Always one to up the intelligence level on an issue, Michael Pollan, famed author of Omnivore's Dilemma, recently wrote a New York Times editorial about the current health care problems in America and how it's less about a broken health care system but more about what to do in light of a, "rising tide of chronic disease linked to diet."   Pollan writes:

"According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three-quarters of health care spending now goes to treat “preventable chronic diseases.” Not all of these diseases are linked to diet — there’s smoking, for instance — but many, if not most, of them are.

We’re spending $147 billion to treat obesity, $116 billion to treat diabetes, and hundreds of billions more to treat cardiovascular disease and the many types of cancer that have been linked to the so-called Western diet. One recent study estimated that 30 percent of the increase in health care spending over the past 20 years could be attributed to the soaring rate of obesity, a condition that now accounts for nearly a tenth of all spending on health care."

Take a walk through any school cafeteria in Spokane and look around - high fructose corn syrup, salt, sugars,  and a host of processed foods that are contributing to the aforementioned figures is what you will see.

It's time that schools and universities take a long hard look at their food systems and determine that healthy eating and sustainable food practices are essential components to their education outreach efforts. 

Take Idaho for example - their school year started with something noticeable missing from the cafeterias, salt shakers.  This is part of, "strict new nutrition standards to school food service across Idaho, including an absolute ban on deep-fat frying, salt shakers, sugar packets and unlimited ranch dressing for pouring over the fried stuff", as the Spokesman-Review reported. 

However, it needs to go further than that.  Schools offer an opportunity to teach students about eating local, and thinking about where there food is sourced.  Schools here in Spokane could start the school year eating an abundance of locally grown foods from local farms, and in the winter months, they could learn about agricultural cycles and see first hand how the system works.  But most of all, schools could teach children to ask questions about their food, and teach them to demand a healthier food sytem, as echoed by a recent blog post on Peaceful Playgrounds:
"By participating in the local foods movement, schools and individuals are telling the food production industry in America, “We will not accept food that is nutritionally void anymore. We demand healthy food. We are demanding it by purchasing from local farmers who do not contaminate the food we eat with pesticides and chemicals which are making us sick. We will not buy and consume foods that have been genetically modified, or eat animals that have been pumped up with steroids, antibiotics and chemicals that I will in turn consume and will harm my body,"

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