Okay, I'm in rant-mode.

I was stuck at school for two hours today with only vending machines to stave off hunger. Periodically, I would go to the machines, spying many variations of salt, sugar, white flour and fat, but nothing else! I started getting frustrated with the frequent times I resign myself to eating junk food with a zillion calories because there are no other choices.

I know this isn't always the case. Yesterday, I ate dinner at Bertucci's--two nice vegetable side dishes which formed a great meal. Dessert? Well, I had hoped for a fruit and cheese platter in traditional Italian style--nope, struck out with that one.

Sometimes I wonder if people know what's good for them, ignore that knowledge, choose junk, and force food providers to offer more of the crap because that's what 'sells.'

Anyone else feel out of synch at least some of the time trying to eat whole foods most of the time while living in the world?

Perhaps you should be ranting to your school council along with some of the other parents..

There is a big move here in Ausralia to get kids eating well at school. In fact, the government has pending legislation to force schools to offer healthy food to a growing population of fat kids.

here's an examle of an alternative.

http://www.naturalkitchenstrategies.com.au/canteen.htm

Obviously the vending machine is different than the canteen. At least you should be pushing for a vending machine with heathy snack bars. why not approach some manufacturers of healthy alternatives and see if they have vending machines available?
I'm sure that if you have a few well directed rants, things might gradually change in your corner of the world.....

This message has been edited. Last edited by: <Al>,

Here in LA Unified, the sale of high fat junk food - including all soda - has been banned on school campuses. Of course, that took away a big chunk of revenue from the PTA coffers, but to me it's totally worth it. Unfortunately, kids' bad eating habits start at home, which usually translates into not wanting to eat an apple if they can get a Snickers bar or bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos instead.

We try to keep our son's snacks to fruit leathers (the wholesome kind sold at Whole Foods and Trader Joes), fruit, nuts (unsalted), and fresh squeezed or organic juices. Even our microwave popcorn is organic with uniodized sea salt sprinkled in. Over time, he's become quite accustomed to reaching for the organic baby carrots and dipping them into a nice eggplant hummus.

As to your point about being frustrated with the general availability of all this crappy fare, the only way to change it is through reorienting eating habits, which will force a change in the market, and finally cause businesses to follow THAT dollar over the deep fried ones. It's like gas; don't like high gas price? Get a smaller car that gets more mileage, work closer to home (even if it means a smaller living space), use less energy to heat and cool your house, and cut down on plastics usage. This will put less pressure on supply and take away the oil companies' power to set prices. Same with food. If no one went to McDonalds anymore, they'd either have to change their products or face going out of business, right?

Organics have become such a big business that even The Evil Empire is jumping on the bandwagon (NYT 5/14/06):

Even a couple of years ago, the thought of Wal-Mart selling organic food would have seemed unimaginable. The only question is whether it would have seemed unimaginably good or unimaginably bad. That question has now been thrust upon us by Wal-Mart's recent decision to start offering organic food at just 10 percent over the cost of conventional food. So let's consider the possible good that can come of this. It will put the word ''organic'' and the Agriculture Department's organic label in front of millions of customers. It may offer those costumers the opportunity to choose organic food more affordably than they can at present. And it will probably -- say the organic producers who support this move -- increase the amount of acreage devoted to organic agriculture in this country and abroad.

But here are the pitfalls. Wal-Mart will now become the 800-pound gorilla among the other, slightly smaller gorillas that have tried repeatedly to weaken the Agriculture Department's definition of what organic means. There is no chance that Wal-Mart will be buying from small, local organic farmers. Instead, its market influence will speed up the rate at which organic farming comes to resemble conventional farming in scale, mechanization, processing and transportation. For many people, this is the very antithesis of what organic should be.

People who think seriously about food have come to realize that ''local'' is at least as important a word as ''organic.'' The only thing local about Wal-Mart is its shoppers. For ''Wal-Mart'' and ''organic'' to make sense in the same sentence, the company will have to commit itself to protecting the Agriculture Department standard that gives ''organic'' meaning. Otherwise, it will become just another shill word, like ''new'' or ''improved.''

I don't think the entry of Walmart into organics will go much beyond apples, carrots, and a few other things that can be produced organically in bulk (most supermarket chains have been trying the organic thing for a couple years now without so much as making a dent in Whole Foods). As you point out, the portable and local nature of organic farming, as well as its highly irregular harvests, may make Walmart's entry only symbolic at best; in other words, a clever marketing tool without any real merit.

I'll stick with "Whole Paycheck" for my healthy eating, thank you very much!

You know what they say: if you want to eat healthy shop the perimeter of the store and stay out of the middle. It never occured to me that I've been doing this for years until a friend pointed it out. The perimeter is where you find the produce, dairy, bakery and meat. The middle is where you find processed foods. Weird huh? I only go to the middle for canned tomatoes, pasta and baking goods.

We eat mostly vegetarian around here and our 16 month old loves polenta, hummus, tofu, fresh fruit and pasta of all types. We feed him every weird thing under the sun (lima beans, eggplant, etc) so he won't ever learn that veggies are yucky. We make everything homemade.

I gotta say though, Flaming Cheetoes are pretty killer.

Those Flaming Hots are good going in, NOT so good coming out!