Thank you for your article on the Organic School Project [“What’s Wrong With School Lunch?” May 25], primarily at Alcott, where my daughter Morgan attends preschool. I can attest the kids can be mulish about changing foods–they’d had months to get used to the standard fare, after all. When her talking toy “Blue” asked her yesterday what her favorite food was, she told it none of the organic foods I serve at home nor anything new at Alcott, but “hot dogs and french fries,” the after-school “treat” her dad occasionally gets her.
All children, including the younger ones like Morgan who have lost a few teeth and still have a couple left to wiggle, definitely would benefit from more time to eat. Eating should be as relaxing and pleasant as breathing, especially deep breathing.
On a yet more serious note, at the open house where we learned the OSP we’d gotten flyers about was to become reality, chef [Greg] Christian was asked by a parent about the milk. His response was both telling and enraging: “They told us, you can’t touch the dairy [industry].” It’s no surprise he got no help from Coke, Kraft, McDonald’s, and Walgreens. Neither they nor big agribiz will change until they’re forced to.
Anyone who thinks organics–real organic food, not just anything with a label calling it such–don’t matter needs to look at all the data, especially the studies proving Danish organic farmers had ten times the sperm count of “conventional” farmers, and the new research here that over 200 chemicals in common use cause breast cancer in animals (including–groan!–acrylamide in fries). We may not be physicians, but we can still try to heal, or at least prevent harm to, ourselves.
Maja Ramirez
Chicago