Government Provided School Lunches Revealed to be Toxic Beyond Belief -- A Call to Action!
Part 1 in a Multi-Part Series
The results of a recent national school lunch study, not funded by Big Pharma, exposed off-the-charts levels of toxins in the 43 food samples acquired from public schools across the country.
Actually, calling it “food” is generous. The meals surveyed were chemical-laden, nutrient deficient and made in a lab.
If we ever needed proof that the industrial agricultural system was systematically poisoning us, here it is.
Findings from the study, which was produced with funds amassed by Robert F. Kennedy’s non-profit Children’s Health Defense and Moms Across America, an organization founded by Zen Honeycutt, were published on September 28, 2022.
It’s been said that ignorance is bliss. But when it comes to our children, this cannot be the case.
For anyone out there who is unaware of the dangers of our nation’s industrial food system, it’s time to take the blinders off.
Our youngest generation is being significantly harmed via food they ingest on a daily basis and we now have evidence of the direness of the situation. Here is a press release which includes links to the actual study data (please read thoroughly to get the full context), and below is the shocking summary of findings.
The testing of 43 school lunch samples shows:
The majority of the samples were abysmally low in nutrients.
74% of the samples contained at least one of 29 harmful pesticides.
4 Veterinary drugs and hormones were found in 9 school lunch samples at levels up to 130.76 ng/g.
100% of the school lunch samples contained heavy metals at levels up to 6,293 X higher than the EPA’s maximum levels allowed in drinking water.
95.3% of the school lunch items contained carcinogenic, endocrine disrupting, and liver disease-causing glyphosate. 100% of all wheat samples contained glyphosate.
Due to its extreme prevalence and biopersistence, glyphosate is one of the most important toxins our generation has been tasked with eradicating. The chemical is the active ingredient in Roundup, a weed killer manufactured by Bayer/Monsanto (Bayer acquired Monstanto in 2018). These two multinational companies have quite a history of bringing unsafe products to market and were responsible for the infamous and deadly Agent Orange during WWII. Bayer recently agreed to pay upwards of 10.9 billion to settle over 10,000 Roundup lawsuits based on the clear link in scientific literature between glyphosate and Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, among other cancers.
According to several studies, prolonged exposure to glyphosate increases cancer risk by up to 41%.
Wheat is likely contained in every single school meal served, meaning many children are ingesting a steady stream of glyphosate. Once or twice daily meals during a single school year would certainly be considered prolonged exposure. Now imagine the accumulative effect of multiple years of consistent consumption.
Although, finally, we are beginning to see progress on the eradication of this hellish chemical - it will be completely banned in Germany in 2023 and banned for residential use in the US in 2023 (Why only residential? Why not immediately???) - as of now, it is still readily available and commonly used throughout the world. I get a visceral reaction when I see it on store shelves.
If this feels too overwhelming, rest assured. Thankfully, there are very effective ways of getting it out of our bodies, and forward-thinking companies are having their products tested for glyphosate and verified by third-party organizations. I will be writing about this in Part III of this series.
Now, back to the study.
As I read the details, I was devastated by the magnitude of the data. It was the same emotional overwhelm I felt at times when I was deep down the vaccine research rabbit hole. I’d spent many long nights tied to my computer after my kids were in bed, beginning to truly comprehend the depth and extent of the damage being done to our children in the name of good.
Sometimes, and I know I’m not alone, I’m simply overcome with the gravity of the situation. Reading these study findings was one of those times.
It is undeniable that our food system is slowly, systemically poisoning us - the study proves this - and school-aged humans, with their smaller bodies and developing brains, are especially vulnerable.
According to Moms Across America, “thirty million genetically modified meals are served daily to our children.” In the United States, there is an average of 170 school days per year, which brings the annual number of school lunches served in our nation to 5.1 billion. According to the USDA, in 2019 (the most recent accurate data due to school shutdowns) their School Lunch Program provided meals to 4.9 billion students.
Thus, we can see that a large majority of school lunches are served to low-income students whose families qualify for the program; as usual, children with the lowest socioeconomic statuses, and the greatest need, are most negatively impacted.
Children from these families are especially vulnerable due to their likelihood of poor-quality food at home — non-poisonous food is expensive. They are also commonly participants in state-funded health care, which subjects them to low-income clinics that almost always mandate strict adherence to the CDC’s childhood vaccine schedule and have few or no holistic or integrative treatment options.
Further, these children already have an increased propensity for mental health conditions due to stressful life situations exacerbated by the aforementioned factors. The toxic, low quality meals they are consuming at school exacerbate their risk and the physical, emotional, and spiritual effects of these “food-like products” reduce their quality of life and ability to thrive.
Thus, the gap between them and their peers who are blessed with caregivers who have the means and instincts to provide poison-free food is further widened.
It is a dismal scenario.
So, because this project is all about developing solutions, and we are here to collaboratively create change, what can we do? Under different circumstances, the call to action would be simple: pull your children out of public school and stop allowing them to eat school lunches. Problem solved.
