Highlight vegan options during School Lunch Week

T he theme of this year’s National School Lunch Week, Oct. 14-18, is “School Lunch: What’s on Your Playlist.” It touts the fact that “today’s school cafeterias are serving menu items that kids want to eat, with increased choice and customization.”

I wonder if that means they are finally going to start offering tasty vegan options. That’s what kids who care about animals and the environment really want.

Schools in California, New York, Miami and Maine are scoring high marks offering vegan options. California schools in several cities already offer healthy vegan foods, and a bill that aims to bring vegan options to all state public schools passed the California Assembly Education Committee this spring, 5-0.

If approved the measure will provide funding for schools that serve more vegan entrées and dairy-free milks. Dr. Neal Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which co-sponsored the bill, believes that vegan meals are healthier for students and the planet and help foster concern for the environment and animals.

The Oakland School District reduced its carbon footprint by 14 percent and saved 42 million gallons of water in two years.

Schoolchildren are smart and engaged. They may not be familiar with statistics or the fact that the meat and dairy industries use 83 percent of farmland and generate 60 percent of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions but they understand that going vegan is the best way to reduce one’s impact on the planet.

New York City is planning to reduce the amount of meat served in schools by 50 percent. Other forward-thinking school districts, including Miami-Dade and Portland, Maine have recently been offering vegan options as well. Portland is testing vegan meals at elementary schools to see which ones are popular before adding them at the middle and high school levels.

Hopefully, more schools nationwide will begin serving wholesome vegan meals to protect the planet and help ward off obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other conditions linked to animal-based foods. It’s just as irresponsible for schools to serve mystery meat, chicken nuggets and cheese pizza as it would be to feed kids nothing but chips, candy and cookies.

Parents send their kids to school to learn more than reading, writing and arithmetic. They also want schools to help foster healthy habits, integrity, ethics and environmental stewardship. In celebration of National School Lunch Week, school cafeterias should serve the delicious vegan options that kids want. Then they’ll really have a reason to boast.