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| Lunch Lessons | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: HarperCollins e-books
Category: EBooks
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $9.85
You Save: $8.10 (45%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 23054
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.2083
ASIN: B000JMKT4Q
Publication Date: September 5, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Remember how simple school lunches used to be? You'd have something from every major food group, run around the playground for a while, and you looked and felt fine. But today it's not so simple. Schools are actually feeding the American crisis of childhood obesity and malnutrition. Most cafeterias serve a veritable buffet of processed, fried, and sugary foods, and although many schools have attempted to improve, they are still not measuring up: 78 percent of the school lunch programs in America do not meet the USDA's nutritional guidelines. Chef Ann Cooper has emerged as one of the nation's most influential and most respected advocates for changing how our kids eat. In fact, she is something of a renegade lunch lady, minus the hairnet and scooper of mashed potatoes. Ann has worked to transform cafeterias into culinary classrooms. In Lunch Lessons, she and Lisa Holmes spell out how parents and school employees can help instill healthy habits in children. They explain the basics of good childhood nutrition and suggest dozens of tasty, home-tested recipes for breakfast, lunch, and snacks. The pages are also packed with recommendations on how to eliminate potential hazards from the home, bring gardening and composting into daily life, and how to support businesses that provide local, organic food. Yet learning about nutrition and changing the way you run your home will not cure the plague of obesity and poor health for this generation of children. Only parental activism can spark widespread change. With inspirational examples and analysis, Lunch Lessons is more than just a recipe book-it gives readers the tools to transform the way children everywhere interact with food.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 a book about improving school lunch policies May 15, 2007
64 out of 68 found this review helpful
The photograph on the cover of this book is a bit misleading. The topic of "Lunch Lessons" has a lot more to do with improving American school hot lunch programs than it is about packing healthy brown bag lunches for your own child. It does include a list of recipes at the back of the book. Many sound great, like the "Three Cheese-Vegetable Strata" and the "High Protein Squares" (a homemade replacement for power bars). They also look very time-consuming. Although I haven't tried any of the recipes, it seems to me that making your own pizza dough for the "Pizza Wheels" might take a bit longer than anyone wants to spend making lunch. Actually, I think the recipes are really in here to inspire the people who make hot lunches in school cafeterias.
Like other reviewers I am interested improving school nutrition policies. I head a health committee at my daughter's school dedicated to improving nutrition and fitness for the students and their families. As such this book should be a perfect fit. Unfortunately for me, my daughter attends a private school and almost all of the information in this book, including the reference list in the back, is only helpful if your child attends a public school. (I've actually found more useful information on government web sites than I have in this book!) That doesn't mean it's been completly useless. There are a few great tidbits to be found here and there. I found the recommendation about "laptop lunches" really great. I don't think I would have found out about the company and their fabulous lunch boxes had it not been for this book. (The cover photograph shows a "laptop" lunchbox.)
In the end I think I would recommend this book to anyone interested in taking on the enormous problem of unhealthy school lunches in public schools. If you're looking for new ideas for your child's lunchbox there are probobly better books out there. If like me you're trying to improve the health policies at a private school there probably won't be many ideas in "Lunch Lessons" that you can use exactly as described.
 Must read for any parent November 14, 2006
32 out of 34 found this review helpful
Lunch Lessons begins by stating everything that is wrong with the American diet. It clearly explains what children should be eating and explains why children need to stay away from additives, high fructose corn syrup, fast food, trans fat, etc. Did you know that children born in 2000 and after who are following the current trend of the fast food, prepared food nation, are facing a shorter life span than their parents? I didn't but it makes since with obesity and diabetes on the rise in the young.
There is a chapter devoted to outlining the caloric needs of a growing child, which food groups are actually necessary for correct development and a helpful chart explaining portion sizes and the number of servings to eat per day based upon the childs age. The book is filled with tools to help anyone learn to change their eating habits and lifestyle (because it is a huge lifestyle change) and I'd bet even those without children would find it a very useful reference and jumping off point for dietary change.
The middle section of the book is about several school systems who bravely changed the menu by eliminating pre-packaged processed food and brought in whole foods from local farmers. The stories, especially the comments from the children, are inspiring and hopeful. What surprised me the most were the positive social experience these children enjoyed while tending to a garden and preparing their healthy meals.