However, this is about as realistic as requiring all families to safely keep their children home from school at the drop of a hat. When the stay-at-home orders were first dictated to us in the spring of 2020, my heart sank with the incredulousness and callousness of the proposition that families could actually accommodate this directive.
But I digress – my intention is not to rehash that nightmare here.
It is challenging for families to pull their children out of public schools for many reasons: homeschooling isn’t an option due to work obligations, children come from split families with differing educational ideologies, private schools are expensive, etc.
The bottom line is that modern society has been intentionally crafted to keep us beholden to the public education system, which serves as childcare for a large majority of us. The controllers-that-were created it this way to weaken our familial ties, keep as many adults as possible working and paying taxes, and indoctrinate our children to ensure they grow up to be even more blindly subservient than their parents.
Under this structure we are destined to fail, and it’s not an easy feat to break away from the slave system that has been insidiously and meticulously designed to lure us in and entrap us.
But it can be done and we are watching it happen in real time.
Although the most obvious and efficient step towards educational sovereignty would be to completely turn our collective backs on the public school system, that’s clearly not yet within reach. Therefore, during this great transition we must focus on building the new, tangential education systems that will better serve humanity while concurrently improving the public school experience for those children who will continue to attend.
And now that we have irrefutable evidence that many children are being harmed in public schools due to their exposure to these toxins, WE are charged with righting this wrong.
So, how can this be accomplished? At the most basic level, we need to inform and educate, as these study results were likely not covered by your local news. (!!!) We need to mobilize, create a plan, and (respectfully) demand improvements.
I am well aware that political advocacy can feel like beating your head against the wall. Like many of you, I’ve sat through state congressional hearings on the topic of vaccine mandate bills, listening to heartfelt testimonies from grieving parents whose children have been severely impacted by the product(s) being discussed. I’ve observed the outpouring of convincing data being presented by qualified medical officials and scientists, data that clearly demonstrates the risk-benefit analysis is not in the product’s favor, only to helplessly watch our public servants cast their vote to further restrict our medical freedom and ability to choose.
And usually, the majority of voting legislators aren’t even present for the testimony; they simply show up to cast their vote as they initially intended, completely ignoring all public comment. Pharma companies are often their biggest campaign contributors, after all.
Political advocacy is an exhausting, rarely gratifying labor of love, and those of us who have felt compelled to join the fight on these great issues of our times have likely experienced the need to frequently step away.
But there is always a time to re-engage, and for me, the time is now.
Over the past two years, following a lifetime of exploring, I finally embarked on and completed educational programs for functional nutrition and quantum coaching. It had become blaringly obvious that there were major deficiencies in our medical system. And those of us who embraced a different paradigm needed to step up.
The skills acquired and new letters after my name lend a breadth to my voice and will enable me to help and heal in an expanded way. I am thrilled to be able to formally move into the field I’ve been relentlessly researching for decades. It is long overdue.
And although I wasn’t specifically planning to merge my new wellness career with my (apparent) passion for advocacy, when I learned of the school lunch study I was compelled to action.
People are waking up, beginning to see through the veil. The matrix is slowly crumbling. And those of us who understand this are tasked with helping to expedite the process.
Although I’m skeptical that the public school system will be able to reinvent itself from within, it is possible. There are countless huge-hearted souls who have dedicated their lives to working with our children in this capacity. Maybe they will rise up and take action, or maybe a seed is simply planted. Either way, it’s only fair we make a legitimate attempt to shed light on these deep-rooted issues and offer solutions and support.
Do you live in the United States? Here’s what you can do.
The Call to Action:
1) Share the Moms Across America press release with your local school department’s nutrition director.
I recently did this and here’s how it went:
I easily found the appropriate number online and placed the call. The director (we’ll call her Joelle) picked up and we had a pleasant conversation (the interactions I have with locals are one of my favorite parts about living in my new-to-me small town -- people are friendly, accessible, and generally not in a rush 😊). After reassuring her that my desire for contact was an honest attempt for collaboration, I shared the general findings of the national school lunch survey, which she’d unsurprisingly not heard about.
Joelle informed me that our district was part of a broader educational zone that included multiple other districts. This zoning allowed them to make collective food purchasing decisions, garnering greater buying power. She explained that food decisions were largely dependent on the directives coming from the zone’s overseeing bodies (Ah! Of course – centralization). I agreed to send her the report via email, per her request, which I hoped would open the door to further conversation once she’d reviewed it. I did let her know that I was writing about this topic and would be sharing it publicly.
It’s really not surprising that centralization was involved here as it’s insidiously infringing on society at a rapid pace. Our country was founded on the premise that individual states would function independently and autonomously, with thoughtful but restrained national oversight. Our forefathers’ intention was to enable states to govern at a decentralized, local level while ensuring the benefit of a robust national military presence on the global stage. Despite this, we see massive evidence of centralization, a top-down structure that requires the outsourcing of power directly up the chain, in all governmental systems.
