Throughout our research and interviews our group though it would be interesting to see what lunch option they would pick when given a choice. In Bells Elementary School, the students are given a choice of Six different options: Lunch of the Day, Hoagie, Hot dog, Salad, Smuckers PB & J, Cold Platter, or Chicken Patty. Also, they offer Vegetarian options such as: Meatless Chef Salad, Vegan Salad, and Fruit Salad. Our group was very impressed with the variety of choices the children were given. This is such an improvement even from when we were in Elementary School. Nicole is currently observing in Mrs.Barca’s first grade classroom on Tuesdays. She took a tally of what the students got for lunch that day. Twelve students picked the Lunch of the Day which was chicken nugget and french fries. One student picked a hot dog, one student picked cold platter, and five students brought lunch from home.

            Also , she paid close attention during snack time to what the students were eating. There were items such as Doritos, fruit roll ups, Fritos, Oreo Cakes, cookies, gummy fruit snacks, and gold fish. A few students did bring healthy snacks such as carrots, apples, raisins, and pretzels. Our group strongly believe that children will eat whatever their parents pack for them. When children are hungry they will eat anything. Parents’ are most responsible for what children eat.

Collaborative Blog: Tarrah Mart, Lindsay Finkelstein, Chelsea Ernst, Nicole Flesch

This is a collaborative blog done by: Tarrah Martinelli, Nicole Flesch, Chelsea Earnst, and Lindsay Finkelstein

Throughout this process, we have experienced a lot of difficulty going about our research the way we had planned. Our original goals were to interview people who directly effect the food that students are served for school lunches. Since we had direct contacts with personell in those positions, we thought we were set. We quickly realized that the nutritional values of school lunches is an extremely touchy subject. Many of our contacts would not even respond to our emails or phone calls. These were people that we talk to frequently, but apparently wanted no part in our research. One example was when Tarrah contacted the directer of food services from the school district that she not only attended but also worked for. She grew up playing softball with the woman's daughter, and frequently sees her and has to contact her for her job. After two emails and a phone call about the research, Tarrah had to once again email her about snacks for her after-school program. The snacks arrived two days later, without any email response. Nicole had a similar experience. She went to the high school that she attended and explained to the secretaries what our research was, and left a note for the principal. Surprise, surprise, they never contacted her. 

Once we finally landed our interviews, we had difficulty being able to actually video the interviewee's and give their information. Two of them specifically chose to be left completely anonymous (Chelsea and Tarrah's interviews). They still answered all of our questions which we were grateful for, but it once again showed how unwilling people are to discuss this matter. Now we can understand a little bit why Jamie Oliver is experiencing so much resistance. The question that this raises for us is, why are people so hesitant to talk about it? What are they afraid of?

After looking at the link Tarrah sent us from "Local Matters," I don't think there we could find anything more perfect to parallel with our project. The First Lady of Ohio, Karen Walbillig Kasich has made a $95,000 contribution to the Local Matters organization, which is working to curb childhood obesity. Local Matters has a program called Food Matters, which teaches children, parents, and teachers about nutrition, cooking, and gardening. They go to thirty-five classrooms each week. I think this is incredible. It is one thing to blindly change the lunch programs for children, but after this meal if students simply go back the same habits at home because of a lack of education, the change was not accomplished. Though I still definitely agree with changing the lunch programs, I think this next step is truly what the schools need.
The program is hoping to spread even further soon. They are also focusing on Ohio-Grown foods when discussing healthy options. The program institutes twenty-eight weeks of lessons for the children so they can understand where the food comes from and why it is important to know this. With the additional funds, the program hopes to expand and reach even more children in the schools. 

After seeing the menus for Lacey and Pitman school districts, I decided to investigate a little further into the impacts of school lunches. As it turns out, the First Lady has been working to make school lunches healthier. A program call "Chefs Move to School" is starting in June, which will help to change the nutritional standards being required for school. The Senate also just passed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 to grant school adidional funds to reform the programs. It will also help workers recieve more training to provide healthier meals. Michelle Obama's program "Let's Move" is designed to help childhood obesity. She also recently requested to Congress to pass a bill that will require more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and less salt and fat in menu items. They will not remove options, but will instead negotiate their ingredients to make them more nutricious. This final decision will remain in the hands of the Agriculture Department. In the meantime, the bill will also help remove junk food and caloric drinks from school vending machines.

For a little bit more background information on the schools that we are highlighting in our project, Lacey Township and Pitman School districts, I decided to look up the two different lunch menus. As Tarrah had already told us, the menu for Pitman is drastically different from what I can remember when I was buying school lunches. There are four different options for lunch: the menu lunch, bagel lunch, hot dog lunch, and peanut butter and jelly bag lunch. Though the hot dog lunch did raise some questions in my mind, I found this to be pretty standard. What I found unique was that right on the top of the menu, it says every lunch consists of one daily entree, vegetable, fruit, and milk. I think this is a very noble idea. I should definitely be helping the students with their portions and with their choices.
Though Lacey Township does not seem to be advertising this information as much, it appears that they offer the same kinds of options as Pitman. They do note at the top that all pizza and bread products contain wheat or whole grain products when possible, and all milk and cheese is low-fat or fat-free. I think it is very interesting that they are advertising this information for the parents and students. It is definitely helpful in alerting them that they are taking the next step to examine their student's needs, which I

This is a collaborative post between all of our group members to decide on the interview questions that we definitely want to use.

1. Do you buy products from any local farms or produce venders?
2. Are there any specific nutrition requirements? For example a set amount of calories or food groups per meal.
3. What beverages are provided?
4. What changes have you undergone in order to make school lunches healthier for the students?
   
