Is your child's lunch nutritious? The Future in the Bowl feature guide

"School nutrition lunches have once again tested positive for residues of multiple pesticides and banned drugs!" "CAS-certified meat for school lunches tested positive for veterinary drugs banned for animals!" "Nutrition lunch procurement, principal accused of taking bribes" - school nutrition lunches have frequently made headlines with problems recently, but in fact, these issues have existed for a long time.

After the news has caused a stir and taken over the media pages for a while, will the problems of low-price bidding under the procurement law and food ingredient safety management once again fade into silence, waiting for the next outbreak? Can we build a more solid foundation of public opinion to supervise the relevant authorities in implementing management and achieving real improvement? And can civil society groups, schools, parents, and local farmers actively cooperate and find solutions so that children can "eat with peace of mind, eat toxin-free, eat local" at school nutrition lunches?

Therefore, the NewsMarket has specially produced "Child, is your lunch nutritious? The Future in the Bowl - Special Report." Through a series of investigative interviews and reports on positive cases, we will explore together with you:

• Reviewing the problems of the current procurement law
• Reviewing the issues of pesticide and banned drug use, testing, and residues, and encouraging toxin-free agriculture
• How to encourage and advance the localization and toxin-free transformation of nutrition lunches
• How to introduce the concept of local production and local consumption, cooperate with local small farmers, and support the economy of the original hometowns
• How to integrate food education, farming experience, and environmental ecology education into schoolchildren's diet and education

At the same time, we sincerely invite teachers, parents, and friends who care about the next generation's food safety to join the discussion. You can share your thoughts and suggestions through comments, and you are also welcome to send your manuscripts to [email protected] with the subject line marked [Nutrition Lunch].

11 School Lunch Reform Begins with Citizen Action
Over the past two months, the NewsMarket has interviewed farmers, middlemen, schools, and officials, and found that the school lunch issue is not merely a simple issue of "eating." Behind it actually involves interlocking details of agricultural production, food safety, nutrition education, business operations, and administrative management. Last Friday (December 23, 2011), we specially invited the Homemakers United Foundation, Green Party Taiwan, and several other groups that have long focused on the school lunch issue to hold a forum titled "Children's Future, the Present in the Bowl: All Aspects of School Lunch," to discuss the food safety and hygiene incidents and abuses triggered by a series of school nutrition lunch cases in recent years, and to propose reform initiatives.

10 Gukeng Guilin Elementary School: Children Teach the Principal About Lunch
While many parents, teachers, and students judge whether school lunch is tasty based on reasons such as "Is there gratin," "How much meat is there," and "Are there fried chicken and fries," "Guilin Elementary School" in the mountainous area of Gukeng Township, Yunlin County, is famous for serving vegetarian lunches four days a week. Principal Jian San-Lang, who originally rewarded children with steak, was hit hard by the children's remark that "vegetarian food saves the Earth," and began to learn about and promote organic agriculture. The school's organic vegetable garden also became a starting point for spreading the concepts of vegetarian education and friendly agriculture to the community.

09 Chenggong Farmers' Association: The 200KM Lunch Challenge for Rural Schools
When it comes to school lunch, parents in urban areas focus on whether the ingredients are safe and whether the dishes taste good. But for many elementary and junior high schools in remote areas, besides safety, "whether there is anything to eat" is of even greater concern. Since 2006, the Chenggong Township Farmers' Association in Taitung County has taken on the school lunch supply for Chenggong Township, Changbin Township, and the northern area of Donghe Township. In addition to filling the lunch needs of children in remote areas, it also contracts with elderly farmers to grow vegetables, achieving a win-win situation of revitalizing fallow farmland, invigorating the rural economy, and reducing food miles.

08 Xie Guo-Qing: Nutrition Lunch, Starting with Transparent Reform
As nutrition lunch scandals continue to spread and food safety and hygiene issues are frequently reported, besides feeling anxious, what can parents ask education authorities to do? NewsMarket reporter Wang Wen-Hao interviewed Xie Guo-Qing, chairman of the National Alliance of Parents' Associations, to critique the current nutrition lunch system from the perspective of parents and propose reform recommendations. He believes that the operation of nutrition lunches first needs transparency, to win the recognition of parents and teachers and make it part of the school culture, and then to enable civil society groups to supervise and cooperate together, making nutrition lunch a movement of civic participation.

07 Exclusive Interview with Wu Zhong-Tai: Analyzing the School Nutrition Lunch Scandals
As prosecutors investigate the nutrition lunch scandals in New Taipei City's elementary and junior high schools, this is already the largest number of principals detained in educational history. Some principals argue that "lunch supply is a service, not an obligation," and suggest letting children go home for lunch, prompting Education Minister Wu Qing-Ji to angrily denounce such people as unfit to be principals. What exactly are the problems with nutrition lunches, and how should they be "handled"? Wu Zhong-Tai, Secretary-General of the National Federation of Teachers' Unions, discusses all aspects of school nutrition lunches from the perspective of teachers.