I saw the effects of centralization firsthand in WA State about a year ago when I became involved with a state-wide group advocating for the removal of masks in public schools. We understood that the local school boards really didn’t have the power to change any of the mask related policies as they were beholden to both the governor’s and multiple overseeing organizations’ directives (the WA State School Directors Association and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction). The superintendent actually directly threatened to withhold funding from any school or district that did not comply with the governor’s “mandates.”
This move towards centralization has been insidious and sold to us as progress and the natural order. However, as my friend, Eryn, so brilliantly explains in her recent article, it cripples the downsides of this structure way outweigh the benefits.
It’s unclear how much this structure will actually impact my local school district’s ability to source their food differently and function independently from our established zone. According to the USDA’s School Lunch Program website, creating connections between local food sources and schools is a top priority. But is this actually in practice anywhere? And is it actually a local priority? I aim to find out.
2) Share the press release with your local school board.
Attend your next school board meeting. If possible, gather a group of aligned community members who are also enthusiastic to put their energy towards this issue. I’ve witnessed the synergistic effect that an impassioned, well-spoken group of parents has on a board meeting. Remember that we have strength in numbers.
Bring enough copies of the Moms Across America press release and the associated data for each school board member in hand. Consider bringing additional copies for anyone interested, and maybe even get fancy and print out a QR code people can scan to link them to the press release. Prior to the meeting, find out how the meetings are run and if you’ll be allowed to add the topic to the agenda. If able, speak without abandon. You will surely attract other likeminded folks to the cause.
I plan to attend our next school board meeting on November 8th.
3) If your school district is part of a zone or other centralized structure, seek to collaborate.
I intend to reach out and share this information with several local groups I’m connected to, groups full of people in my region wanting and willing to advocate. I will propose that they take the steps above within their local school districts. I also hope to find volunteers to represent each of the other districts in our zone so we can focus our efforts and act cohesively. Ideally, we’ll request a meeting with all nutrition department directors, a regional town hall of sorts. Whether they will be willing, I have no idea, but it’s worth a try.
4) Make healthier food choices NOW.
This is a huge topic that deserves its own complete piece. There are endless internet resources that outline how to make safer food choices regardless of budget. I want to be clear that I don’t judge families whose children eat school lunches, for whatever the reason. Really. My daughter occasionally did during the half of year she was in public kindergarten. They were a bit of a novelty and we had an infant, so it was an easy solution some mornings. The fact that I could not get her to stop drinking chocolate milk at school, which gave her horrible stomachaches, is another story. But I have endless empathy for all the parents out there and understand the circumstances that would lead to a child eating a meal(s) provided at school on a regular basis. However, as we all become informed about the completely subpar food quality, we must move toward making different choices. Knowledge is power, and we can no longer turn a blind eye.
Again, there are many resources out there, and here is one:
https://www.momsacrossamerica.com/what_can_we_do_about_toxic_school_lunches
5) Contact local officials and let them know you care about the results of this study.
I don’t put much faith in these types of campaigns, but participation can’t hurt. The link below is courtesy of Moms Across America.
Click Here to Send a Letter to Your Elected Officials Today
Getting studies like this paid for is no small feat. Most research these days is funded by the pharma industry, and although this is a major conflict of interest, it’s a partnership that is unknown or naively accepted by much of society. Pharma companies aren’t interested in supporting these type of studies, so it likely took a significant grassroots effort to fundraise and execute. We can all do our part to maximize the impact by ensuring it gets seen by people who are (in theory) in a position to do something about it, including parents and caregivers. Simply committing to sharing the data is not an agreement to embark on a long-term campaign. We can take this one step at a time – share the study, get the conversation started, and reassess. This is a bit of a litmus test to see which, if any, school districts are able and willing to make some improvements. Our children deserve the effort.
A heartfelt thank you to Moms Across America and Children’s Health Defense for bringing the study to fruition.
As this is Part 1 in a multi-part series, I will follow up in Part 2 to report my personal progress.
Much love,
Mikkel
Mikkel is a Functional Nutrition Counselor, Certified Quantum Coach℠, and founder of Conscious Design Healing Arts, an Aethers Reach Private Ministerial Association project. Email her at: mikkel@cdhealingarts.com.
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Excellent article. I really appreciate how you articulated this: "The bottom line is that modern society has been intentionally crafted to keep us beholden to the public education system. It serves as childcare for a large majority of us. The controllers-that-were created it this way to weaken our familial ties, keep as many adults as possible working and paying taxes, and indoctrinate our children to ensure they grow up to be even better programmable worker bees than their parents.
Under this structure we are destined to fail, and it’s not an easy feat to break away from the slave system that has been insidiously and meticulously designed to lure us in and entrap us."
A great related read is Toby Roger's recent substack:
https://tobyrogers.substack.com/p/toward-a-toxicological-theory-of
He expands on these ideas of how multiple toxicity challenges (including toxic, nutritionally empty food, and toxic pharma) contributes to social harm and social disintegration. And the impetus to break away from the slave system and create parallel alternatives.
I look forward to reading more of your writing.