Lunch in the school.

[Kaigen]

My observations in the school, especially lunch.
Why I come to that? Many elementary school children in my 4 schools are very obese or have skin problems. Others can't seat for a few minutes without moving in all directions, throwing something or playing with something. The skin problems are very bad, looking like allergies or another skin diseases. Everyday I see children covered with eschars, some of them so bad from toes to top of the head. It makes me so sad, so I'm asking teachers "Sensei" about them, but they are not saying much about it, "it's probably some sort of allergy".
The next plausible question in this case would be what is the diet? I can just tell about the lunch, because all teachers and students are eating the same lunch.
Let me introduce to you todays lunch.

- White bread 1 slice 10cm/10cm 1,5 cm thick. 3,93in/3,93in 0,6in
- Margarine
- Spaghetti with curry sauce and meat
- boiled potatoes (some of them hard as apple)
- milk 200 ml = 0,35pt (pints UK) 0,42pt (pints US) (on the pack you can read that this milk was boiled twice in 130 degrees Celsius/ 266 degrees Fahrenheit )

All together make about 430g = 0,95lb/15,16oz. - 646kcal meal.
I asked the person who is responsible for lunch how many carbs is in today's lunch she counted and told me "with milk about 150g = 0,33lb/5,30oz
It is twice the amount I need for a day (with my 79kg/174 lb)
The kids weight about 20-30 kg / 44-66lb

Am I correct, if I thing that the kids get an amount of carbs for whole week in one meal?

 

[Mayb]

Well , not just calories but the content of lunch,
..margarine... :(, bred , spagetti and that sauce is porbably with aditives.
I gess that for breakfast is simila as well ... here they serve hot dogs , canned pate with bread etc...

 

[SeekinTruth]

Wow! That's a REALLY horrible lunch! SO MUCH unhealthy junk, it's almost as if someone wants to make sure everyone is touched by long term health issues (and the signs seem to be showing that there are already several problems with the kids). I'd definitely have to agree with you about getting an insane amount of carbs for such small bodies for sure, besides all the other unhealthy aspects of the foods.

I don't know in what position you're in to give some feedback for healthier meals, but I wish you luck and suggest whatever you do, to do it strategically.

 

[Kaigen]

I don't know in what position you're in to give some feedback for healthier meals, but I wish you luck and suggest whatever you do, to do it strategically.

Yes, I'm in position to give some feedback, as you say strategically. Japanese school system is very conservative, that means no changes at all.
All schools in this prefecture become this same meal, so it is pushed by authorities in the health department, witch are marionettes of the government.

SO MUCH unhealthy junk, it's almost as if someone wants to make sure everyone is touched by long term health issues

Yes again, Japanese doctors are the most rich people in the country. Like a clan of better situated elite, with Porsche's and weekend in Golf Club.
Before I started my diet last year, i had influenza and as i come to the doctor he asked me if I had a shot, I said no, he said, "see thats why you get the flu"
unbelievable to hear it from the doctor.

Another thing is children in the school must drink milk everyday. If they do not, they will be pushed to do it.
Many of them come home and Mother is just arrived from the work, tired and not willing to cook. So they are going to McDonald.
:(
The relation between how the young people are eating, with the elder population is spread so wide.
The news about how many people in Japan are 100 or more years old is ridiculous, if they do not care about the youngest.

 

[Sinapi]

Sounds slightly like what I got for lunch during elementary school in the United States. Everything was heated in plastic like a TV dinner, with the exception of unwashed, unripe Red Delicious apples. We ate pasta that was at times dried and undercooked, mystery meat type sausages and patties, mashed potatoes with the occasional blue tater tots, calzones, pizza, etc., along with either regular or chocolate milk. Nothing was homemade. With all of the junk I had to eat out of convenience, it's no wonder I'm insulin resistant and overweight!

I admire that you wish to change this in your country, Kaigen, and I hope that the school will listen to what you have to say. By the way, do you think some of the skin problems might be due to radiation exposure, or have you not noticed many health changes since the Fukushima disaster in your area?