The recipe section is filled with lunch options I've never before considered. I tend to get stuck in a rut with whole grain bread, natural PB&J, turkey cold-cuts, turkey hot dogs, etc. I'm not sure if my kids will go for some of the more radical options like couscous (especially my meat loving son) but I'm going to give it a shot. I never thought of packing home baked mac & cheese or chicken pot pie but those are two faves I'm betting will get them more excited about lunch.
This is a book that will remain in personal collection and one I'm betting I'm going to be picking up on a weekly basis as I prepare my meals.
 Finger-Wagging, Left Wing Sermon, November 24, 2007
22 out of 49 found this review helpful
Chapter 1 was a well-written discussion of the nutritional crisis facing America's children. I also have no quarrel with the portions of the book which discuss school lunch programs and their deficiencies. What I cannot stand about this book and several others which discuss nutrition is that they inevitably stray off-topic. Left-wing political ideology inevitably creeps in (a comparison of how much money is spent on the war versus childhood nutrition, for example). And it isn't enough to change the way you feed your children. They want to challenge every aspect of your lifestyle. You should drive a hybrid car, avoid plastic containers, grow your own vegetables, start a compost pile, clean your entire house with vinegar, etc. etc. I'm suprised that the authors had the self-restraint to avoid preaching on the advantages of wiping from front to back. Overall, the recipes are time-consuming and require ingredients not typically kept on hand (cake flour, buttermilk, rolled oats, tahini, fresh tarragon, and panko bread crumbs, for example). And this observation comes from someone who loves to cook and who has a huge pantry (I do have shallots, nicoise olives, capers, cornmeal, and anchovies on hand at any given time, as required by other recipes). The recipes do not include any explanation about why they are more nutritious than other alternatives. Why are johnny cakes a better choice than pancakes? Why is macaroni and cheese a good choice, particularly if eight servings contain a half of pound of cheese and an entire stick of butter? Must I really make my own granola? Peeling and dicing a fresh pumpkin requires more time and patience than most working mothers have left at the end of the day. I about slung the book across the room when I encountered a recipe requiring two sheets of phyllo dough. Phyllo dough costs about four dollars a box and takes a few hours to thaw. Working with it takes a ton of practice. And after you use two sheets of phyllo dough, what on earth are you to do with the other 20 or so sheets in the box? (They will not re-freeze and thaw well at all). The suggestion that kids be sent to school with squash phyllo triangles or pumpkin curry is impractical and silly.
Many good features to Choose From January 6, 2007
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
I read this book because I am involved with several committees dealing with healthy eating and fitness issues for school children in our area, and because I'm very interested in this topic. "Lunch Lessons" proved to be very informative and provided lots of ideas on changes that parents, teachers and policy makers can be making with their own children and/or with programs at school. It gave a nice overview on the history of the School Lunch program and how it has changed over the years. There are interesting summaries of innovative programs that are going on in different parts of the country, helpful resource guides and a policy guide. And it has some GREAT recipes that I intend to try at home and possibly use in some cooking demonstrations I will help organize for children. Because I am a registered dietitian, I did take issue with some of the information, especially in the chapter on Basic Childhood Nutrition, such as the absorption of calcium from plant sources, the quality of research on relating food dyes and additives to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and whether we should be changing recommendations on feedint infants under 1 year of age. Other parts of the chapter were, however, well done. Also, I do not feel all readers will "buy in" to the ideas for organic foods, switching to local food vendors, composting, etc. But pulling out any of the ideas on promoting a greater variety of minimally-processed foods, well prepared, in moderate portions, and eaten at a leisurely pace will benefit many. The distressing rise of obesity and health problems among our youth mandates change; and these experienced authors offer good ideas for action.
Lunch Lessons will open your eyes... September 8, 2006
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
I commend Ann Cooper and Lisa Holmes on their approach to raising awareness to our Nation's archaic method of feeding children. Ann Cooper does not only preach about the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) needing major reform, she is out there in the trenches taking action. This book brings attention to benchmark school systems and provides ideas to help foster change. This is a great read for parents who want to know what is going on in the changing landscape for School Nutrition; Extremely beneficial for school food service providers in hopes to get them on the "bus" to reform; A must read for School Administrators that hold the "purse strings" which dictate our childrens diets; and for anyone else that is concerned with the growing epidemic of childhood obesity and lack of "real food" that is promoted to children.
Chet Thompson,
Certified Chef de Cuisine
Culinary Concept Developer
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