How PS244 Became the 1st U.S. Public School to Institute a Vegetarian School Lunch Program

Today on the show I visit New York's PS244 – The Active Learning Elementary School — in Flushing, Queens to chat with science teacher and Director of the school's Wellness and Nutrition Program Christian Ledesma, as well as PS244's Principal Bob Groff to find out how PS244 became the first public school in the United States to institute a vegetarian school lunch. But what I pleasantly discovered went well beyond a simple cafeteria upgrade. PS244's revolutionary school lunch program is just the latest manifestation of a school founded on principals of wellness. It's fair to say that the very fibre of PS244's DNA is the promotion of holistic health for kids premised on the advancement of not just the mind, but that of the childrens' bodies & character. And it shows. I saw food being grown in hanging gardens along the playground fences. Kindergartners making their own granola bars and tasting blackberries in after-school programs. Even a tower garden in the school library. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the day-to-day goings on at this special institute. What PS244 has accomplished — seemingly impossible within the confines of a very large & bureaucratic urban school district — is beyond inspiring. And yet obviously doable when passion aligns with faith and hard work. The bar is set. And my hope is that this school's example will empower other teachers, administrators, principals, parents and students to take greater initiative in their own schools and districts and aspire for positive change. Special thanks to Amie Hamlin, Executive Director of the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food. It was her and this organization, working tirelessly for several years in alliance with the New York Department of Education, that made the impossible real. My desire was to include Amie in this interview, but she was not in NYC on the day of my visit, so my plan is to interview her for a future podcast episode. Stay tuned! Enjoy the show! Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Rich Roll?

  Welcome to episode 34 of the Rich Roll Podcast with Christian Ledesma and Bob Groff.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  The Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:23Rich Roll?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. My name is Rich Roll. This is the Rich Roll Podcast. Thanks for joining me today. I'm pretty excited about today's interview. A couple of weeks ago, when I was back in New York City, I had the very good fortune to be invited to make the trek from Manhattan out to Flushing, Queens, to visit PS244, which is a public elementary school out in Flushing. It's actually, they like to call themselves the Active Learning Elementary School. It was founded in 2008 with a mission to educate a child's mind, body, and character.

• 2:07Rich Roll?

  In other words, it's kind of a school where... The principles of wellness are interwoven into the constitution or the DNA, the very fabric of what this school is all about. And it's a unique creature within the construct of a gigantic public school system. It's not a charter school. It's not a private school. It's not a pilot program. It is a typical public school. Yes, it's a little bit new and they're trying some different and interesting and unique things there. They made headlines at the beginning of May, international headlines actually, for being the first public school, elementary school or otherwise, to institute a vegetarian

• 2:51Rich Roll?

  school lunch, which is a pretty maverick kind of paradigm busting, groundbreaking move. I'm sure there are some private schools out there with vegetarian or vegan school lunch options, but this is the first public school program to do so. Not to mention a public school within, like I said, the confines of a very, very large bureaucratic machine, which is the New York Department of Education. So it was no small feat and like I said, it captured headlines across the country, mostly for what they're feeding the kids at lunchtime. It's kind of a reaction to, you know, ketchup is a vegetable and, you know, getting crappy

• 3:34Rich Roll?

  sort of cheese pizza for lunch and the like. And what they're doing is not just vegetarian, but actually like whole food, plant-based options, like they're eating hummus and quinoa and all sorts of interesting, really healthy, delicious and nutritious lunches there. And I was curious, I'd read about the school, I tweeted about it when it happened and kind of came across my radar. And when I was going to New York, you know, I reached out, I said, I really want to come by and check you guys out and meet you guys and see what you're doing. And I was so glad that they took the time to sit down with me. And by they, I mean Christian Ledesma, who's a science teacher there and also the director

• 4:16Rich Roll?

  of health and nutrition, as well as Bob Groff, who is the principal of the school. So both of them sat down with me, we had a really amazing chat and kind of what came out of that is the realization, you know, I thought I was going to go there and just kind of learn about their lunch program and what I learned and what's not really in the articles or in the headlines, what's not really captured or conveyed. Adequately, in my opinion, is this idea that, like I said before, wellness is really part of this school's DNA. Every aspect of the school revolves around developing the child's, not just their mind, but their body and their character, like in the title of their school. And that translates beyond what's on their plate at lunchtime. I arrived

• 5:01Rich Roll?

  after school, so the kids were already out of session and most of the kids were gone, but they were running after-school programs. And Christian gave me a little tour, and I walked into a classroom where some kindergartners were doing a blackberry tasting and sharing their thoughts and opinions about what they thought it tasted like and whether they liked it or not. And we walked down the hall and went into another classroom, and I think they were first graders, maybe kindergartners also, were making their own granola bars. And then in the back, out in the playground, you know, this is on a city block, so it's not like they're on some pastoral landscape out in the countryside. They're in the middle of the city in Flushing. And on the blacktop, along the fences, were hanging gardens, like

• 5:45Rich Roll?

  these pouches where they're growing their own food. And in the library, they have a tower garden where they're growing, you know, they're growing greens in there. And it's pretty unique, and it was really, really cool. So it was an honor to sit down with Christian and with Bob. And also, what I wanted to do was also have a woman called Amy Hamlin join us for the interview. Unfortunately, she was not in the city on the day of the interview, and I'm hoping to record an interview with her later. And she's a key, or if not the key, critical player in how this school launch evolved at this school. She's the executive director of an organization called the New York Coalition for Healthy School

• 6:30Rich Roll?

  Food. And that's the group that really made this happen. And they've been working with PS244 for years, and they work with other schools, obviously, as well, to implement these healthy programs for kids. So this was a big victory for that organization, New York Coalition. Coalition for Healthy School Food and Amy Hamlin was really the one who kind of spearheaded it and you know made it her sort of passion project and sort of babied and fostered it and tirelessly worked to make it happen. And she would have been a great addition to this interview, but like I said, she wasn't around and I've gone back and forth with her on email. I'm going to try to do a Skype interview with her because I really want to get her perspective on all of this, but I also didn't want to wait too long. I wanted to get this

• 7:15Rich Roll?

  interview up and maybe spend more time with Amy on a separate episode. So look for that in the future. Before we get into it, a couple ways to link up with these guys and I'll put this in the show notes as well, but if you want to find out more about what's going on at PS244, you can follow them on Twitter. They're at PS244Q and their website is PS244Q.org. Also, if you want to learn about their kind of fitness and nutrition, educational programs, there's a site called fan4kids.org. So that's fan, the number four, kids.org. And it's also

• 7:56Rich Roll?

  important to highlight where you can learn more about the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food. They're on Twitter as well. It's at Healthy School Food, all one word. And on Facebook, they're Good School Food. And their website is HealthySchoolFood.org. So check all of that good stuff out. Like I said, I'll put that in the show notes as well. Father's Day is coming up and so far be it from me to pitch my own book, Finding Ultra, which just came out in paperback, makes it great and cheap. Father's Day gift, why not, right? I think last time I checked, it was like 12 bucks on Amazon, which is no big deal. It's like the price of one blueprint juice at Whole Foods.

• 8:39Rich Roll?