 

[Kaigen]

I admire that you wish to change this in your country, Kaigen, and I hope that the school will listen to what you have to say. By the way, do you think some of the skin problems might be due to radiation exposure, or have you not noticed many health changes since the Fukushima disaster in your area?

Oh yes, I wish that, first of all, the old rules running this country. It seams like, since 50 years nothing changesd in the scholar system, accept books. Even in the books is lot of global warming agenda, or milk is good for you agenda.
About the radiation, here is nothing accept the contaminated food what time to time come in the news.
This skin problems have bin before Fukushima and I worked in 10 different schools since I come to this country.

 

[mcb]

...Let me introduce to you todays lunch.

- White bread 1 slice 10cm/10cm 1,5 cm thick. 3,93in/3,93in 0,6in
- Margarine
- Spaghetti with curry sauce and meat
- boiled potatoes (some of them hard as apple)
- milk 200 ml = 0,35pt (pints UK) 0,42pt (pints US) (on the pack you can read that this milk was boiled twice in 130 degrees Celsius/ 266 degrees Fahrenheit )

...

Am I correct, if I thing that the kids get an amount of carbs for whole week in one meal?

I don't think it is a week's worth of carbs (on a low-carb diet), but it could be enough for several days at "maintenance" levels. I think it is more than 150 grams, but I am not sure.

Here's a relevant paragraph from Deep Nutrition:

Foods like bread, pasta, potatoes, and rice are little more than containers for sugar. A seven-ounce serving of cooked spaghetti is converted into the amount of sugar contained in four 12-ounce cans of Pepsi. Unlike Pepsi, the pasta has been fortified with iron and a few vitamins. The starchy parts of plants also carry small amounts of protein and minerals, but white flour and white rice have had most of that removed. Whether the rice and bread are white or brown, whether the starch is in the form of breakfast cereal or tortilla chips, pasta or pancakes, complex or simple, you’re mostly eating sugar.

Shanahan MD, Catherine (2011-04-22). Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food (Kindle Locations 3534-3538). Big Box Books. Kindle Edition.

Milk should actually be written as "milk" because by any reasonable standard, pasteurized, homogenized "milk" is no longer milk. It is an industrial product derived from milk that you would be wise never to consume.

...The heat of pasteurization forces the sugar to react with amino acids, denaturing the proteins and knocking the fragile colloidal calcium phosphate out of the spaghetti-and-meatballs matrix, while the denatured spaghetti strands tangle into a tight, hard knot. Homogenization squeezes the milk through tiny holes under intense pressure, destroying the architecture of the fat globules...

Shanahan MD, Catherine (2011-04-22). Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food (Kindle Locations 2537-2540). Big Box Books. Kindle Edition.

You can read many more details in Deep Nutrition.

I believe most of the discussion about milk in this forum has been addressed to the industrial byproduct, rather than to what actually comes directly from cows. I am not encouraging raw milk consumption, but it does seem like the Control System has gone out of its way to restrict the availability of raw milk to the masses. Of course if you lack the enzymes to properly digest milk products it can be really bad for you, but even the research about that has focused exclusively on "industrial" milk, at least the research I have seen to date. After all, the researchers would have to find some raw milk first, and they might be afraid of making test subjects sick:

Our fear of fresh milk can be traced to the energetic campaigning of a man named Charles North who patented the first batch-processing pasteurization machine in 1907. A skilled orator and savvy businessman, he traveled small towns throughout the country creating publicity and interest in his machines by claiming to have come directly from another small town, just like theirs, where people were dying from drinking unpasteurized milk. Of course, his claims were total fiction and doctors were staunchly opposed to pasteurization. The facts were on their side. Unfortunately, North had something better—fear. And he milked that fear right into a small fortune. The pasteurization industry mushroomed from nonexistence to a major political presence. Today, at the University of Pennsylvania where medical professors once protested that pasteurization “should never be had recourse to,” medical students are given lessons on the many health benefits of pasteurization.

