fateful morning in October 2009, I was running late, trying
to get Charlie, my noncompliant toddler, dressed. Pushing his feet
into his little shoes and stuffing him into his fleece jacket while he
attempted to squirm out of my grasp, I realized that I hadn't packed
my lunch. No big deal, I thought as I successfully got him out the
door. There's a cafeteria at school. I'll buy lunch there.
I had no idea that eating one school lunch would dramatically
change the course of my life.
That day, for three dollars, I purchased the only school lunch
available: a bagel dog, a Jell-O cup, six Tater Tots, and chocolate milk.
10 FED UP WITH LUNCH
The bagel dog (a hot dog encased in soggy dough) came in a plastic
package. Tough on the outside and mushy on the inside, it was like
no bagel I had ever tasted. The hot dog was bland, not juicy. The
wimpy Tater Tots (which counted as that day's federally mandated
vegetable) were pale and wilted in my mouth. Instead of a piece of
fresh fruit, like the crunchy apple I would have packed if I'd had
time that day, I was given a few cubes of pear suspended in bright
red Jell-O.
I was starving and needed fuel to stay energized for my students,
so I ate the meal, choking down as much of the mushy bread as I
could stomach. But I couldn't believe that this was the kind of food
my students were being served, especially knowing that most of
them came from low-income families and that this was probably
their most substantial meal of the day.
I have worked as a speech pathologist in Chicago Public Schools
District 299 for the past five years. Most speech pathologists rotate
among schools, but I am assigned primarily to one elementary
school with an enrollment of around 1,300 students from preschool
to sixth grade. The student population includes a lot of English
language learners from families that speak Spanish, Ethiopian,
and Burmese. There are African American students and Caucasian
students, too. My school serves a community of people mostly liv
ing below the poverty line; the number of children eating free and
reduced lunches is well over 90 percent. These students need and
deserve fresh food to help them succeed in life. Even more than
mine does, their bodies demand decent nourishment from school
lunches. If more people knew about the pathetic quality of food in
public schools, and-at least in my district-the limited amount of
I NTRODUCTI ON 11
time kids have to eat their lunches, surely more people would want
to do something about it.
That lunch made me mad.
Anger can be an ugly emotion. I recognize its importance under
the right circumstances, but when I see an angry person, my first
reaction is, Whoa, what's wrong with him? The way I see it, getting
mad represents a loss of control-and that's not me. Nevertheless,
I felt a deep anger bubbling up whenever I thought about the
students at my school eating that processed and crummy school
lunch. I felt compelled to do something. I considered starting a
boycott or staging a protest, but what could one teacher in a cash
strapped district really do? Realistically, I was already putting all of
my energy into providing a quality education for my students and,
when I arrived home, my family got whatever was left over. Did
I have enough fight in me after a typical day to become a school
lunch activist?
This question stuck with me (much like the bagel dog, or maybe
it was the Tater Tots, that had me quietly burping my way through
that memorable afternoon). Was there some way to channel my
outrage about these lunches in a positive way? Picketing and organ
izing are great for some people, but what about a more subtle and
persistent campaign to raise awareness and encourage change? Some
times, doing something in a quiet way can have powerful results.
When I was developing my annual goals for 2010, it hit me:
I would buy my lunch every school day in 2010 and blog about it.
I already had a personal blog that I updated on a monthly basis. It
was tiny-an online journal that I shared with just two readers:
my mother and my sister. With a schedule that already felt packed,