5. Were these changes due to district requirements or National FDA guidelines?
6. Is your budget on food affect the products that you buy? If so, would you choose the healthier yet more expensive option, or the processed cheaper option?
7. Do you think the lunches could still improve or do you think they are good as of right now? Explain.
8. As a parent, are you satisfied with the nutritional value of these lunches? To be more specific, would you feed the same foods to your children at home?

-Tarrah Martinelli, Lindsay Finkelstein, Chelsea Ernst, Nicole Flesch

Collaborative Writing in Composition Studies by Fontaine and Hunter discusses the benefits of branching out from writing as simply a solitary activity. They first compare collaborative writing to conversations in a parlor. In these situations, you must listen for the conversations main point after coming in late, say your peace, and leave, but conversation continues without you, just as it began without you. This is parallel to how thinking is changed by the language contexts you enter and how our perspectives influence them (4). Our knowledge is always "under construction," as it is constantly being changed by the ideas that they encounter (8-9). Philosopher Richard Rorty describes this process as social construction (9). According to another philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin, all of our language is in constant interaction and always has the potential to influence. As a result of this, everything we say is partially ours and partially someone else's (10).
Lunsford and Ede call traditional group projects where students break up the work "hierarchical" as they are each working towards a seperate goal (18). They consider this cooperative, rather than collaborative (19). They believe that holding onto the writer-alone image can only hold people back. We should really be striving for a writer-in-the- world image (21). Writers can scaffold and compliment each other through their collaborating. Though it is no longer an individual voice, they believe true collaboration makes it so that "when the product is so well integrated that it seems to be the creation of one mind" (24), which is the ultimate goal.

Pitman:
How do you decide what foods are offered on your menu?
Where is the food that is being prepared coming from?
Is there any way to offer more choices for students?
How could you educate students about what foods they are eating and the choices they are making?
How does the budget play into the lunch choices?

Duffield Farms:
Do you believe your foods are more or less healthy than most foods sold at supermarkets?
Why do you think this is so?
Do you provide foods for any school systems?
What are the costs to growing foods organically?
What are the benefits of growing foods organically?

Our group decided to watch episodes of the new show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution as an inspiration for our own projects. Jamie Oliver is attempting to change the dynamic of the school system in Huntington, West Virginia, which is being called the unhealthiest city in America. Oliver tries to get to the root of the problem in discussing the real ramifications for the kids living their lives in this environment. He talks to the kids in the schools, the cooks, and even a DJ in town. He is met with much resistance from the cooks and DJ, who feel that they are being judged and resent his intervention. Still Oliver tries to help them with their cooking, ultimately trying to understand why they are making the choices they are, and how he can help them change them for everyone's benefit. However, the head cook and main opposition, Alice says "There is no way to be more fresh." Oliver's help is clearly unwanted in the kitchen. Later, he is able to find someone on his side, Pastor Steve, who announces that what they eat and what they are doing to their bodies matters to God. His intervention is even more forceful than Oliver's.
To understand more about the community, Oliver begins making trips to homes in the city. He goes to the Edward's home, where he has a list of everything they eat within the week. They compile everything on the kitchen table to show everything they eat and how awful it is and will be to her children. One of the children even admits that he has been bullied for his weight and agrees that he wants to change. He and Oliver make dinner using raw foods and even bury the fryer in the background, which the family agrees they will never need again.
Oliver then heads back to talk to more members of the school population. He meets with Rhonda, who is in charge of all school food. She gives him a week to convince them, but says if it does not work they will be going back to their usual menus. Oliver and the cooks each make different lunches the next day, but as the cooks suspected, the kids still primarily chose the processed foods and pizza over the natural, healthier choices. Those who did chose Oliver's choice of chicken did not eat much of it and threw out the salad. This seems to only pain Oliver more, but leaves him more determined to help the community.

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan addresses the question "what should we eat for dinner?" (3). He says this simple question has evolved to be so much more as American's diets have rapidly changed over the years. We rely on our senses, memory, and culture in deciding what food is best for us to consume. We have so many choices that it actually becomes a bigger ordeal for consumers. We are sustained by three food chains: the industrial, the organiic, and the hunter-gatherer (6). Between all three is the tension between the logic of nature and the logic of the human industry. Though this is nothing new, it represents our ties to the natural world (8).
Chapter Two discussed the Naylor farm in 1919. Farmers like him were the most productive humans to ever work, making enough food to feed 129 Americans (10). However, despite this, the farm is now barely making enough to sustain the family. Throughout the years, the dynamics of the area changed. The land became fenced in, and the addition of cheap corn made it profitable to feed cattle with feedlots instead of grass and to raise chicken in factories rather than farms. Corn became the new and only crop to plant to cover all expenses (12). Corn eventually pushed the animals and people off the land, as less labor was necessary. However, it was the discovery of synthetic nitrogen that changed everything in the food system and the way life itself is conducted (14). It has been speculated the the Haber- Boesh process for fixing nitrogen is the most important invention of the twentieth-century. He even says two of every five humans on Earth would not be alive without it (14). With this invention and the addition of fossil fuels, corn is being produced economically (16).
Influenced by Earl Butz, the American government began subsidizing how many bushels of corn a farmer could grow (19). However, in order to grow cheap corn, the land is degraded, the water is polluted, and the federal treasury is depleting to subsidize the corn. Though the checks go to the farmers, the treasury is really subsidizing the farmers (20). Humans are in between going broke from producing such corn and consuming it as quickly as possible (21).