In the state of New Mexico, where resources for education are so scarce, lunch improvements are not the highest of priorities.

"There are so many assumptions about school lunch. People expect changes to be made on the budgets that exist," says Jane Stacey, program director of Cooking with Kids, which provides hands-on nutrition education in 12 out of 21 local public elementary schools. "Every Friday, school cafeteria managers meet to discuss school lunch. Their stories reflect how much education is needed for parents, teachers, everyone. People are quick to criticize, but in order to make changes, there needs to be a better understanding of how this all works."

Le Adams, co-director of Farm to Table New Mexico, concurs. "There's only so much that can be done with these financial constraints," she said, "School cafeterias get $2.57 for each lunch and are supposed to be self-supporting. Parents come in and say they want their kids to eat organic food, and I have to explain that after overheads and turnover, there is around
$1 left per child, and 30 percent of that is required to be spent on dairy products. So that leaves 70 cents to spend on a protein, a fruit, a vegetable and a starch."

Jennie McCary, MS, RD, LD, is wellness manager for Albuquerque Public Schools. She discussed the Wellness Rule and the Nutrition Rule, two permanent policies made effective in early 2006 that apply to all public schools in New Mexico. The Nutrition Rule refers mostly to competitive food sales, such as vending machines, and the requirements dictate not only what is being sold but also when students can have access to these foods. Carbonated beverages are not to be sold in vending machines to students in elementary or middle school; instead, water, milk with a fat content of 2 percent or less, soy milk and 100 percent fruit juice are available. Regulations are more relaxed for high school students, though not considerably so.

Have things improved?

"Absolutely," McCary says. "When I came on board, I was really shocked going on school campuses and seeing kids having soda and a bag of chips before class," says McCary. "The biggest opportunity for growth — and it's going to take money, effort and community partners — is in nutrient-rich foods and continuing to reduce the amounts of packaged and processed foods."

McCary is right; things seem to be improving, albeit slowly. Out of 90 school districts in the state, 10 are serving local foods, with Albuquerque serving more than half of the children in the state.

But the 2007 New Mexico Youth Risk & Resiliency Survey shows that 10.5 percent of high school students surveyed "sometimes or often" do not get enough to eat, and only 17.9 percent are getting five servings of fruits and vegetables daily. Figures such as 10.9 percent obesity and 13.5 percent overweight have plateaued, showing no remarkable change in statistics since 2001. On the bright side, there was a more than 25 percent decrease in students watching more than three hours of television a day.

Santa Fe chef Janell Jayes is a newly appointed culinary specialist for Santa Fe Public Schools. She is faced with the task of rewriting and implementing school-lunch menus during the next year, with a year of subsequent on-site training. Cooking with Kids contributed to the writing of the grant that made Jayes' position a financial possibility.

"The position is exciting because it is was created through a collaborative effort between community partnerships, but the massive bureaucracy of rules around school lunch and how the food is obtained and cooked and distributed makes the idea of improving school lunches a really challenging one," says Jane Stacey.

Nevertheless, Jayes, a self-described perfectionist, maintains her optimism and keeps her focus on the basic tenets of gastropolitics: "Eating well should not be an exclusive privilege, and it's a lot easier to cultivate an understanding and appreciation of good food in the young."

Betsy Torres, a nutritionist and Farm to School coordinator for the Santa Fe Public Schools district, led me to think that the
biggest challenge of all is balancing objectives with the simple laws of supply and demand. "What we need is a co-op. Alvord and Carlos Gilbert elementary schools
have salad bars on their line every day. Apples, which are always available, are
distributed districtwide. But if I can get only a few pounds while buying locally
from small farmers, then I have to decide where it goes."

Walter Burke Catering has been providing meals at Santa Fe Prep for the past eight years, and recently secured the new College of Santa Fe dining hall catering contract. Stacy Pearl, executive chef of Walter Burke Catering, says she's often surprised by the preferences of Prep students compared to the students at Monte del Sol Charter School, whose school lunch menus Pearl calls "amazing." What are the most frequently requested dishes at Prep? "Enchiladas, roast chicken and Frito pie. We tried to serve a chicken stir-fry once, and it failed miserably. Then, parents complained that the kids weren't getting any fresh fruit, so we started providing it. A lot of the kids wouldn't touch it."

"It's not enough to feed kids new and different foods," says Adams. "If a school has a garden, kids are going to have the experience of watching a pumpkin grow or picking a ripe tomato. These are the things that are going to educate them and help them make better choices."