  So check that out. And if you are going to check it out on Amazon, make sure you click through the Amazon banner ad on richroll.com. It's on the podcast page or on the blog page. You'll see it on the right-hand margin, just a little black banner ad for Amazon. Click that, takes you to Amazon, pick up the paperback, pick up the audiobook, the hardcover, or pick up, if you don't want to buy my book, or you already bought it, and you're going to get something on Amazon anyway, for Father's Day or otherwise, use the banner ad, and it's a great way to support the show. Doesn't cost you a cent extra, but it throws a few nickels in our bucket and helps keep the bandwidth flowing and supports us in what we're doing,

• 9:20Rich Roll?

  which is great. And a lot of you guys are doing it out there. I check the purchases every once in a while, and it's so heartwarming to see people using the banner ad to support the show. And every little bit adds up. If you're feeling extra generous, feel like you've gotten a lot out of this content and this program, you can also donate. There's a donate button on richroll.com. You can subscribe to the podcast by throwing us a couple bucks every week or every month, or you can do a one-time donation. It's up to you. But hey, you don't have to if you don't want to. I appreciate all the donations, for sure. It's been amazing. I can't believe how many people have donated, you know, money,

• 10:02Rich Roll?

  hard-earned money out of their pocket to support what we're doing. And it means a ton to me. And it helps us keep the show free, because the show will always be free. It should always be free. And I love doing it. But it does take a lot of time. And I'm trying to keep the quality high. So like I said on an earlier episode, I'm looking to kind of take the production level, the production quality to the next level. I'm going to be hiring a producer and looking for some studio space and kind of notching it up a little bit. And that stuff costs money. So if you want to... Help me, help you, or help me bring great guests to you, then yeah, man,

• 10:46Rich Roll?

  the banner ad, Finding Ultra, Cookbook, donations, whatever you want to do. All right, enough, enough of that. I'm getting tired of my own voice. We got a long interview for you today. These guys are great, and you will realize that I am not a professional broadcaster, because when I was listening to this and kind of previewing it, I realized that, you know, I'm doing the interview with both Christian and Bob at the same time. And from time to time, I should have chimed in to identify, you know, who was speaking, whether it was Christian or Bob. And I didn't really do that. So they're both on the same page. And I think you'll get an idea of who's who on your own. But my apologies for not being more clear about that.

• 11:29Rich Roll?

  Nonetheless, these guys are bringing some great information to you. I'm completely inspired by what they're doing at this school. It is a model for the next generation, for our new generation. And my hope and my dream is that other educators out there will listen to this, will hear what they're doing, will become inspired, and will start to take actions to implement changes within their own schools and school systems to kind of get things moving in the right direction when it comes to wellness. You know, with budgetary cuts and consolidations and sort of the political issues that come into play in school districts across the nation,

• 12:12Rich Roll?

  it's very, very difficult to implement even the tiniest change. And the school lunch programs are a very hot-button issue. There's a lot of money at play. There's a lot of lobbying and political interests that come in, that factor into the decisions that get made about the meals that are served to the kids. And so, like I said, even the slightest, most incremental change in a positive way, you know, on behalf of the kids or what have you, is very, very challenging to implement. And so my hats are off to these guys for getting it done. And if they can do it, other schools can too. So this is a call to action.

• 12:57Rich Roll?

  So, check it out, listen, the entire ladies and gentlemen, Christian Ledesma and Bob Roth from PS244 in Queens.

• 13:38Rich Roll?

  Christian just gave me a tour of the school. It's already, school's already out, but there's some after-school programs going on and I walked into a classroom where about, what would you say, eight or 10, were they kindergartners?

• 13:54Speaker 02

  10 kindergartners.

• 13:55Rich Roll?

  10 kindergartners are doing a tasting, they're tasting blackberries and sharing their feelings.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  Completely unstaged, by the way.

• 14:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, completely, and then I walked into another classroom and they're making granola bars. So what is going on here?

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Welcome to our school.

• 14:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, this is amazing. You know, you guys, I'm really happy to be here. You know, as soon as I read this story, I read the New York, I think the first story I read was the one in the New York Post and then a couple other ones and I saw the, I saw the story go national and then kind of ripple out and you guys have created quite a seismic effect with this new vegetarian school lunch program that you've recently instituted. When did it start, like, May 1st?

• 14:41Speaker 03

  The program itself as full vegetarian started in beginning of January.

• 14:47Rich Roll?

  Oh, I see.

• 14:48Speaker 03

  So we had some time, we were working with some of the recipes. Doing some adjustments and then decided to announce in May when offices of school foods and everybody was ready.

• 15:00Rich Roll?

  Right. And this was sort of a, correct me if I'm wrong, but kind of a, a natural progression of your collaboration with the New York Coalition for Healthy Schools. Is that the proper name of the organization?

• 15:15Speaker 03

  The New York Coalition for Healthy School Food.

• 15:17Rich Roll?

  Right, exactly. And so, so you've been working with them for quite a while now, right?

• 15:21Speaker 03

  For five years since we started the school.

• 15:23Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. And so, how did that begin? Like to, you know, explain to me the nature of that relationship and kind of how it led to this point of, you know, you instituting this, this really like maverick school lunch program.

• 15:36Speaker 03

  So, this is our fifth year as a school. We had gotten together, two of us, Christian and I, gotten together with another teacher who is now our assistant principal, Tu Harris, and the former principal, Ivan Tolentino, we had all gotten together and said, "We want to put together a school that has an opportunity to fight childhood obesity, fight childhood early onset diabetes." And we had planned on being in the South Bronx where this is very prevalent.

• 16:07Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:08Speaker 03

  The city had decided we were going to move into Flushing, but we took that idea and brought it with us to say, "Health and nutrition is going to be a big part of what we do on a regular basis." We had a prior experience with New York Coalition for Healthy School Food and our organization called Fitness and Nutrition for Kids, Fan for Kids, and we brought them with us to help us work on this journey, to help us create a school that not only is excelling academically, but helps us on a path towards better nutrition and health understanding. Because we had thought that it would be a perfect match.

• 16:47Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:48Speaker 03

  We believe that eating healthy and living a healthy life helps you better academically, as well as it does in your outside of school life.

• 16:58Rich Roll?

  It's so elementary and yet seemingly so far out of reach for so many schools. So, so this was really embedded in the culture and the constitution of this school from, from the outset. It wasn't like you came into a school and changed everything. This was, you know, the founding principles of a, of a new school within the current existing system, right?

• 17:21Speaker 03

  Right.

• 17:22Rich Roll?

  And, sorry, go ahead. No, no, no, go.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  I was saying because the mission of the school was to provide a health education, one of the things that we were able to do is when we hired teachers, we're able to make sure that they are on board with the mission. So the buy-in is already there. And you've met some of the teachers now. They have their own health and wellness missions individually. So they're half marathoners, they're runners, they're yogis.

• 17:49Rich Roll?

  It's incredible, right? So how did this begin? I mean, you know, whose idea was it to sort of spearhead this school from the outset? I mean, how did, I guess what I'm asking at really in a more general sense is,

• 18:06Rich Roll?

  you know, I mean, my perspective is really from LAUSD in Los Angeles and the school districts where I live. And I've just noticed, you know, how difficult it is to do anything different or kind of outside the box politically, you know, for a whole variety of reasons. So, you know, what was it you think that allowed you to kind of get a crack in the door and start to kind of shift the paradigm a little bit?

• 18:32Speaker 03

  Well, I'll tell you that this has certainly been a long time in the making. You know, it is our fifth year as a school. It's something we've been working on for six years.

