Think Kids Should Have Healthy Lunch Options? 3 Days Left to Vote!

Published January 12, 2009 @ 10:20AM PT

The second round of voting in the Ideas for Change in America project is wrapping up--you have until 5 p.m. Eastern time this Thursday, January 15, to get in your vote(s), to affect what ideas will make it into the final top 10.

I posted on the vegan school lunch options idea during the first round (here, for example), but the text of the idea has been expanded since then. A relevant video I shared with you not long after this blog's launch is included now as well. I am including in this post the additional information that's been added to the idea since I last wrote on this topic, but I'll let you go to the idea's page to see the video (and vote). Remember to again keep strategy in mind as you vote in these final days; this isn't just about voting for all the ideas you support--it's about voting strategically and selectively.

Healthful School Lunch Options

Require USDA to facilitate healthful plant-based (vegan) school lunch options to promote public health, freedom from hunger, environmental quality, nonviolence, and kindness to animals.

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The Problem

Under the mandate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National School Lunch Program, school cafeterias routinely serve meals laden with saturated fat, cholesterol, excess protein, hormones, drugs, and salt. This diet flouts U.S. Dietary Guidelines and promotes obesity, diabetes, hypertension, other chronic conditions, and food poisoning.

Consider the following:

• School lunches contain 33% of calories from fat, including 12% from saturated fat, while U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommend 30% and 10%, respectively.
• Less than 15% of children eat the minimum daily recommended servings of fruit, and 35% eat no fruit on a given day.
• Only 17% of children consume the minimum daily recommended servings of vegetables, and 20% eat no vegetables on a given day.
• 15% of children ages 6 to 19 are overweight.
• 25% of children ages 5 to 10 suffer from high cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure, or other chronic conditions.

The Solution

A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and grains is largely free of these problems and essential to good health. It supplies nearly all essential nutrients, contains little fat, fewer pesticides, and no cholesterol, hormones, antibiotics, or heavy metals. It also provides special nutrients that reduce the risk of cancer. It is conducive to more energy and improved academic performance.

A healthy diet for children is a critical indicator of future health, because children's bodies are still developing, because their dietary choices are still being formed, and because their poor eating habits become lifelong addictions.

In addition to its obvious health benefits, a plant-based diet offers the only long-term solution to the world hunger epidemic. It avoids the massive deforestation, water pollution, and global warming caused by the meat and dairy industries. Last, but not least, it spares billions of cows, pigs, and other innocent sentient animals from the atrocities of factory farms and slaughterhouses.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has the ability and the obligation to provide a wholesome food supply for our nation, starting with our children. It should not be using the school lunch and other national feeding programs as a dumping ground for surplus commodities of the meat and dairy industries.

Vote. And spread the word to a couple thousand of your closest friends.

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Comments (5)

These "ideas" are truly disappointing to me. Legalizing marijuana is the singularly most important issue for readers of Change.org? That's disheartening. To the AR issues: most concern companion animals and our poor treatment thereof, while billions of nonhuman animals needlessly suffer in ways we could never understand.

Posted by Alex Melonas on 01/12/2009 @ 12:52PM PT
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I know, Alex. I know.

But for the record, regarding the prevalence of "legalize marijuana" ideas in the second round, I really, really don't think this reflects the priorities of the overall membership and readership of Change.org--I think that when this project was announced, lots of people who previously had probably never even heard of Change.org came to the site for the sole purpose of voting for certain ideas after being encouraged to do so through some effective outreach.

And as for the AR ideas, I commented on that briefly and vaguely in a post shortly after the first round ended (http://animalrights.change.org/blog/view/reflecting_on_phase_1_of_the_ideas_project_and_moving_forward), and I won't write more on that topic now, but trust that others share your frustration and disappointment.

Posted by Stephanie Ernst on 01/12/2009 @ 01:02PM PT
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The last time I looked, there are 10780 people signed up on this site under the Animal Rights "Cause". I realize some of them may be industry people who are here to discredit us, but if even half of the AR members voted for this idea, it would rise up to a comfortable second place.

It currently needs "only" 1856 or so to make it into the Top 10. That's a drop in the bucket, if the 107800 are reading.

I understand what you're saying about the frustration and disappointment that some actual Animal Rights ideas didn't make it to Phase 2. But does that mean AR people will not support the three ideas that did make it? I voted for them for various reasons. But mainly, because if we don't vote for the animals (regardless of those things that caused frustration and disappointment), who will?

We each get 10 votes. We can afford to to vote for the vegan school lunch options AND still have 3 to spare for the animals who are skinned alive (even in this country), and for the dogs.

Someone had posted an idea late, that I didn't see until after Phase 1 was over. I thought it was a really good one. I suggested that she contact the Congressional Friends of Animals Caucus with it. That might be an alternative for anyone whose good idea didn't do as well as hoped for here.

Posted by Sue G. on 01/12/2009 @ 04:33PM PT
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Maybe some would like to share their vision for or their experiences/ideas here (too):

http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision

http://change.gov/page/s/yourstory

Posted by Sue G. on 01/12/2009 @ 04:47PM PT
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The moon cries in loneliness as today’s child chooses to stay inside glued to an electronic box, compartmentalized inside a temperature controlled facade, instead of going out in to the world, exploring caves, swimming with turtles, discovering nature’s beauty and perfection, caring a broken wing, feeding fish, finding real friends, friends who help the child as much or more than the other

http://veganschool101.com

Posted by Dave Warwak on 01/12/2009 @ 05:08PM PT
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Author

Stephanie is an independent animal rights advocate, a vegan, a tree-hugging environmentalist, and a freelance editor and writer. She lives in St. Louis with an aging corgi-lab and an adolescent rescued pit bull.