School Menus Get a Makeover and the Kids Love It

When was the last time you heard that kids in a school lunchroom love broccoli, carrots, lettuce and tomatoes?

CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports students are saying "yes" to healthy foods, and "no" to junk food - all thanks to Kristin Richmond and Kirsten Tobey of Revolution Foods.

"We are just so motivated by the idea of creating a healthier generation," Tobey said.

Unlike old school lunchrooms, Revolution Foods won't serve anything with high-fructose corn syrup or trans-fat. Meats and dairy are antibiotic and hormone free. They prefer local, organic ingredients. Nothing is ever fried, but they promise it's always tasty.

"We knew if students were given a choice of a healthy meal that actually tasted really good and looked really good and was approachable to them," Richmond said. "We knew they would eat it."

Five years ago, the Berkely Business School grads behind Revolution were preparing 200 meals a day for one school. Now they're running a company that serves almost 60,000 fresh and healthy meals to mostly low-income students in 350 schools and programs from California to Washington, DC.

It's pricier than standard fare. The government reimburses schools up to $2.75 a meal. Revolution foods cost $3-4 a meal. Schools say the added benefit to the students is worth the added cost.

Their recipe for success: classic dishes with a healthy twist: chicken teriyaki is served over brown rice. Spaghetti and meatballs is made with less sugar in the sauce, and students get a say in the menu.

They're letting them know old eating habits are changing one healthy bite at a time.

[tammy410]

This is wonderful, but the other 90,000+ schools that serve meals to students are also doing great things without the additional $1. The USDA does not adequately support breakfast, lunch, afterschool and summer feeding programs financially to offer items such as organic foods and labor to prepare more foods from scratch. Serving 350 schools doesn't even touch the surface. Many self-operated school districts serve brown rice and fresh fruits and vegetables and low-fat and fat-free dairy products like yogurt parfaits and fruit smoothies. I wish as much time was spent applauding the efforts of those folks as it is this company that has a good mission, but is not realistic when school divisions are strapped for dollars for academics and can't support meal programs that can't support themselves or even need to make a profit to support academics through charging school meal operations indirect costs and other utilities and expenses. There are many, many great stories to tell besides always touting the success of folks like Revolution Foods, Renegade Lunch Ladies and Ann Cooper. Hopefully you will find those stories also.

[MegaProcrastination]

Kids who have access to healthy, well-balanced meals do far better academically than those on typical school lunches. As someone in the working class, not too far above poverty level, I wouldn't mind at all my tax dollars going to help kids like this eat real food. We don't have a lot of money and can't afford to eat organically grown foods unless we grow them, but even on our small budget we eat a lot better than most people because junk food is never an option in our house. Truth is, it doesn't cost a penny more to put whole, healthy foods on the table than it does to eat garbage. Plus, in the long run it's way cheaper in preventing diseases that would otherwise need medical attention. Think of how many of these kids might actually be able to grow up without diabetes and cholesterol problems because they learned from the start to eat healthier foods. The taxpayers also pay for medical care for the poor (as pathetic as that care is). That costs a whale of a lot more than feeding lunch to these kids.

[tmittelstaed]

pragmatist1, all of these programs are trying to break the cycle of poverty. Yes, they know perfectly well that the parents of these kids are abrogating their responsibility. A lot of these kid's parents are druggies, or they are living on welfare and gaming the system to stay on it, a lot of them are the ones who use all their food stamps to buy food then haul out their cash for the chips, the cigarettes and the booze, at the grocery store. When the kids of these leech parents hit the school system we have a chance to educate the kids that there is a better way. But you cannot do it if the kid is hungry or malnourished. And if they are malnourished then their brains do not develop properly and they end up permanently with low IQ's and a burden on society.

These school meals cost a pittance to what the costs are of incarcerating these kids when they are older and decide to join gangs because they don't know any other way. That is why these programs exist in every state in the Union.

Yes, not every poor kid is saved by these programs. But a lot of them are, a lot end up better off than their parents, a lot of them end up out of jail and not costing the taxpayers a bundle. These programs are good prevention. And it's not the kids fault that they are poor, it's their parents. Punishing the kids does nothing to get their parents to step up and be responsible, if the parents were responsible in the first place the kid wouldn't qualify for the program. All it does is insure the kid is going to end up thieving or on welfare because that's all they know.

[pragmatist1]

This is absurd. CA is deep in the whole with budget deficits and they're pandering to public school kids by feeding them with overly priced organic school food. Parents should be providing food for their kids to begin with never mind taxpayers having to do this parental responsibility. If parents can't provide food for their kids, then they shouldn't be having them. I wonder how many taxpayers are even able to eat organic, let alone healthy balanced meals? Parents should find the time to make their kids some lunch to take with them to school. Organic food for kids school lunches? Only in CA would you have this type of absurdity. Wonder how much of the food these kids don't eat and it ends up being trashed? These two owners of the company providing at least 350 schools with these types of meals are probably high on some herb and laughing all the way to the bank because they've suckered so many gullible.