December 30, 2013
I published this article in October of 2002. At the time, it was the most widely read piece I’d written and posted on my site. Its basics still hold up. What I didn’t mention at the time was the corrosive role school-food distributors and their allies on boards of education play in the health of children. These are the people who operate a corrupt system and mandate the feeding of toxic and nutritionally empty junk to students across the country.
One school took another path:
Natural Ovens and the ‘Healthy Lunch Program’ Revolution
A MIRACLE IN WISCONSIN
by Jon Rappoport
Monday, October 14, 2002
A revolution has occurred in Appleton, Wisconsin. It’s taken place in the Central Alternative High School. The kids now behave. The hallways aren’t frantic. Even the teachers are happy.
The school used to be out of control. Kids packed weapons. Discipline problems swamped the principal’s office.
But not since 1997.
What happened? Did they line every inch of space with cops? Did they spray Valium gas in the classrooms? Did they install metal detectors in the bathrooms? Did they build holding cells in the gym?
Afraid not. In 1997, a private group called Natural Ovens began installing a healthy lunch program.
Fast-food burgers, fries, and burritos gave way to fresh salads, meats “prepared with old-fashioned recipes,” and whole grain bread. Fresh fruits were added to the menu. Good drinking water arrived.
Vending machines were removed.
As reported in a newsletter called Pure Facts, “Grades are up, truancy is no longer a problem, arguments are rare, and teachers are able to spend their time teaching.”
Principal LuAnn Coenen, who files annual reports with the state of Wisconsin, has turned in some staggering figures since 1997. Drop-outs? Students expelled? Students discovered to be using drugs? Carrying weapons? Committing suicide? Every category has come up ZERO. Every year.
Mary Bruyette, a teacher, states, “I don’t have to deal with daily discipline issues. I don’t have disruptions in class or the difficulties with student behavior I experienced before we started the food program.”
One student asserted, “Now that I can concentrate I think it’s easier to get along with people.” What a concept—eating healthier food increases concentration.
Principal Coenen sums it up: “I can’t buy the argument that it’s too costly for schools to provide good nutrition for their students. I found that one cost will reduce another. I don’t have the vandalism. I don’t have the litter. I don’t have the need for high security.”
At a nearby middle school, the new food program is catching on. A teacher there, Dennis Abram, reports, “I’ve taught here almost 30 years. I see the kids this year as calmer, easier to talk to. They just seem more rational. I had thought about retiring this year and basically I’ve decided to teach another year—I’m having too much fun!”
Pure Facts, the newsletter that ran this story, is published by a non-profit organization called The Feingold Association, which has existed since 1976. Part of its mission is to “generate public awareness of the potential role of foods and synthetic additives in behavior, learning and health problems. The [Feingold] program is based on a diet eliminating synthetic colors, synthetic flavors, and the preservatives BHA, BHT, and TBHQ.”
Thirty years ago there was a Dr. Feingold. His breakthrough work proved the connection between these negative factors in food and the lives of children. Hailed as a revolutionary advance, Feingold’s findings were soon trashed by the medical cartel, since those findings threatened the drugs-for-everything, disease-model concept of modern healthcare.
But Feingold’s followers have kept his work alive.
If what happened in Appleton, Wisconsin, takes hold in many other communities across America, perhaps the ravenous corporations who invade school space with their vending machines and junk food will be tossed out on their behinds. It could happen.
And perhaps ADHD will become a dinosaur. A non-disease that was once attributed to errant brain chemistry. And perhaps Ritalin will be seen as just another toxic chemical that was added to the bodies of kids in a crazed attempt to put a lid on behavior that, in part, was the result of a subversion of the food supply.
For those readers who ask me about solutions to the problems we face—here is a real solution. Help these groups. Get involved. Step into the fray. Stand up and be counted.
The drug companies aren’t going to do it. They’re busy estimating the size of their potential markets. They’re building their chemical pipelines into the minds and bodies of the young.
Every great revolution starts with a foothold. Sounds like Natural Ovens and The Feingold Association have made strong cuts into the big rock of ignorance and greed.
First published 10-14-2002.
Jon Rappoport
The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com
More info here on “A Different Kind of School Lunch”
Tags: add, adhd, Farm Wars, farmwars, fast food, healthy eating, jon rappoport, learning disorders, school lunch
What a great article. I wonder if progress is still being made in this school system or has the corruption reared it’s ugly head again? I really feel Congress sees too many money-making opportunities in food as do many other entities. We need a new Pure Food and Drug Act but when that happened Congress was not as corrupt as it is now.
Sadly, public schools are designed to be indoctrination and brainwashing prisons, where children are profiled, vaccinated, and often forcibly drugged. With the wonderful educational software available online, there is no reason to send your children to a public indoctrination prison! Better still, give birth at home and don’t let ‘big brother’ even know your child exists. TPTB think that our children are their property, which is why they give them an SS number to track them the rest of their lives. What is really in those ‘vitamin K’ shots? In some states vaccines are mandated by law for newborns. The umbilicus is clamped way too early in hospitals, they don’t allow it to stop throbbing and finish feeding the newborn valuable nutrients, antibodies and oxygen. Home birthing and home schooling are the ONLY way to go in my opinion. If I ever have children, they will be raised “off the grid”!
Wouldn’t this be wonderful?
I read somewhere, maybe on this blog, that the gov’t gives the school districts a certain amount for each child’s school lunch per day.
Just for an example, say the gov’t gives them $3.00 per child per day.
What the greedy school district does is pocket $2.00 of that, then tries to feed the kid on the remaining dollar.
And in fact, if memory serves, it is indeed ONE DOLLAR that the school district uses to feed each kid.
Disgusting, isn’t it?
One of the many advantages of homeschooling is that you get to feed your child NUTRITIOUS FOOD in your own home.
Homeschooling is only temporary til we get the schools straightened out.
Got our work cut out there, don’t we?
Great article.
The fact that not all schools are doing this is damning. When the solution is so obvious, it becomes apparent that having healthy children that are willing to learn is not the goal of our modern public school system.