In an effort to feed children the best quality food possible while promoting environmental health, a Bay Area school district has become the first in the nation to serve 100% organic meals to students.
Sausalito Marin City School District, just north of San Francisco, has ditched fried, greasy foods for healthy ones that are free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) provided by Conscious Kitchen. The program was created by Turning Green, a nonprofit dedicated to “a systemic transformation of school dining, to the health and wellness of our children, and to a thriving future for our planet.”
“FLOSN” is the foundation of Conscious Kitchen – Fresh, Local, Organic, Seasonal, Non-GMO.
The organic food is being served to 500 students at Bayside MLK Jr. Academy and the Willow Academy in Sausalito.
“Students everywhere are vulnerable to pesticide residues and unsafe environmental toxins,” says Judi Shils, Turning Green’s founder. “Not only does this program far exceed USDA nutritional standards, but it ties the health of our children to the health of our planet. It’s the first program to say that fundamentally, you cannot have one without the other.” [1]
Conscious Kitchen has been serving up all-natural, healthy lunches at Bayside since 2013, and Shils says it has positively impacted school attendance and reduced disciplinary issues.
Related: Taiwan Bans GMOs in School Meals Due to Health Risks
“That’s how we can begin to start making bodies healthy and minds healthy,” she explains.
The nonprofit says the students won’t just be receiving platefuls of nutritious food, they’ll also learn about what makes those meals so nutritious, and they’ll learn how to garden in the hopes that what they learn in school will carry on into their adult lives.
The program will also teach students about GMOs, which are found in 80% of the products found on store shelves.
The Edible Schoolyard Project, a nutritional nonprofit based in Berkeley, says that while it’s vital to feed children organic, nutritious food, it’s just as important to teach them about what they’re eating.
“Schools that incorporate an integrated approach to edible education—combining local, seasonal food procurement strategies with hands-on lessons taught in the classroom, kitchen, and garden—are far more likely to sustain healthy school meal initiatives,” says Liza Siegler, the organization’s head of partnerships and engagement. [2]
These California kids will walk out of elementary school with more knowledge concerning the dangers of GMOs and the value of organic food than the average adult walking down the street.
“Most people don’t realize that GMOs are everywhere, especially in processed foods,” Justin Everett, executive chef at Cavallo Point Lodge, who serves as the consulting chef for The Conscious Kitchen, tells EcoWatch. “By embracing fresh, local, organic, non-GMO food, this program successfully disrupts the cycle of unhealthy, pre-packaged, heat-and-serve meals that dominate school kitchens.”
By embracing fresh, local, organic, non-GMO food, this program successfully disrupts the cycle of unhealthy, pre-packaged, heat and serve meals that dominate school kitchens.
Sources:
[1] NextShark (Featured image courtesy of NextShark)
[2] OffGridQuest
Very ironic that a place that is suppose to educate our future turns its back on proven science and gives into fear based nonsense. Kinda reminds you of the monkey trials.
Now you’ve turned your misdirected sights on Julie Fidler. Yes, the science is proven that GMO and Glyphosate is toxic. Maybe one day you’ll open your eyes to see where the real fear based nonsense is coming from. But not any time soon. Your ego depends on you maintaining the course of ignorance.
Let’s don’t overthink this, while Julie and I do not always agree I have mountains more respect for her than I do Chrissy. I have never know Julie to flat out lie. As for the rest of your comment, again I have mountains of evidence from all over the world spanning twenty years, and you have fiction.
A fictitious farming supply PR troll, holds no documentation or proof, other than that provided by the corporate PR agenda.
Typical answer of a conspiracy theorist.
Fake collective guilt is toxic because it gets us to accept the bad
policies of the social engineers. They promise that if we just make this
one change, all of our fake guilt will be expiated.
Blah blah blah, you switch names and still it is the same old boring thing that still hasn’t happened. You are funny there mommies little boy.
What’s your real name?
Your point is therefore moot.
You know neither MLB or Tater and are operating on agenda, all names used, for the purpose of posting, on this site are fictitious.
You could be MLB for all anybody knows, operating for the benefit of disconnecting military from taking their sworn role in the defense towards upholding the Rights of the People.
It doesn’t matter who anybody is, this is about information, research and investigative processes.
If you weren’t a complete idiot, you would already know that.
If you weren’t a complete idiot you would know that you have zero real research on your side, but you are to stupid to know the truth as you have been brain washed by the misinformation.
You never provide any research, your point is moot.
What misinformation have I provided?
Do you ever think?
I am a most unhappy man. I have
unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled
by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The
growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands
of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the
most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized
world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by
conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the
opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.
~ Woodrow Wilson
Quotes from some other conspiracy therorist’s for ya
His reply is in support of the corporate fascist agenda within education.
To imply feeding a child certain brands of foods as an educational failure is complete stupidity by the resident moron. Using fear based political pseudo-science as an arguing point, while dismissing the truth of education, is the consistent failed direction of this idiot.
No logic, just failed scripted responses.
Well, of course. Sausalito is for the well heeled. You know they wouldn’t want trash served in their schools. But did they get the Common Core out?
Article sez that the “all-natural, healthy lunches” have “positively impacted school attendance and reduced disciplinary issues.”
Truth.
And that’s why so many pediatricians and other doctors are now recommending non-GMO diets.
That’s great but don’t claim to be the 1st…school district in Humboldt has been doing this for 8 yrs
http://m.krcrtv.com/trinidad-school-serves-organic-healthy-lunches/35932676