• 18:43Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 18:43Speaker 03

  Before with the school even started, we were working on our partnerships. Newark Coalition for Healthy School Foods, Fan for Kids. We had them ready to go with us five years ago when we opened. And for the first few years, first two years or so, we're just trying to get ourselves up and running as a new school. Brand new from the start. And it wasn't until, I think it was year three, that Christian started working with some of the kids and...

• 19:15Speaker 03

  Working with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation to then get rid of chocolate milk.

• 19:20Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:21Speaker 03

  And I kind of view that as one of our big starting points towards this revolution of sorts.

• 19:28Rich Roll?

  But chocolate milk is the ultimate recovery drink. Come on, you guys. You've seen the ads, right?

• 19:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, there's also chocolate soy milk for books out there. The, yeah, part of, and it came from the kids, which I think was, was the amazing part of that story. Our Fan for Kids instructor was teaching the kids about excess sugar intake and high fructose corn syrup in, in products. And when one day at lunch, they were reading the label on their carton of milk, and they realized how much sugar the chocolate milk had, and that it also had high fructose corn syrup in the ingredients. So they went to the principal directly and said, "We shouldn't be drinking this."

• 20:07Rich Roll?

  There's something wrong with this equation. What are you doing here? You're breeding mutants.

• 20:11Speaker 03

  Well, the, the way we look at this, and I think it's an understanding that may not have been clear in all of the ads, not ads, but all the articles that have come out, is this is what we're teaching on a regular basis. This is not something new for us that we're just throwing a vegetarian menu out. It's about how we're educating our kids on a regular basis. So they have fitness and nutrition classes constantly. Our, with the program that we have is in each class gets a nutrition class every week. They're doing fitness on a regular basis in physical education. They're having recess every day.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  The teachers are involved and are invested, so are teaching the kids about making healthy choices.

• 20:59Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  So it's really about the type of teaching that we're doing that involves so many aspects of their day.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  To teach them how to live healthier lives and teach them how to make choices that they might not otherwise make.

• 21:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think that's a really important point. It's about creating a culture that becomes embedded in who these kids are. I mean, I think if you, and I, you know, in reading the articles, that didn't really come across, right? It's sort of like, oh, one day you guys woke up and decided to, you know, do this thing with the school lunches. And I'm not so sure that how that would, you know, if you didn't have the culture that you had here where, you know, healthy living and eating and teaching kids about nutrition and fitness and developing these kind of habits and independent thinking didn't exist and just slapping a vegetarian school lunch on top of a typical school where that's not part of the culture, you know, I'm not so sure that would work, at least not yet, right? So.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Definitely need the buy-in on all levels.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  And I think when you asked about the paradigm shift, where does it begin? It obviously began from the ground, but I think we also happen to be in a very unique place at a unique time when you have our mayor, who for good or bad, has tried to fight some of the war on the obesity epidemic through banning of the large sodas or the butter intake or the salt intake. So we happen to be in this very unique place where our mission kind of gels with everything that's happening in the city, too.

• 22:41Speaker 03

  Which was certainly not intentional at the time, but it's kind of worked out that way.

• 22:45Rich Roll?

  Well, it's indicative of kind of what's going on right now. You know, I mean, I think they're, they're sort of cousins in some regard, you know, Bloomberg's policies and what you guys are doing, but they're also distinct. I mean, you have a guy who's kind of trying to legislate habits and, you know, I get it, it's, it makes people talk about these issues, which I think is super important and it's kind of in the consciousness now in a way that it wasn't a couple of years ago. Whereas you guys are, you know, you're doing it differently. You're doing it organically and, you know, taking kids at a very young age where they're impressionable and they're forming these habits that are going to be with them their whole lives and, and, and teaching them so that they can be empowered to make their own best decision, right?

• 23:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, has the mayor been out here?

• 23:32Speaker 03

  He's not.

• 23:33Rich Roll?

  You gotta get him out here.

• 23:34Speaker 03

  We would love to have him.

• 23:35Rich Roll?

  He's a pulpit stop for him, you know what I mean? There's a lot of political capital he could be gaining by making an appearance there, I would think.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  We had the chancellor in a few weeks ago and that was great. He was very good with the kids and had lunch with us and the kids and talked about his triathlon experience and his running experience. So that worked really well. We would love to have the mayor in, we would love to have Michelle Obama in, we'd love to have Bill Clinton in. We have a relationship with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, which is partially funded from Bill Clinton Foundation. So, we're looking for an opportunity to disseminate our message further.

• 24:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's gonna happen. I think it's gonna happen. So I think it's also important to point out that you guys are, uh, it's, this is not like a charter school or some kind of special school, right? You're just straight up, you know, straight up public school. So, kids that live in this area, every kid, you know, elementary school attends here, right?

• 24:37Speaker 03

  So there is a, uh, one distinction to make.

• 24:41Speaker 03

  Our school is slightly different from some others because we're not what's called a zone school. So it's not a necessity that everybody from this geographic area has to come here. Instead, kids and their families apply to come here and they get in through a lottery. Because we have simply, there's far too many kids that want to come, we don't have space for. So, example being, we have thirty-six seats for a pre-k, we have four hundred applicants. Four hundred and fifty applicants for a hundred seats in kindergarten.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  The parents make the choice to put in the application. And which is not always the case for for an area zoned school.

• 25:27Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:27Speaker 03

  But nearly all of our kids come from the direct area.

• 25:31Rich Roll?

  Right. And are there other schools doing what you're doing right now who are working with New York's New York Coalition for Healthy School Food? I mean, are is this going to start springing up in other neighborhoods in New York or what's going on there?

• 25:46Speaker 02

  The the former charter school we worked at was Future Leaders Institute in Harlem. And the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food was already there, working with them. You'd have to ask Amy for exact numbers for for New York City. But in terms of a health focus for schools, we partner with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation. And I think they said at last count, they had 17,000 schools across the nation, working within their framework to improve the health of their schools. So we're not the only ones out there. I think I think we're we're the only ones making the news because of our particular lunch program.

• 26:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Everybody's working on it in some way.

• 26:23Rich Roll?

  Right. And let's talk about the lunch. So what are these kids now eating?

• 26:27Speaker 03

  Sure, this is.

• 26:28Rich Roll?

  Just dry lettuce, right? That's it?

• 26:31Speaker 03

  This is definitely the one of the high points of what we're doing and what is certainly making the news at the moment. But it's been about what we've worked towards. So some of the menu items, for instance, there's a black bean quesadilla with cheddar cheese and a salsa. That was the one that came out in the news. That was the the big menu item. Last week was the first time the the kids have had falafel, which went over really well. There's been a a variety of variations on trying to work with tofu. That's one item, menu item, that they're still trying to work out what's the best seasoning for.

• 27:12Rich Roll?

  Right, I read about they didn't the kids didn't like the big cubes. So you're making them smaller cubes with a certain kind of sauce on it or something like that.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  And there's opportunities to make that change. We've been the official vegetarian test kitchen for New York City for about a year and a half. So we'll have on occasion the head chef for the city come in and make certain vegetarian recipes that we can try with staff or we can try with kids.

• 27:41Rich Roll?

  Right, the head chef for the city schools.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  Right, right. And this is something that, again, it took a long time to get to that point and a lot of pushing and a lot of back and forth and because we wanted it so badly to provide the healthiest options possible.

