Speech pathologist and teacher Mrs. Q ate school lunches every day for a year, foregoing the healthier foods she could prepare for herself at home for the pre-packaged, over-processed, and plastic-wrapped hot meals. Mrs. Q kept up her daily blog by posting pictures and also explaining the menu, because many items could not be deciphered from the photos. She did it all anonymously, not wanting to tarnish her school’s reputation or lose her job.
By October 2011 it was time for the great reveal – Mrs. Q stepped out of her dark lunchroom and into the spotlight! What started as small blog to simply show what was going on with school lunch became a storm of press attention and public discussion on the rising socio-political topic of school food.
As Mrs. Q revealed herself as Sarah Wu on Good Morning America and then again on Nightline, she also introduced her new book Fed Up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project: How One Anonymous Teacher Revealed the Truth About School Lunches --And How We Can Change Them!, an amazing account of her year of lunches along with resources and actions for parents, kids, teenagers, teachers, and chefs/dietitians.
At The Food Family Farming Foundation we are happy to be mentioned in the book a few times, both for the resources we provide on The Lunch Box and the salad bar grant with Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools. Chef Ann is also mentioned on a few occasions!
It is amazing what Sarah Wu was able to accomplish with her blog. She awakened many new advocates to the cause of healthy school food and by posting all those photos and being so objective, she allowed her followers to develop their own opinions. No one who read her blog could deny that there is a problem with serving those types of meals to students – especially because in some cases, school lunch might be the only meal that a student receives in a day.
So hairnets off to you, Mrs. Q! We loved your book and are so impressed with all the attention and activism you have brought to this topic that we are ever-passionate about!
Best of luck – and to all our Lunch Box blog readers – be sure to check out the book! Buy here: Fed Up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project: How One Anonymous Teacher Revealed the Truth About School Lunches --And How We Can Change Them!
There are plenty of great articles and interviews with Sarah. Here are a few of our favorites for you to check out:
ABC News Nightline
The Salt, NPR News Blog
And of course, the Good Morning America piece that started it all!
