<p>I’m not a vegetarian, but I applaud what this school is doing—providing tasty, healthy, nutritionally balanced meals that completely work in a complicated cross-cultural setting where many students have religious/cultural dietary restrictions. And providing a better-balanced diet at a lower cost even to omnivores.</p>
<p>Just for comparison purposes, I looked up the current week’s menu at a randomly selected local public elementary school here in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I will say they’re trying: there are far more fresh fruits and vegetables on the menu than when I was a kid, they’re using whole grain breads, the meats are relatively low fat, they’re keeping fried food to a minimum. But every breakfast this week is a muffin and fruit, except Thursday when it’s an egg-and-cheese tortilla and fruit. And every main dish at lunch is meat—chicken 3 days, turkey hot dogs another–except Friday when it’s “Italian dunkers,” which is apparently bread, marinara sauce for dunking, and cheese (I had never heard of this & had to look it up). At lunch there are also side carbs (whole grain bread or brown rice, depending on the day), steamed or roasted vegetables, fresh fruits, and green salads. There is no alternative main dish at lunch.</p>
<p>So what’s a vegetarian supposed to do with that? Or someone who could eat chicken or turkey, but only if it’s halal or kosher? The fruits and veggies are great, and the whole grain breads are a plus, but the only legitimate protein source for these folks would be the Thursday breakfast, and possibly the Friday lunch if they loaded up on enough cheese in the “Italian dunker.” For meat-eaters who don’t have religious/cultural dietary restrictions, it probably works pretty well, and is a huge improvement on past school meal offerings. For vegetarians, Muslims, and Jews who keep kosher, it’s a disaster; these groups could get very sick on a steady diet of menus like this, with plenty of fresh fruits, veggies, and whole grains, but not nearly enough protein or B vitamins.</p>
<p>And this isn’t “imposing someone’s dietary preferences”? The fact is it’s much easier for the typical American omnivore to eat a tasty, healthy, nutritionally balanced diet in the NYC school, than it would be for a vegetarian, Muslim, or kosher-keeping Jew to do so at the school in Saint Paul.</p>
<p>Most of us are pretty blind to the degree to which the dominant culture imposes its preferences on cultural minorities. And when someone takes affirmative steps to accommodate those minorities—even in communities where the “minorities” are in fact a majority, as in parts of Queens, and for that matter, in parts of Saint Paul—many in the dominant culture get indignant, and immediately start complaining about how their rights are being trampled on.</p>