• 27:59Rich Roll?

  Right, so let's talk about the pushing. I mean, there had to be a political battlefield over this, you know, I mean, it couldn't have been easy, you know, because I know, you know, I remember when Jamie Oliver had his Food Revolution show a couple of years ago and the first season he was in Pennsylvania and did amazing work with the school system there. And I believe, if my memory is correct, that they wanted to do a second season in Los Angeles and there was just too much political, you know, sort of upheaval, upheaval over the whole thing and they weren't able to make it happen. And when you have these, you know, big food companies that are making a lot of money

• 28:40Rich Roll?

  off the foods that they're supplying to public school systems, you know, government organizations, you know, they have their lobbyists and whatnot, that, you know, that's got to be an uphill battle.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  And one of the hardest things for us in making these changes is that we have a school district in New York City that takes care of 1.1 million children. So the Office of School Food basically procures the food for 1.1 million children. And so when you have this one school with a couple of hundred kids saying, we'd like to do something.

• 29:12Rich Roll?

  They're going to fuck the system, right.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  They, the ordering systems have to change. So it wasn't, it wasn't something that was done overnight, but, you know, honestly, they've been working with us. So it's been, we've been able to do it because the Office of School Food has also been.

• 29:31Rich Roll?

  Do you think that's a top-down thing because of where Bloomberg's coming from? Or?

• 29:36Speaker 03

  I actually, I don't think that it comes from Bloomberg himself, but it's been a part of the Office of School Foods and.

• 29:46Speaker 03

  They could see it as an opportunity. Now, we still all have to go by the USDA guidelines. And that's something that they monitor very closely in the Office of School Foods. Making sure that there's a correct amount of protein in the beans that are served or in the falafel. So that type of oversight is a big deal for the Office of School Foods.

• 30:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 30:08Speaker 03

  And any menu item has to get approved through them. But the Office of School Foods was working with us towards creating these healthier options.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  And you're also dealing with a system that has somewhere between a dollar and a dollar fifty per lunch to work with.

• 30:27Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  So one of the great things that the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food does, they basically create recipes within that cost range using materials or using foods and ingredients that are already being ordered by the Office of School Food. So we were able to create these recipes using basically stuff that we're already using.

• 30:49Rich Roll?

  Right, so it didn't require getting completely new vendors and all of that. It's sourcing different kinds of foods from the vendors that are already providing.

• 30:57Speaker 02

  Right, and I think that made it easier for the Office of School Food to be on board, too.

• 31:02Rich Roll?

  And so what do the kids think? How are they doing?

• 31:06Speaker 03

  You could ask any of our kids at lunchtime how they feel about it. And we've certainly had a lot of opportunities for that to happen. Lots of media come in, lots of Vegetarian Times was in last week. We've had new stations from all over ask that question. And the kids will tell you that they're really excited about the options that they're provided. Now, you will hear kids say, you know, chicken nuggets was one of my favorites.

• 31:39Rich Roll?

  Right, well, kids are kids, you know.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  Sure, and for me to say that that doesn't happen, you know, you could call me a liar.

• 31:46Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 31:46Speaker 03

  But we really feel strongly that the kids have developed an understanding of why it is this way, and they were part of the process. So.

• 32:01Speaker 03

  I go back to tofu, but the tofu was one where they had an opportunity to give feedback and say what they liked and what they didn't like, and we have to be responsive to that.

• 32:11Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:12Speaker 03

  In order for this to be successful and continue to be successful, we have to be open to the kids' feedback because they're the ones that are eating the food.

• 32:19Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  So, something like the lo mein that's served, they absolutely love it. The falafel is new for them, but they were really interested in trying something new. We get kids that will cheer when there's hummus in the salad bar. Never expected hummus to be a huge hit, but it is.

• 32:41Rich Roll?

  That's amazing.

• 32:42Speaker 03

  So, you know, we're being responsive to what they are giving us feedback about, too.

• 32:49Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  And making adjustments where necessary.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  There is also another neat story that came out of our kitchen with Ms. Malini, our head cook. She's actually a parent.

• 32:58Rich Roll?

  Right, I'd read that. I was gonna ask you about that.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  And she decided she wanted to try a recipe one day, a curried chickpea recipe. The kids loved it. It was just so good. And word went up that this was a good recipe, to the point where now the city uses her recipe across the city.

• 33:18Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  And it's called Malini's Curried Chickpeas on the citywide menu.

• 33:22Rich Roll?

  Ah, that's amazing. And was she the cook before instituting this policy, or did you have to bring in her afterwards to kind of deal with the new kind of parameters?

• 33:34Speaker 03

  It's been an interesting turn of events. So, we had been working on doing two days a week vegetarian. About two years ago, we had started to try and do that. Last January, we got a new food service manager, and we met with the food service manager and said, "Look, this is what we're working on. We want to increase to three days a week vegetarian. We want to increase to four days a week vegetarian."

• 34:03Speaker 03

  And it was getting her buy-in that was a big first step. We sat down with her then and said, well, let's look at the staff that we have in the kitchen currently. And we made some decisions that we need to make some changes in the kitchen staff. So that because look, making these type of meals does take some more time and effort. There's more cooking involved than heating. So we had to bring in a few people that were really into the message and wanted to be a part of something special. So we brought in three new other

• 34:42Speaker 03

  kitchen staff to turn over the kitchen completely within six months. And within that timeframe, our recipes really took a big change. So from January 2012 to June 2012 was a huge transformation for us. And it was a big part of that is to do with the personnel that was now in the kitchen.

• 35:08Rich Roll?

  Right, creating new systems that can function smoothly, right?

• 35:12Speaker 02

  They work so hard down there and they take pride in their work. You can tell, you can tell in the quality of the food.

• 35:18Rich Roll?

  Right. And so I guess, you know, trying to kind of get into the brains of some people that might be listening to this, you know, I can hear the questions swirling around like, why, why vegetarian? Why not just, you know, paleo or just get rid of the sodas or, you know, you guys are trying to, who's going to feel this one? You know, like, what was the decision process that arrived at, you know, vegetarian as the, as the plan?

• 35:48Speaker 02

  Okay, I mean, I could take this one, sure.

• 35:50Speaker 03

  We can go back and forth here.

• 35:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, from, from my own individual perspective, whether, whether we're talking paleo or, or vegetarian, I think there's a lot that, that various sides have in common and to move towards more whole foods, higher quality foods, less processed foods. And so when we're looking at the meat being offered.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  By our school food program in New York City, a lot of it is processed meat. I mean, we all saw the the pink slime stuff in the

• 36:23Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  in the news. We don't know exactly what grade the meat is all the time. So when we're when we're going for the healthiest option, the healthiest option happens to be the the whole food, plant based option.

• 36:36Rich Roll?

  Right. Right, so it's really, I mean, vegetarian is this sort of easy term that encapsulates it. But it's really, it's more than just not eating meat. It's about getting rid of the processed foods and the, you know, the foods with the chemicals and the and the extra sugar and all that kind of stuff.

• 36:52Speaker 03

  And I'll jump in to support Christian's statement on this because it was really never intended to be about being vegetarian school. We didn't set out five years ago to be a vegetarian school. We set out to educate our kids on what making healthy choices is, what it means, what it means to your families, and to teach kids how to live a healthy lifestyle. And so for us, it was always about what are the healthiest options that we can provide kids? And we look at it in breakfast, we could look at it in lunch. We look at the snack policy across the city. And maybe I shouldn't say it, but I will anyway.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  The snack policy in the city is something that we've pushed back on.

