School is back in session—or nearly back in session—for kids across the nation. As parents, there’s concern about what children are eating, with the choices typically being a school-provided lunch or a home-provided lunch. Oftentimes schools are criticized for the lack of healthy choices for their students. While some have incorporated such choices, parents may still question what it is their children are being fed.
In an effort to give students the nutrition they need, schools in the Sausalito Marin City District will be providing 100-percent organic meals, beginning with this school year, thanks to a partnership with Turning Green’s Conscious Kitchen, it has been reported. The northern California district will be the first in the nation to do so. The meals will be sustainably sourced, free of GMOs and provided to students from Bayside MLK Jr. Academy and Willow Creek Academy year-round.
“Students everywhere are vulnerable to pesticide residues and unsafe environmental toxins,” environmental education nonprofit Turning Green founder Judi Shils told EcoWatch. “Not only does this program far exceed USDA nutritional standards, but it ties the health of our children to the health of our planet. It’s the first program to say that fundamentally, you cannot have one without the other.”
In addition to the healthier meals, students will be educated on nutrition and gardening.
This change in meal option and education could result in less disciplinary cases and higher attendance (as shown when the project was tested at Bayside MLK in 2013) as well as positively effecting children’s well-being and health.
