If you want it done right, cook it yourself
Pamela Cuthbert: The lineups are long, the prices unbeatably low, and the bounty of fresh and fragrant foods irresistable. Welcome to the Good Food Café, a new high school cafeteria in Toronto that its operator, FoodShare, claims can be a model for all Canadian high schools. The prototype is simple: create a short menu, mostly vegetables, with mains such as lasagna ($3), sides such as baked beans ($0.50), plus a few desserts, like a pear tart, that feature fruits. Make everything tasty and from scratch. Use a kitchen with stoves and ovens (no deep-fryer or microwave), and buy fresh, quality ingredients. Presto: you have a solution to the serious issue of school nutrition - and an olive branch in the fight between kids who want junk food and the parents and experts who recognize its effects.