• 37:42Rich Roll?

  What is the snack policy?

• 37:44Speaker 03

  The the approved list of snacks range from Oreos and Doritos to Sun Chips and beyond. And so for us, we've been trying to work on altering what that policy is.

• 38:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  So we've had some back and forth conversations with the Department of Health and

• 38:09Speaker 03

  What happens when kids bring in chocolate milk or cookies? It's that it's working towards a big sugar shock and then the kids end up crashing.

• 38:22Rich Roll?

  In the crush, right. So, you know, not that you're conducting some kind of double-blind study here, but obviously just sort of, you know, observing behaviorally and in terms of academic performance. I mean, have you seen a shift already? Or, I mean, already these kids are way ahead of every other kid just because of the curriculum that you had before the school lunch was shifted. But, you know, what kind of changes have you seen or, or in, you know, in comparison to what you might see at a typical New York elementary school?

• 38:55Speaker 03

  Well, we'll, we'll say a few things. One, to start with health. With FAN for Kids, and it's something they're doing right now, actually, too. We do assess their BMI at the beginning of the year and the end of the year. So from 2011 to 2012, 66.1% of our kids showed a significant reduction in BMI.

• 39:19Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 39:21Speaker 03

  And the numbers were pretty clear as to what the change in health was with those kids. Christian's bringing over the numbers to, to look at. In addition, in terms of no significant movement, we only saw 15% of the kids with what was defined as no significant movement.

• 39:42Rich Roll?

  And so- In terms of BMI, you mean?

• 39:45Speaker 03

  In terms of BMI. And the numbers were just so clear. You can kind of draw a connection between what's happening with our health and nutrition and our test results. You know, that we certainly haven't done a study that can point that out directly, but-

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Last year, we had 92% of our kids get threes and fours on the ELA. 86% get threes and fours on math, far ahead of the area averages.

• 40:19Rich Roll?

  What is the ELA and what is that scale?

• 40:21Speaker 03

  It's a scale out of four, one, two, three, or four. And in comparison to the rest of the city, there was a significant difference.

• 40:33Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 40:34Speaker 03

  We were rated the number four early childhood school in the city.

• 40:38Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 40:39Speaker 03

  At an A on our progress report. The reviews that come back are consistently positive for our building. And we believe that there's a significant portion of that has to do with how we're teaching kids to live healthy lives.

• 40:55Speaker 02

  And our attendance rates are incredible, too. Our attendance rates, I think, across the city range in the 88 to 90%.

• 41:06Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  And range, and we consistently have 96 to 98% attendance rates. One of our second grade classes had the highest attendance rate last month with a 99 point something percent.

• 41:19Speaker 03

  99.1 for a class for a month.

• 41:22Rich Roll?

  Wow. What are the citywide stats for attendance and for BMI? I mean, do you have, can you compare your stats to what the averages are across the rest of New York?

• 41:32Speaker 02

  In terms of BMI, I don't know if we've gone into that yet. Family for Kids, with the programs that they work with in the city, have definitely said that we have surpassed the schools that they work with in the city. And in terms of attendance rate, we're a good 8...

• 41:50Speaker 03

  6, 7, 8%.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  Percentage points above the rest of the city.

• 42:04Rich Roll?

  You know, what's next? Like, where are you taking this? Like, you know, what's... Now you've achieved this. I mean, it's a monumental feat. It's amazing. You know, I'm walking around the school just looking at, you know, looking at the kids and seeing what you guys are doing. And it's, it's no small thing. You know what I mean? It's really inspiring. And it sounds so trite to say, "Oh, you know, kids are the future." And, you know, invest in kids and, and that kind of thing. But, um, but it's true. And you guys are doing it in a, in a really fundamental way. Uh, you know, this is the way, this is the way it should be at every school. Unfortunately, that's not, uh, that's not the case. But I'm interested to hear, like, you know, what are some of the things that, you know, you, that you're not doing now that you would like to see implemented over the next couple

• 42:49Rich Roll?

  of years?

• 42:51Speaker 03

  You want to start? I can jump in right after.

• 42:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I mean, one of the things, as the wellness coordinator of the school, I'd like to connect to the schools in the neighborhood and, and see what we can do to help them out in terms of getting their lunch programs overhauled as well. Because one of the things that, that happens, we're pre-K to third grade school. And our kids then go on to fourth and fifth grade at a local neighborhood school where this isn't happening.

• 43:16Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  And so we've seen some of our fourth graders come back with huge bags of potato chips. Something you would not see here.

• 43:23Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  And, and we say, we'll ask them, you know, "What's that about?" And they say, "Well, it's allowed at our school." And, and they're, they've gone through half a huge bag of potato chips in, in a day.

• 43:33Rich Roll?

  They're relapsing.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, in some ways, we're hoping that what we teach them here, when they get older and can make more of their own food choices, that it will have stuck with them. I mean, we have kids who, who love kale and they're six, seven, eight years old. Uh, I didn't get introduced to kale until I was 24, so...

• 43:53Rich Roll?

  I didn't get introduced to it until I was 40.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Right. So, in, in that sense, we're hoping there's, the, the building blocks are there. But in terms of, uh, making sure that this continues in their lifetime, or at least in their, in their academic careers, we definitely want to make that connection with the local schools and, and make sure that...

• 44:14Speaker 02

  You know, they're doing right by the kids in terms of the school.

• 44:17Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah, it would seem like the logical next step would be to, you know, the next school in line to kind of start implementing these kind of programs would be the next school these kids are matriculating to so that they can get a consistent message throughout their youth, right?

• 44:31Speaker 03

  And one of the difficulties for us is that our kids go to three or four area schools, so they don't funnel into one school that we could work with directly on this. But it's certainly an aspect that we've talked to the Office of School Foods and Wellness Programs about trying to create that opportunity. Some of the other things that we very much still want to do, we have a partnership with the Queens Botanical Gardens, and they're coming in actually next week to help us redo our garden space. Not a very big space, but we're hoping to be starting to plant cherry tomatoes and green beans and thyme and rosemary, basil.

• 45:16Speaker 03

  So we want to have our kids not only have an opportunity to grow these things, but then use them in the kitchen and in their own food tastings. We want to provide them more opportunities to get outside and experience exercise in a different way. We want to build partnerships with the Mets, with the Red Bulls, for instance, and teach them about the exercise end of it. And I guess it kind of sounds like I'm making a pitch here, but maybe I am too.

• 45:52Rich Roll?

  No, it's great. Yeah, I know in San Francisco, there's the, in East Palo Alto, which is a lower-income town, there's the San Francisco 49ers Academy where the football franchise has literally kind of sponsored this school and the players get involved. And it seems like that would be a great kind of fit for what you guys are doing with a local professional franchise.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  Absolutely. I think it, Citi Field is almost throwing rock distance away from us. So the Mets would kind of be a natural partner for us if we could have that opportunity. And to have the kids, the kids are going up, actually our third graders are going to an animal sanctuary in the Catskills in a few weeks that. They offered to bring our kids up when they heard the story. So that kind of experience is something completely new to our kids that often don't get out of the neighborhood. So we want them to experience what we're talking about outside of this area and have it here, too.