Shanahan MD, Catherine (2011-04-22). Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food. Big Box Books. Kindle Edition.

Milk is at least an animal product, and I do wonder if some forms of it (such as cream, butter, and cheese) might be beneficial to people that are able to digest it properly. You won't find that kind of milk in a school lunch, however.

 

[theos]

As if school lunches weren't bad enough there's the following article. YUM foods corporation is lobbying states to allow fast food restaurants to accept food stamps. It's so incredibly easy to become and stay unhealthy.


_http://blog.seattlepi.com/timigustafsonrd/2011/06/19/fast-food-chains-lobby-for-the-use-of-food-stamps-in-restaurants/

Yum! Brands, the parent company of several national fast food chains, including KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, is lobbying the Kentucky state government to allow the use of food stamps in its restaurants. If the change in the law passes, Kentucky will join a very short list of only three other states – Michigan, Arizona and California – that permit food stamps to be used this way.

As reported by the local newspaper, the Courier Journal, Louisville-based Yum! intends to accept so-called EBT cards for payment, which proponents say will provide a much needed service for food stamps recipients who otherwise have difficulties to find a ready-cooked meal.

Supporters of the petition, including advocacy groups for the homeless, argue that any restaurant business willing to accept food stamps should be allowed to participate in the program. Natalie Harris, a spokesperson for the Coalition for the Homeless, is strongly in favor of the idea. “For those […] who don’t live near a large grocery store and can’t afford a restaurant, sometimes their only option is the nearest gas station. […] This would allow people to get a reduced price meal at a small deli or a restaurant, and that does include fast-food restaurants.”

Of course, this is not only a concern for homeless people. Elderly and disabled people, who are unable to cook at home for whatever reasons, can’t get a prepared meal if they depend on government help to pay for it.

Currently, Kentucky provides support to the needy mainly through its Food Assistance Program, which does not (yet) cover fast food items. Opponents of the proposed law change want to keep it that way. They argue that the government should not help push more sales of junk food on poor people at the expense of their health. In the long run, it would adversely affect the well-being of entire communities and drive up health care costs for the state.

In 2010, Kentucky was ranked number seven in the U.S. in terms of obesity rates, with over 30 percent of obese adults. Childhood obesity and Type 2 diabetes are also on the rise here. Critics say these numbers will only go up if low-income families are enticed to spend their food stamps at hamburger joints.

Louisville, where Yum! is headquartered, has been in the news lately for other reasons as well. Ironically, one might say, the town wants to be known for its fight against obesity. In 2003, city hall received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to help with the construction of bicycle lanes and to develop a number of small “pocket parks” as part of its affordable housing projects. To motivate people to drive less and move their bodies more instead, wider and safer sidewalks are being built.

These may be humble beginnings, but they point in the right direction. Still, if these few well-meaning efforts remain sporadic and isolated, they will not make much of a dent. Access to decent food sources and opportunities to maintain a health-promoting lifestyle should not be so hard to come by, even in less than affluent communities.

If government can afford to subsidize big industries – and let’s face it, allowing fast food places to accept food stamps is ultimately a subsidy program for the corporations who own them – it can also show some support for small produce farms. Our taxes would be well spent by keeping healthy nutrition affordable for everyone and by investing in our local agriculture at the same time. Food stamps should be made welcome at all farmers markets and urban farms. We also need more grocery outlets in the so-called “food deserts,” the underserved communities in many inner cities.

These are not revolutionary ideas and they are not hard to implement. What is missing, mostly, is enough political will.

Timi Gustafson R.D. is a clinical dietitian and author of “The Healthy Diner – How to Eat Right and Still Have Fun™,” which is available on her blog http://www.timigustafson.com and at amazon.com. Her latest book, “Kids Love Healthy Foods™” is now available in e-book format, also at www.amazon.com