06 After the Female Farmer Claims the Mountain, She Claims the Future in the Bowl!
A-Bao, author of "A Female Farmer's Chronicle of Claiming the Mountain," after renting a high-mountain orchard and living for a whole year in a tent without electricity, farming hard by day and lighting an oil lamp at night, learned agriculture through hands-on practice and farmed in a way that treats the land well. After hoping to eventually complete her dream of planting trees and reforesting, she turned her energy to the "Claiming the Future in the Bowl" initiative launched in the past year or two, hoping to promote the integration of school nutrition lunches with friendly farming and local production and local consumption, achieving a sustainable win-win situation for children's health and local small farmers.

05 117 School Alliance: 32 Yuan to Make Lunch Organic!
Hexing, Fuxing, and Fulong, three small schools on the border of Hsinchu County, have become famous for organic nutrition lunches and have become the focus of attention for parents at schools in prime areas. By implementing a "zero food waste" policy, these three schools can enjoy organic lunches twice a week even under a subsidy of only 32 yuan per meal, and still have more than enough funds.

04 Xizhou Action (2): Champion Rice, Grown for Children to Eat!
"Children who grew up by the Zhuoshui River cannot even eat Zhuoshui rice - what irony is this?" Because he treats rice farming as a business of conscience, rice farmer Ye Feng-Duan, who grew the champion rice of Xizhou Township, specially supplies it at cost price to Xizhou Township's public nursery schools as an ingredient, in order to let children eat healthily and also come to know the high-quality Zhuoshui rice of their hometown, hoping to let children cherish this: every grain in the bowl comes from the land of their hometown, from Mother Earth!

03 Xizhou Action (1): Local Production and Local Consumption, Ingredient Autonomy!
As school nutrition lunch food safety issues and school procurement scandals resemble many unexploded landmines, the Xizhou Township Office has promoted the "Local Ingredient Supply Plan for Nursery Schools," the first government department in the country to emphasize the use of local ingredients in nutrition lunches. It combines the concept of "local production and local consumption" with the selection of ingredients for nutrition lunches, so that children at all public nursery schools in the township can enjoy fresh agricultural produce and food from their neighbors at the village head's home, without having to associate with processed products full of food additives.

02 Cultivating Children's "Green Power": Organic, Toxin-Free Nutrition Lunches
As school nutrition lunches keep running into problems, the Green Party, the Homemakers United Foundation, the National Alliance of Parents' Associations, the National Federation of Teachers' Unions, and farmers from the Tucheng Ammunition Depot were the first to bring several plates of toxin-free, bright green vegetables and fruits to the Ministry of Education on the 7th to pay a visit and inquire about the possibility of using local agriculture and toxin-free produce in nutrition lunches, connecting the dining table and farmland for students. Although most students' lunches are held hostage by group meal companies, more and more schools are working hard to introduce the concept of local production and local consumption, bringing local ingredients and organic, toxin-free nutrition lunches to the table. The development of this "green power" is worthy of attention.

01 Who Is Holding Your Child's School Nutrition Lunch Hostage?
Among victims of food poisoning in the country, 1 out of every 2 is a student. School nutrition lunches have become the most worrying black hole in domestic food safety and hygiene management, second only to restaurants! Who exactly is holding school nutrition lunch safety hostage? A nutrition lunch procurement system that has only price but lacks value is the biggest culprit depriving your and my children of the future in their bowls!

Pesticide and Banned Drug Residues! School Lunch, Who Will Guard the Gate?
In March and April of this year, the Consumers' Foundation conducted nutrition lunch meat testing for elementary schools with their own kitchens, and unexpectedly found that meat with CAS certification had also lost its guarantee, testing positive for residues of veterinary drugs that must not be detected. Half a year later today, the Consumers' Foundation again conducted a nutrition lunch spot check. This time it no longer checked schools, but instead checked upstream food suppliers, and the results showed no improvement. The problems of low-price bidding under the school nutrition lunch procurement law and food ingredient safety management have existed for a long time. When will we be able to let children "eat with peace of mind" and "eat local" at school nutrition lunches?

Elizabeth at Hukou On Site: The Mouth Revolution at Hexing Elementary School
Mrs. Elizabeth Henderson, a long-time pioneer of the community-supported agriculture movement in the United States, visited Hexing Elementary School in Hukou Township, Hsinchu County, on October 11 to learn that an elementary school in Taiwan supports the local hometown economy through organic nutrition lunches while also incorporating the concepts of global warming and food miles into education in conjunction with the curriculum. She could not help but give a thumbs-up and call it Excellent, considering it one of the models of practicing CSA.

Dear Child, What Do You Eat for Lunch?
A nutrition lunch costs 35 yuan, and under such a low budget, the ingredients used are quite insecure. If schools could cooperate with local farmers and provide agricultural products produced locally to local schools as ingredients for nutrition lunches, this would not only guarantee sales for local farmers' products but also ensure stable ingredient quality, benefiting both sides. The localization and toxin-free transformation of school lunches deserve everyone's attention and promotion.