• 46:56Speaker 03

  Bring people in that can talk about what it means to live a healthy lifestyle. Show them an eco-friendly way to do it, too. Get rid of styrofoam trays in our kitchen.

• 47:06Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 47:07Speaker 03

  That's still there that we would love to get rid of. I know the city's been talking about it. To do that, we need some outside help also. But these are all things that we're working towards. So there's still a lot more for us to do.

• 47:21Rich Roll?

  Well, a couple of things. I mean, first of all, in terms of kind of what you're doing right now, I mean, do you bring in, I mean, how integrated are the parents in what's going on here? Because, you know, obviously, if you're doing one thing here and something else is happening at home dietarily or what have you, there's a disconnect.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  Our Fan for Kids program, the instructor, has a few workshops throughout the year where they do healthy eating workshops. And she'll basically go over some ways that you can make smoothies and healthy snacks at home, things that are very quick and simple, but healthier options than they processed food from a bag.

• 47:59Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 48:00Speaker 02

  And we also have a family dinner night that the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food puts on with the Office of School Food. And basically, they cook up the meals that they serve the kids, and then they'll do something new to try out. And then we have, we invite all the families from the school. This past week, we had our family dinner night. We had 150 to 200 people show up. And they get to taste the food that their kids are eating. And so they get to taste it. I mean, that's a huge part of it because then they can talk to their kids about it. They can try it at home. A lot of them had tried falafel for the first time last week.

• 48:41Speaker 02

  And now they know, going out into the world, that there's this really great chickpea thing that you can eat.

• 48:48Rich Roll?

  Super creamy. And Bob, do you have, I mean, are there other school principals that are calling you saying, you know, what are you doing here? I want to learn about this. Can I come and visit? Or do you have, it would seem like you should have like open house night for school administrators across the country to come and like see what you guys are doing here, you know?

• 49:06Speaker 03

  That's a great idea. I will, I'll tell you before I open this up.

• 49:11Rich Roll?

  Or the other principals call you and go, what are you doing? You're making me look bad.

• 49:15Speaker 03

  Well, first of all, I'll say that anybody that's, that's out there listening as a principal, if you do want to get in contact with us, we're open to having that conversation. Christian and I have done a lot of outreach and talked to a whole bunch of people in the last couple of weeks about trying to help and just give ideas. Sometimes we can help, sometimes we can't. Certainly with New York City, we have more in-depth knowledge than the phone call we got, or the email we got from Argentina asking us how to help. That's a little tough for us.

• 49:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 49:48Speaker 03

  But I, we had a principal who's opening up a school next year, come to family dinner night and then spend an hour and a half with us the next day, asking questions. How did you do this? What was the procedure? Who did you talk to? Giving her specific names and places to contact in order to work on it. And it's the same message whenever we do talk to somebody like that. It's, this is not something that you jump into by any means. You need to have the buy-in of all of your community in order to even start the process.

• 50:23Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 50:24Speaker 03

  So, the menu that we have is open to the whole city, but the school has to make a choice and have the buy-in of the people in the building to start that process. Students. Students. Among them.

• 50:39Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  But we have had some of those people come to us, but we're open for having more conversations.

• 50:47Rich Roll?

  And if somebody wants to get in touch with you for that purpose, is there, why don't you tell me how they can do that? Through, is it a website, through the website?

• 50:56Speaker 02

  We're actually working on revamping our website to make it easier for people to find us, but we have our school email address, tales, that's T-A-L-E-S dot P-S-two-four-four-Q at gmail dot com.

• 51:12Rich Roll?

  And I'll put that in the show notes for people that are listening.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  And we also have a Twitter account, which we actually started a couple of weeks ago when this all happened. I'm still learning how to do it, but getting better. At P-S-two-four-four-Q.

• 51:24Rich Roll?

  Isn't there another one that's, because I tweeted it.

• 51:28Speaker 02

  Mr. L. Science.

• 51:29Rich Roll?

  There you go, that's you, right on. Okay, cool, so yeah, and I'll put that in the show notes, too. And getting back to what you were saying about growing your own food, Christian took me, you know, when he was giving me the tour, he took me outside and you guys are already growing tons of stuff out there. I took a picture and I'll put that in the show notes as well. I mean, what are some of the things you're growing out there right now? And, you know, how are the, like, what is the process of involving the kids in that?

• 51:55Speaker 02

  One of our, one of our teachers got a grant through Woolly Pockets Program.

• 52:00Rich Roll?

  Yep.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  And so, we have, we have some easy stuff growing, broccoli, lettuce. Radishes. Some other leafy greens, we were told, are the easiest stuff to grow on a fence. And each, each class got its own set of pocket or two, so they're looking out for their own veggies that they're growing. We actually have a tower garden in here, too.

• 52:24Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow, those are great.

• 52:25Speaker 02

  In our library. We started growing green, leafy vegetables. Some of our Fan for Kids food tastings use the lettuce from that in their food tastings, which is pretty cool. And, and so, we're hoping to expand that, but a big part of it is having the kids have that experience of growing the food and eating their own food. It always tastes much better when you grow yourself.

• 52:48Rich Roll?

  Of course. Is there some kind of antiquated Byzantine regulation, though, that prevents you from letting the kids eat something that's grown here? Or are you, you're, everything's good, okay to do that?

• 52:59Speaker 02

  Well, this is another...

• 53:01Speaker 03

  Opportunity, I would say, for us to work with the Office of School Foods.

• 53:05Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:05Speaker 03

  We've been working well with them in getting to this point. And it's something that we've talked to some of the kitchen staff about doing. So our staff here on site is all about it. They, you know, they want us to grow basil and see how we could use it. And it's also cool for the kids to see how it comes from, you know, seed to your plate. See the whole process. But we also do food tastings in classes on a regular basis. So that's, that's something that we can do pretty easily.

• 53:35Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. And we're not out on some plantation. I mean, this is a city block, right? And the food that you're growing are, are simply in these pouches that are hanging from a fence. So, and you have the tower in your, in your library, right? So it's not about having all kinds of acreage to do this. You only need a little bit of space, right?

• 53:54Speaker 03

  We certainly wish we had more space.

• 53:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 53:56Speaker 03

  And our roof isn't even where, not that it's not worth, it's, it's not a good spot for a rooftop garden. So without even that being accessible, we're really trying to utilize every little nook and cranny that we have. So the fences have turned out to be one of those spots.

• 54:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's pretty cool.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  I would, I would really love to see our playground turn into a forest playground. I don't know if you've seen those from, from over in England and Germany.

• 54:23Rich Roll?

  I haven't, no.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  It's basically they, they turn a concrete playground into a wooded playground with natural areas to hide and bushes and, and little gardens where kids can grow their own things and, and tools or utensils that they can use. And it basically provides kids in an urban environment with this great natural wonder in their backyard.

• 54:44Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 54:46Speaker 02

  I don't know how much that costs. Hopefully Oprah's listening, we, we could use some funds for that.

• 54:52Rich Roll?

  Of course she's listening, come on.

• 54:56Rich Roll?

  I saw in the New York Times today, I tweeted it this morning, I don't know if you guys saw this, this kid, Zach Maxwell.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  We love Zach.

• 55:07Rich Roll?

  This kid is amazing, right? How cool is this? So him and his, he basically went undercover in his school, a public school in.

