Chew on This: Boycott School Lunch?

Madison, Wis., fourth-graders who studied the civil rights movement in their history class recently organized their own protest — against school lunches.

The kids formed a group called Boycott School Lunch after conducting a number of interesting experiments in their cafeteria, like squeezing and measuring the grease out of a cafeteria burger. Until school officials got wind of the plan and quashed it, citing fears of allergic reactions, students intended to serve a healthy home-cooked lunch instead of purchasing the usual tater tots and fries.

As Slow Food USA's blog pointed out, this is just in time for the re-authorization this fall of the Child Nutrition Act, which sets standards for our nation's school lunch program. Let's hope Obama's folks do better than Reagan-ites who attempted to reclassify ketchup as a vegetable.

For more about school food policy, check out the excellent F is for French Fry blog, which also posted a comparison of international lunch programs.