What's the cost?

In the movie Supersize Me, Morgan Spurlock goes on a McDonald’s binge for thirty days and during those thirty days he can only eat McDonald’s nothing else. Throughout the movie, Spurlock interviews different people and programs about the food they are serving to children or to themselves. He visits public schools in Appleton, Wisconsin that provides cheap and low-grade meat by Sodekho to keep the cost down as well as many unhealthy options like, fries, potato chips, tater-tots, cookies and sodas. He visits an alternative school whose food is provided by Natural Ovens. They have chosen to provide healthy lunches for their students, salads, sandwiches, fruit, vegetables, water, no food dyes, no chemicals, and no sodas. Throughout the school’s process in changing from fried, fatty, and salty foods to healthier options they noticed a change in students’ behaviors. Money is such a large issue in public schools today that most believe providing a healthy option for students is out of reach and will blow the budget. But the amazing part about these new lunches was the cost was relatively same. So why do schools not provide healthier options for students? For years people have thought that fresh, healthy, and nutritious food was beyond their budget but that is not the case, as shown in this quote by the USDA below.

According to the USDA:

"Among the 69 forms of fruits and 85 forms of vegetables included in the analysis, more than half were estimated to cost 25 cents or less per serving in 1999, and 86 percent of all vegetables and 78 percent of all fruit cost less than 50 cents a serving. That's 127 different ways to eat a serving of fruits and vegetables for less than the price of a 3-ounce candy bar. In fact, consumers can meet the [Food Guide Pyramid] recommendations of three servings of fruits and four servings of vegetables daily for as little as 64 cents. Consumers trying to meet the 5-a-day challenge could do so for even less."

(http://www.obesitymyths.com/myth5.7.htm)