• 55:16Speaker 03

  Which he wouldn't have had to go undercover here, but.

• 55:19Rich Roll?

  Right, well, he wouldn't have had to.

• 55:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:21Rich Roll?

  There's nothing to expose here, but I guess, Lower East Side, or in Manhattan, I think?

• 55:26Speaker 03

  Somewhere in Manhattan.

• 55:27Rich Roll?

  Or Little Italy, yeah. There had been a, sort of a hullabaloo about these celebrity chefs, kind of, you know, creating new menu items for the public school system, and there was a lot of press about it, and this whole initiative about improving school lunch for kids. And he just, you know, he kept coming home and saying, "Yeah, I don't know what that's all about, I don't know what Rachael Ray's, you know, recipe is all about, because I'm not seeing it." And his dad was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," or whatever, and they, no one would, sort of, pay attention to him. So he went undercover with a camera, and started taking pictures and filming, you know, what was going on in the cafeteria, and the foods that he was actually getting, which bore no resemblance to these fancy, healthy sounding items.

• 56:12Rich Roll?

  And actually, I think he got cracked down on, and the school wanted to, you know, confiscate his film, and he was able to sneak it out, and his dad, I guess, is an amateur videographer, and they've made this, like, 20-minute movie, a clip of which is, is in today's New York Times Online, I'll post that in the show notes as well, but it's pretty funny and entertaining, and amazing. Like, how old is that kid? Like, 10?

• 56:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was a 4th grader, right? He was 10, 11.

• 56:41Rich Roll?

  He's gotta be about 10, 10 or 11, right?

• 56:42Speaker 02

  Our assistant principal, Too Harris, said, after reading about that, she said that she's gotten so used to seeing our food here, that she'd forgotten what the food looks like in the outside world.

• 56:54Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  In the other public schools, so when you see just a bunch of wilted green lettuce, and they call it this colorful thing.

• 57:01Rich Roll?

  Not even a bunch, it was like, literally, one inch by one inch of lettuce with a, with like, a tiny piece of horrible-looking carrot, and then like, a lousy piece of pizza.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  The tomato salad with no tomato.

• 57:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 57:13Speaker 03

  The picture that I saw from him, too, was even less than that, it was like, four chicken nuggets, two plantains, a milk and an orange that.

• 57:20Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 57:22Speaker 02

  Pretty rough.

• 57:22Rich Roll?

  You gotta invite him over here.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  We should.

• 57:25Rich Roll?

  You know, have him, uh, well, if he's continuing to make a film, he could sort of, as, as a point in contrast, kind of film what you guys are doing here.

• 57:33Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 57:33Rich Roll?

  You know, that would be cool.

• 57:34Speaker 02

  Well, one of the, one of the little projects that we've been talking about was trying to get Mark Bittman to come in and do a review of our, of our kitchen and, and just so he could, people can have a comparison for what is happening here and the rest of the city, because I think one of the, one of the important pieces that we, we go back to in terms of parent buy-in, uh, you really want parents involved in schools.

• 57:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 57:57Speaker 02

  Definitely in the health of their children. So I think if parents knew what their kids were eating every day, and I think the wonderful thing about Zach was that he's exposed it, um, there would be change happening. So.

• 58:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cause he was telling his parents, but they didn't believe him, right?

• 58:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 58:14Rich Roll?

  Until he brought home footage.

• 58:15Speaker 02

  Right.

• 58:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 58:16Speaker 03

  It's, it's kind of incredible how it's both what he has done and what we've been working on, ended up coming out so closely together.

• 58:25Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 58:27Speaker 03

  Uh, but on the note of talking about what kids and parents knowing what they eat in school, I had a parent come to me at the family dinner night and he came up and said, at my ear for five or 10 minutes to say, I was sending my kid with lunch every day because I didn't know what you were serving. He didn't know what this change was.

• 58:51Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:51Speaker 03

  But once he had it himself on that family dinner night, he told me he would never send his child with their own lunch again.

• 58:58Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 58:59Speaker 03

  As they had an opportunity to try it and to buy in to what was happening here.

• 59:05Rich Roll?

  Right. It's powerful. And you know, when you said, you know, it's interesting that, you know, Zach, Zach's little movie came out right around the same time that you guys have instituted this new school lunch, you know, I think that, somebody asked me about that the other day, he's like, why does it seem like there's such a zeitgeist right now about plant-based eating, you know, you, and, and, you know, I just think people are looking for sustainable, real change. And, you know, right now, like. All right, so the story came out about you guys May 1st, right? And then today, we see Zach Maxwell's little movie. Rip Esselstyn's new book, My Beef with Meat, came out earlier this week. And I know he came and visited you and spoke to the kids the other day.

• 59:46Speaker 02

  They loved it.

• 59:47Rich Roll?

  I want to ask you about that. Yeah, he's the best, right? He's the cool, he's the Plant Strong King.

• 59:51Speaker 02

  Very cool guy.

• 59:52Rich Roll?

  There's nothing not to love about him. And you have, and you mentioned Mark Bittman. He just had a book come out called Vegan Before Six. And there's all this sort of kind of activity around this right now. And it's really kind of a Malcolm Gladwell tipping point moment, I think, right now. And my hope is that, you know, it's just the beginning.

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  I hope so, too.

• 1:00:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And, and, and, you know, talking about integrating the parents, you know, that led me to, to want to talk to you about the culture that you've created here. Christian and I were talking before, before the interview about how, you know, you kind of have to walk your walk. It has to be a cultural thing, like the teachers, you know, the teachers are all into wellness and health and all of that. And Christian, can you tell me a little bit about your personal story?

• 1:00:41Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:00:42Rich Roll?

  To being the Plant Strong Wellness Director that you are now? Because it's, it's interesting, you know? And I think that's powerful as well.

• 1:00:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. And what's interesting is that when we started the school in 2008, I definitely was not Plant Strong. I was Plant Curious, I think I've heard you use before.

• 1:00:59Rich Roll?

  Plant Curious.

• 1:01:00Speaker 02

  I was, I was definitely eating more veggies than most. But in January 2010, January 1st, 2010, my wife and I found out we were pregnant with our, with our first child. And about a week later, I went to the doctor for some regular blood work. And the cholesterol came back 296. The small LDL particle was really elevated. And the C-reactive protein was three times what it should be. And the doctor, who was your typical traditional doctor, just basically said, if you were a 55-year-old man... I take you to the hospital right now because we need to do further tests.

• 1:01:40Speaker 02

  He said, but because you're young and you know how to exercise and, and you know a little bit about eating healthy. I think we can just make some, some changes and he, and he gave me the, the typical doctor spiel of reducing your fried foods, not too much meat. And, and not too much takeout and, but I went home and I was thoroughly scared. My, my father died at 55 of a heart attack. My mom is a diabetic with heart disease and

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  here I am having my first child, not knowing what my life is going to be like.

• 1:02:14Rich Roll?

  You're a young guy. How old are you?

• 1:02:15Speaker 02

  I'm 33. So I was 30 at the time.

• 1:02:17Rich Roll?

  30 at the time. Were you, did you weigh more than you do now? I mean, you're a thin guy.

• 1:02:21Speaker 02

  I am a thin guy. I, I did not actually weigh more than I did. I, I happen to be one of those people that stays within a 10 pound range. Regardless of what I do, but unless I'm training for a marathon, but uh, yeah, I mean, I, being a healthy looking thin guy.

