Feeding minds and bodies

Limp hot dogs, tough chicken fingers, white bread and ketchup. Or, worst of all, nothing. This is the kind of fare that comes to mind when we think of school lunches. That thinking is changing.

This week, Saltwire journalists in Halifax have been exploring the topic of filling the bellies of Nova Scotia’s student population so their minds have the fuel they need to become our region’s future leaders.

REGIONAL ISSUE

Nutrition and food security are topics of concern for all of Atlantic Canada’s schoolchildren, and the lessons learned in Nova Scotia may be replicated across the region.

The N.S. auditor general’s report exploring school food programs in 2022 found that a third of the 366 schools didn’t have a cafeteria and that more than a half of those that did had kitchens run by “profit-driven” private companies. They were meeting the province’s nutrition policy only nine per cent of the time.

Eighteen months later — and as Saltwire started making calls on the topic — the N.S. Department of Education says it’s about to replace its 18-year-old food policy and will run a provincewide school lunch program beginning in the fall.

EXAMPLES ABOUND

Lisa Roberts, executive director of Nourish Nova Scotia, says there are examples of schools and districts where parents, teachers and students have excelled at providing abundant, nutritious food that young people will eat and that is affordable for everyone. The models just need to be expanded to cover the province.

“I think the province should be inspired by the leadership we see,” Roberts told Saltwire. “There are multiple examples of food programs that are really incorporating local foods, schools that are treating cafeterias as learning spaces. There’s so much potential for us to really grow and build on positive experiences that are out there.”

Templates also exist elsewhere in Atlantic Canada.

Prince Edward Island’s small geographical size allowed it to launch a school lunch program provincewide in 2019 that offers healthy lunches to Island students on a pay-what-you-can model up to $5.75 per meal. Newfoundland and Labrador has a similar program that delivers more than 6,700 lunches to students at 42 schools throughout the province every school day.

In both provinces, however, the schoolchildren must be registered by a parent or guardian to participate, and the meals are not necessarily cooked fresh on site.

NATIONAL PROGRAM

Back in Nova Scotia, the South Shore Centre for Education has a registered charity, Rooted School Food Program, that has hired a food service manager and other staff who plan, cook and serve fresh lunches right in the cafeterias of its 23 public schools from primary to Grade 12.

As Grade 6 student Tyson Croft told Saltwire during a visit to Bridgewater Junior High, “Some days the lineup goes all the way out to the hallway.”

As plans for a national school food program are set to be detailed in the federal government’s April 16 budget, now is a good time to consider the best plan for feeding our children.

The only thing that should be hungry in Atlantic Canadian schools are the students’ minds.