We're adults. We're the ones who should teach the kids what's good to eat. I don't think the government should ever regulate what we eat at home, but we're feeding them in school with tax dollars. Quite frankly, if my tax dollars are being spent to feed kids, I'd rather feed them better food.
Interpretation
Adults have a responsibility to teach children about healthy eating, especially when public funds are used for their meals.
In this quote, Tom Colicchio emphasizes the responsibility of adults to guide children in making healthy dietary choices. He argues against government regulation of home meals while advocating for better quality food in schools, suggesting that when taxpayer money is involved, the focus should be on providing nutritious options that contribute to children's well-being and education about food.
In practice
This quote can be used during a school board meeting when discussing lunch programs.
Most cooks try to learn by making dishes. Doesn't mean you can cook. It means you can make that dish. When you can cook is when you can go to a farmers market, buy a bunch of stuff, then go home and make something without looking at a recipe. Now you're cooking.
This is what people don't understand: obesity is a symptom of poverty. It's not a lifestyle choice where people are just eating and not exercising. It's because kids - and this is the problem with school lunch right now - are getting sugar, fat, empty calories - lots of calories - but no nutrition.
You can buy a box of low-fat macaroni and cheese made with powdered nonsense. I'm not worried if I'm using four different cheeses and it's high in fat. It's real food. That's what's more important.
Hunger is a political issue, and there are several things politically that are keeping people hungry - not funding food stamps adequately, not funding school lunches adequately. So there is a political solution to the problem of hunger.
I think the most effective way to run a kitchen is to teach, not to just yell.
Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.
Here’s a bumper sticker I’d like to see: “We are the proud parents of a child who’s self-esteem is sufficient that he doesn’t need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car."
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent.
A quality education grants us the ability to fight the war on ignorance and poverty.
Reading and writing and the preservation of language and its forms and the kind of eloquence and the kind of beauty which the language is capable of is terribly important to the human beings because this is connected to thought.
I write about all the horrible things that can happen to kids as a way of keeping those things from happening to mine. Write the books, spit three times over your shoulder and you're safe.
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