Sasha and Malia Obama were the new girls in school today, with seven-year-old Sasha attending the Sidwell Friends lower school in Bethesda, MD and 10-year-old Malia at Sidwell’s middle/upper school in the District. The lunch menus differ on the two campuses but what they have in common is nutritious meals that are heavy on natural foods and organics and light on red meat.
Sidwell is often described as an elite school, and it is — it costs nearly $30,000 a year per student. It’s not surprising then that the price tag brings more than a top-notch education. No cupcakes, potato chips and Mountain Dew for those students. No Friday combo of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.
This week’s lower school menu includes garlic organic green beans, roasted veggie melts, all-natural shepherd’s pie and sliced apples and cheese for a snack. Malia’s middle/upper school will be serving a lot of salads, local pumpkin and sage soup, organic baked French fries and cheese tortellini with fresh marinara. Both girls will have chicken on Friday, but not just any chicken: it’s premium Bell and Evans.
With our childhood obesity epidemic and so many school lunch programs built around the more affordable but far less-heathy fare of processed, frozen and gloppy foods, it’s a damn shame more schools can’t emulate Sidwell’s lunches for even one day. When Fitzgerald’s famous The rich are different from you and me was said to have been countered by Hemingway with, Yes, they have more money, he could have added, Their children eat better. They eat smarter. They can have nutritious foods and someone to prepare them in imaginative ways.
I hope this issue gets the attention it deserves in the new administration; it’s a perfect example of the politics of food. Nobody was well-served when, in the first Reagan administration, Budget Director David Stockman advocated classifying ketchup as a vegetable for the school lunch program. Talk about elitist. Fortunately, better minds prevailed, but so little progress has been made in providing more healthful meals for children that it’s simply shameful.
To see the full week of Sidwell Friends menus in pdf format, click here. It will open in a new tab or window. H/T: TMZ.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, ella, food + politics in one post, w00t!
It’s not just the schools. My recent surgery—after which I was advised to avoid rich foods for a bit—included an overnight hospital stay. My breakfast? Oatmeal (I ate that), orange juice, coffee, scrambled eggs, grilled pork sausage, bacon, and a small carton of whole milk (I guess for the cereal; I didn’t use it). This, in a hospital, where I and a few hundred others were trying to recover from stuff!
I love that you posted the lunches at Sidwell. The school is getting a lot of attention, and the Obama girls will, too. They’ll need good nutrition for the lives they lead. Good for Sidwell!
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Sausage and bacon, Muse? Lordy, that’s some breakfast and I do see the irony. Anyone who can keep a sense of humor in the hospital is okay in my book.
Glad you enjoyed the post. Some of the private day schools in New York have lunches that leave Sidwell in the dust. I don’t know if they’re training the kids’ palates or preparing them for fine dining or what, but in all these cases the days of getting a whole apple and being expected to just bite into it are long gone.
Oh, btw, I’ve been experimenting with making sausage. Stay tuned…
Did you ever see the TV series, Jamie’s School Dinners? It was a brilliant piece of activism and it highlights the fact that it’s much more than just increasing the budget for school cafeterias. Children and their parents are forced to change their habits and re-learn what it means to eat a nutritional meal.
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I hope they also teach them not to waste food.
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Hi, Jack – I’ve read and written about his work with the school lunches and linked to it earlier. I know many think he’s overexposed, but I really commend him for his work in this area. He could easily rest on his laurels and sit back to count his millions. That he got involved in such a big way speaks volumes to me. Thanks for the link for those who might have missed it!
Hi, Nate – I hope so too, although I think the Obama kids learned that at home at a young age.