Cafeteria food will likely never contend for the James Beard Awards. School meals are notoriously basic and bland, containing all of the food groups and none of the taste. Here in Philadelphia, where, at last count, 28.5 percent of children live in poverty, all District students receive free school breakfasts and lunches. It’s the law, and, in case you’re interested, it’s called the “community eligibility provision.”
But a lot of Philly kids avoid school meals. This academic year, Temple began using an NIH grant to figure out why. Could it be the macaroni’s soggy, peas are mushed, and the chicken tastes like wood?*
Meanwhile, two years ago, two Philly schools — K-8 charters Southwest Leadership Academy in Elmwood Park and Tacony Academy in Rhawnhurst— hired a company to, quite simply, make better things to eat. It seems to be working. The company making the food is Red Rabbit, a Harlem-based, Black-owned, for-profit outfit with the tagline, “Celebrating food from all cultures in the school cafeteria.” Red Rabbit is intent on proving that there is such a thing as a free lunch, and it’s delicious and good for you, in more than one sense.
Read the full story here: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/make-school-food-great-again/