Food for Thought
Alice Waters and school fast food in America
by Dorothy Woodend
On September 10, 2003, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a $166 million marketing and vending partnership with the Snapple beverage group. The agreement gave Snapple exclusive rights to sell water and fruit juice in New York City’s 1,200 schools. Estimates says the deal could generate as much as $225 million, depending on how many Snapples the city’s 1.1 million students and 80,000 teachers can drink.
Not long after the jokes began to fly. Pundits suggested a bevy of New Snapple beverages like Snapple’s Subway Tea® (a delicious blend of fresh lemon and human urine collected from the Times Square subway station) or Snapple’s East River Sewage Soda® featuring tasty hints of motor oil and decaying human flesh.
Despite the fact Bloomberg maintained Snapple was a healthy choice, reports in the New York Times claimed otherwise. A 360ml container of the new Snapple 100% Juiced! (created to meet rules that ban fizzy drinks, sweets and other sugary snacks from being sold in schools) contained almost 170 calories and approximately 40 grams of sugar, equivalent to a 360ml can of Coca-Cola.
So-called ‘Cokes For Kickbacks’ contracts appear alive and well, despite recent studies of childhood obesity, which revealed that each additional soft drink that kids consume every day increases the risk of obesity by 60%, no matter how much food they eat or exercise they get. Fast food has literally transformed North American culture, and the long-term impact of brand marketing and commercialisation of the school system is becoming increasingly clear.
While some teachers may quietly bemoan the hypocrisy of teaching the values of good nutrition while the school halls are chock-a-block with product placement, others are queuing up to work the counter at McTeacher’s Night - fund-raisers which have steadily gained popularity over the past two years, with over 2,500 schools in 14 Western US states currently participating.
At the Gateway High School in Aurora, Colorado the Partners i