Please give peas a chance

A bill has been introduced at our esteemed Colorado Legislature that will formally establish a Colorado Food Systems Advisory Council, the better for the advancement of healthy food policies.

And to what do we denizens of Denver owe this piece of puff pastry? Is it because for the last hundred years the children have been fed a steady diet of chocolate milk, pizza and cheeseburgers? Isn't powdered milk plenty for school breakfasts and lunches? And what happened to good, old-fashioned Jello? Does Dr. William Cosby now lose his honorary doctorate because he fed his kids chocolate cake for breakfast?

The sponsors, state senators Bob Bacon and Marsha Looper, certainly have names that fit the bill. Mmm, bacon. I don't know if Looper is Fruity or not. Who's their press secretary, Homer Simpson?

The senators propose to streamline the food policy that's spread over all governmental and inter-governmental agencies, establishing a seventeen-member food systems advisory council. (I would love to be at the meeting when Twinkies and chocodiles are brought in -- with soy milk, of course.) This council will be charged with developing food-system recommendations regarding hunger and food access, etc. etc. In the meantime, here's my recommendation: Kids are hungry, so feed them in the cafeteria.

Kids don't care if their food comes from farm-to-table, they don't care what government body is sanctioning their lunch -- they only care what tastes good. If the bill sponsors only realized this and made an effort to have actual cooks with actual ingredients in the school kitchens, our kids could be eating healthy without even realizing it.