Author: Mike Lieberman

Susan Reimer wrote a piece on the Garden Variety blog of the Baltimore Sun about the objections that people have when it comes to school gardens. I’m pretty sure that the mentions were specific to the Chicago area.

In my humble opinion the reasons that people gave were ridiculous.

Before we get to the reasons I want to express my beef with the fact that the food grown in the school gardens can’t be used in the cafeteria’s to feed the kids. According to the article:

Monica Eng of the Chicago Tribune describes the garden bounty grown by Chicago public school children, and reports that school system rules — which do not apply to the commercial food suppliers — prohibit any of that food from making it into the school cafeteria.

C’mon. Seriously? They can’t be served the food that they grow, but they can eat the stuff that’s pawned off as food everyday?

What?

Am I missing something here? What kind of message does this send to the kids? You can grow your own food, but don’t eat it. That would be bad. WTF?!?

Sending the Wrong Cultural Messages
Now on to the objections for having the school gardens. The first were cultural objections. Yes, cultural objections.

People thought that since some of the kids were minorities that it might send the wrong message. The reason is that they could’ve come from a background of farm workers or slaves.

Ok, what’s wrong with this? Knowing how to tend to the land and grow our own food is one of the most important things that we can possibly do. Yet we see it as unskilled labor. This is how far disconnected we have become from our food.

You know what sends the wrong message? Being a banker or someone in the financial field and screwing someone out of their money. That’s the wrong message.

Time Is Better Spent on Real Education
The final objection was that time could be better spent on education like math and reading. First off you need math and reading to grow your food. You also need to use critical thinking skills.

What is so great about the curriculum of the current education system? Unless you are an engineer or physicist who really needs to know what sine, cosine and tangent are? They are freaking useless.

Learning how to grow your own food, now that is knowledge. It allows us to be independent and not rely on others. Instead education teaches us how to rely on others and to become consumers.

By the way isn’t the school year based on the agricultural calendar? Kids have off during the summer to tend to and harvest crops? What’s happened to that?

Yet again schools show us how they are hypocrites when it comes to educating the kids about food and nutrition.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMiQe0-2Vkk

Updated on November 30, 2010: Robert Bloomer, regional vice president, Chartwells-Thompson Hospitality, Chicago responded to this post in Letters to the editor. Read his reason here.

Organic. It’s a terms that’s thrown around like crazy, but what the hell does it mean? What is organic gardening? What is organic food?

There is the USDA definition of organic, which you can try to decipher and understand because it’s as useful as the last Juvenile album.

I do know what organic, living organically and gardening organically mean to me.

To me there are many things that factor into being organic. Some we have more control and access to than others.

We can’t really decide that we don’t like breathing the air around us and stop. Well we can, but would wind up dead pretty quickly. We can control the water though by filtering. See what I mean?

Neither you nor I can control all of these factors. To me it’s about doing the best that I can given the circumstances that I’m facing.

Yes, I am gardening organically, but the containers that I’m using are made from plastic. So there is the potential threat of toxins (BPAs) leaching into the soil. The water I use is filtered, but I put it into a plastic container to pour.

Let’s not even talk about the environment and air that I’m in. I live in LA, which is one of the most polluted cities in the world. I decided against living in a hamster bubble and dealing with it.

Since I’m growing in containers, I bought organic soil. How about people that grow the traditional way in the ground?

Even if they aren’t using sprays and pesticides, how organic is their soil?

From the water and environment, there are likely some toxins in the soil. For $30, you can send your soil to the Environmental Sciences Analytics Center at Brooklyn College to get your soil tested for lead and other crap.

Yes that might all sound daunting and disempowering, but it shouldn’t be. You have the power to control certain apsects. You don’t have to use toxic chemicals to spray. You don’t have to use toxic fertilizers. Worry about what you can control.

That’s what organic and organic gardening is to me. It’s anything that I am actually doing and have control over. I can’t control the air around me (yet).

What does organic mean to you?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRwcSL6fSE0

I think the public school system needs to be called out on their hypocrisy when it comes to nutrition and education. Jamie Oliver said it best when it comes to food and what’s going on, “You can’t scream about bad health on one hand and then strategically feed them crap everyday on the other.”

That is what pretty much what happens in the school system when it comes to food and food education. I am not saying that it is the sole responsibility of the education system to educate kids on food, the parents are just as responsible.

The schools don’t help the matter at all when they host such events as “McTeacher Night.” Yes, you read that right. It’s called “McTeacher Night.”

