Organic food in roman schools: an example to follow
No CommentsI have recently learned that my home town has something else to be proud of besides the Colosseum and many other ancient ruins. Since 2001 the public school in Rome (Italy), under the lead of Dr. Silvana Sari, has undergone a big change concerning the quality of food served in schools. About 740 schools of the Italian capital started serving food to school children chosen on the bases of quality instead of low price only, according to the ALL FOR QUALITY food procurement principles introduced by Dr. Sari. It turned out this choice is even economically convenient. The about 150 000 meals served every day include organic food, fairly-traded products and are always prepared from scratch. Special deals are offered to local producers for their organically grown vegetables and fruits so that everyone benefits from it. The producers have the certainty of their products being sold, and the school administration saves money in exchange of good quality food. But how is this even economically convenient? It is well know that good eating habits decrease the incidence of illnesses, such as diabetes and obesity, to name some. Most western countries sees an increase of overweight and obesity in children and are facing increasing health problems because of that. Something that has even a large economical impact. Thus, educating children to good eating habits is certainly rewarding economically in the long run. But there is more. Thanks to special deals with the public administration and accurate planning of menus served in the schools, the cost is only about 5 euros per meal and per child. Changes introduced include also the use of porcelains and silverware instead of plastic mug and plates, which reduces by 9 tons the amount of garbage produced and the related cost. Furthermore, more attention is paid to recycling, and unused food is given to facilities that feed the poors, while partially used food is given to animal shelters. In this way the increased cost for buying organic and fairly traded food is compensated by reducing other kind of costs. The roman example is studied by many administrations in other countries in Europe and the United States, that are interested in both decreasing costs while serving better meals to children.
As a comparison, we can look at what happens in hospitals. It has been shown that in about 10% of the cases the time spent in a hospital is longer because of the low quality of meals. A British study calculated that an average of one each six days of stay in hospital is due to malnutrition. If you think that one day in the hospital costs to the administration about 500-800 Euros per day per inpatient, a couple of days less could pay for the food of a child in a school for a whole year. This means shifting the paradigm from spending for illnesses to investing for health. If many more schools and hospitals start serving organic meals, the economical benefit for the public administration would be very large, and the implications for the development of small farmers following a sustainable food production technique would certainly be considerable. Something our healths and that of planet Earth will benefit for.
Tags: children > health > Organic food > schools
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