The whole idea and concept is absurd. It sickens me that schools, principals and teachers are on board with this program and get excited about it.

This is when teachers work for a night at McDonald’s and encourage their students to come in to buy McDonald’s. The store is generous enough to donate some of the profits back to the school. C’mon? Really?

Of course the kids get all excited about wanting to see their teacher (an authority figure) working at McDonald’s so they put the pressure on their parents to go and buy food. Yes, the parents could still very well stand firm and say no.

As principals and as teachers, they should be ashamed of themselves for promoting such crap to kids. Looking at childhood obesity and instances of diabetes, then promoting McDonald’s…let’s use some common sense.

The food that is served in school cafeteria’s is jacked up with sugar and other processed ingredients. There was an article on Change.org Sustaiable food section that said kids get nearly half of their calories from junk food. Surely some of this is coming from school served meals.
There are also the candy sales that I’m sure still go on as well. I know that schools are hard up for money. I get that, but there has to be other ways to raise money that don’t involve killing the kids.

There was an article on Rodale.com about how gardens should be a part of the classroom. The article sites a study done at University of California – Berkeley that shows –

…that when schools teach some classes in the school’s garden and kitchen, and offer healthy fare in their cafeterias, it has a very clear and positive impact on kids’ diets. And on their attitudes towards food: Kids not only eat more fruits and vegetables, they know more about nutrition.

I am by no means saying that school gardens should supply food for the whole school. I believe that food should be sourced from local farms, but that’s a separate post.

Getting gardens and coursework built around the gardens would be a great way to discuss real food and nutrition with students. It could be fun and get them interested.

This is one of the reasons that I did the Urban Kinder-Garden Workshop last year and will do another this year. It gets the parents involved, helping to educate them. It gets the kids involved and gets them excited about what’s going on, thus making them ask their parents to do this at home.

The education system has been broke for a while. A program like this implemented by school’s would show that they are committed to truly educating kids about food and nutrition.

What are some other programs ideas that schools can start?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW-BXmm-3hs

There was a post on CNN.com called Organic produce – when is the splurge worth it?

The title in and of itself is ridiculous that to consider buying unsprayed produce that hasn’t been treated with any chemicals as being a splurge. It shows how disconnected we have become from associating real food with health.

A licensed dietician, Sonia Angel, reported that organic produce isn’t significantly more nutritious than conventionally grown produce. She does say that organic is safer because it’s pesticide free.

I don’t care about reports, studies or tests. You can make the number tell whatever story you want.

Personally I don’t want to chug and put chemicals into my body, which is what conventionally grown produce is littered with. There is no way that it could be good for anybody or for the land that it’s being grown in.

The fact that one would even consider non-sprayed produce to be a splurge is telling of the the times that we currently live in. We see health as coming from pills or a bottle and not from the food, which we put into our bodies.

You know what a splurge is? A splurge is the car you are driving. A splurge is the huge TV that you watch. A splurge is getting your nails done. A splurge is not providing yourself with the best quality food that you can get your hands on or growing on your own.

For me buying organic isn’t a splurge. Buying organic is party of my healthcare.

What are your thoughts on splurging on organic produce?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_84DjcnofY

Maria Rodale recently wrote post on her Maria’s Farm Country Kitchen blog titled A Harvest of Healing.

It was a beautifully written post about how there is more to gardening than just the harvest. The harvest is great, but it’s not everything.

The one quote from the post that stuck with me was:

With gardening, we harvest more than food and flowers; we harvest health and healing.

She goes on to talk about the physical aspects that are involved in gardening – weeding, planting, carrying water, shoveling. So gardening helps to build you up physically and keeps your body moving.

On my balcony garden, I definitely don’t get that kind of exercise, but my fire escape garden did prove to be an adventure sport.

Though for me there are some physical aspects in involved in moving the containers and carrying the water.

Maria continues and talks about the food and nutritional value of gardening. Since you are growing your own food, you are fully aware of what’s going into it and can make those decisions.

She also talks about the spiritual aspect of it, which I think gets lost on a lot of people. I believe there is something to be said about putting your hands in soil, planting something, nurturing it and watching it grow. We become more connected with the earth and nature that way.

For me it started out as I just want to grow my own food, but it has turned into more than that. Especially on the spiritual tip. I feel more connected and appreciative for the food that I grow and for any food that I consume.

This is why that I say that I believe that people should grow just one vegetable and it will change the way they think.

What else is gardening to you?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjzHmRx5X6U