• 1:02:40Speaker 02

  I never thought there was much of a problem until.

• 1:02:42Rich Roll?

  Right. You wouldn't, you wouldn't think. And I think that's all the more powerful because, you know, look, if you're super overweight, then obviously you know, you gotta work on some stuff, but if you're walking around, you're, you're lean, you're 30 years old, 31 years old. There's no reason to believe that there's going to be anything wrong with your health and then you get these numbers back. And what did your doctor, you know, what was the next step for you? I mean, what led you to kind of what you're doing now?

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  So immediately he put me on, on statins and, and I went home and, and spent hours on Google just trying to figure out what my next steps were for me personally. One of the things I wanted to do was get off the meds. Uh, and, and so I found Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. And so right there, great example of using a plant-based diet to, to basically stop and even reverse what's happening in your arteries. So I bought that book. I bought Rip's book, End in Two Diet and, and I got to work. And so it's been a work in progress and I can't say it's a hundred percent plant strong the whole time, but recently I've been really good at it. Uh, I have blood work.

• 1:03:50Speaker 02

  Coming up next week and I'm hoping to finally say goodbye to the meds.

• 1:03:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think you will. That's good. Cool. And Bob, what kind of led you into this field? I mean, were you a principal or had been an administrator or a teacher at a more typical school or kind of, you know, what is your personal story that's led you to this point?

• 1:04:14Speaker 03

  So Christian and I actually started teaching together at the same time in 2002. We were both teachers for America Teachers, came into New York City. We were both teaching at the South Bronx at the time and he actually got me into running. I was a high school athlete, but one of those high school athletes that didn't do much after high school.

• 1:04:34Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:04:34Speaker 03

  So, you know, we started teaching together and at the time I had always said that I wanted to move on from teaching. And so about seven, seven years into my teaching career, I said, all right, time to look towards administration. And we had gotten together, this group of four of us, to create that idea of having a unique public school. And I had come into it with the idea of starting in as the assistant principal and eventually coming up as a principal as well. Moves a little bit quicker than I had originally intended,

• 1:05:16Speaker 03

  but I was happy to take it on when the opportunity presented itself. So after our first three years of opening the building, I moved up to be principal. And, you know, as time goes on, I certainly want to affect education in a big way. It's always been a goal of mine to try and have a large effect on education and something that both of us have talked about for a long time. In terms of of health, Christian was certainly a big reason why I got into running and started doing sprint triathlons.

• 1:05:56Rich Roll?

  Nice.

• 1:05:57Speaker 03

  But looking even further back than that, it's it's not that dissimilar, our stories. Both of my grandfathers died in their mid 50s of heart attacks before I was born. My father has been on blood pressure medicine since ever, as long as I can remember. I got on blood pressure medicine about five years ago. And it's been it's been a struggle. I I don't enjoy taking blood pressure medicine every day. And I'm I'm certainly a work in progress.

• 1:06:32Rich Roll?

  We all are.

• 1:06:34Speaker 02

  We call him Plant Curious for sure.

• 1:06:36Speaker 03

  I'm one of those guys that, you know, I'm not a vegetarian. I I do eat my share of meat, but it's something that I'm getting better at and reducing. And, you know, for me to cook, which I did this week, I took one of the recipes from Rip's book and I made it home for my fiancee and I. It's it's something that I'm getting better at as I go here. And certainly, being a part of this school and going where we have gone, I want to be better. I want to be healthier myself. And I've dabbled in vegetarianism, if we can say that.

• 1:07:21Speaker 03

  And, you know, I I hope to continue along that path to get myself healthier and and be able to affect education in a big way, too.

• 1:07:31Rich Roll?

  Right. All right, Christian, you stay on him, right?

• 1:07:33Speaker 03

  Oh, he does.

• 1:07:34Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:07:35Speaker 03

  He does.

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  I bought him the end of the book.

• 1:07:37Rich Roll?

  You did? Okay, good.

• 1:07:39Speaker 03

  He bought me the book and his son is my godson and he had his his put a little PS in there and said, my son, Santi, wants me to wants you to stay around a long time. So eat healthy.

• 1:07:51Rich Roll?

  That's sweet. Cool. I love it.

• 1:07:54Speaker 02

  He's definitely, I mean, made big changes. When we first met 11 years ago, we were, I mean, straight out of college. Burger eating, french fries.

• 1:08:02Rich Roll?

  Who isn't?

• 1:08:03Speaker 02

  Right, every day. And so to see, you know, Bob eat kale and farro and a bunch of other stuff he's never had before, it's a big jump. So he's come a long way. And we'll get, we'll get him plant strong.

• 1:08:17Rich Roll?

  All right.

• 1:08:18Speaker 03

  I consider myself a cadet in progress if we look at Rip's book.

• 1:08:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:31Rich Roll?

  We're running out of time and I know you guys got to go. So I want to wrap it up with one final thing, which is if there are, you know, there's teachers and administrators that, that listen to the show. If there's something that, any kind of advice for a teacher out there that is trying to kind of implement, you know, just the smallest of changes in his or her classroom or within the culture of his or her school. I mean, is there, you know, what kind of advice or, you know, ideas could you offer?

• 1:09:04Speaker 02

  I think there's two things that worked out really well here for us. One was that we formed a school wellness council. And so on the school wellness council, we have teachers who are interested in wellness. We have the school nurse, we have our administrator, we have a parent from the PTA, and we invite one student from each third grade class. And and they meet, we try to meet once every other month. And so to have all those people sitting at the table talking about wellness together, I think that's a big reason why this is happening. We have these voices coming together with the common goal of improving the wellness of the school. So I think you have to find your, your wellness buddies at the school to, to work on anything. You can't do it alone.

• 1:09:48Rich Roll?

  Right. And I, and I said teachers and administrators, but I guess that, you know, there's lots of moms and dads too, that have kids and, and, you know, can start with the PTA too, right? Like raising the issue with the PTA or, you know, the parent coming in and raising it with the teacher and seeing if they can kind of get a foothold.

• 1:10:05Speaker 02

  And then, right. And then the other thing was our nonprofit partners. We, when we set out with the mission to, to educate our students in health and nutrition, as educators, we each had a different field of expertise, but that wasn't one of our. Fields. So we invited Fan for Kids and the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food, and we worked with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation. And so we have these nonprofit groups that are already working on it. And so we don't have to reinvent the wheel. They're already providing resources. They're on the phone answering questions. They're providing the nutrition education that we need. So if you feel like you're an individual educator or

• 1:10:47Speaker 02

  parent, you don't have to fight this battle alone. There are people out there who are already doing it and willing to help.

• 1:10:54Speaker 03

  I think that's a big point in saying, there's help out there. There's people that can help make this journey possible. And it's been an effort for us to find people and work with them, but it's worked out so well for us in the long run. And finding partners, if you're in New York, New York Coalition for Healthy School Foods was huge for us.

• 1:11:20Rich Roll?

  Right. And I was gonna ask, are there organizations like that in other states?

• 1:11:24Speaker 03

  Well, the big one that we would recommend is the Alliance for a Healthier Generation. So they helped us set the standards. They helped us aim for what our big goals were going to be. And to eventually now be recognized as we're one of the top 0.04% of healthy schools in the nation. But in order to do that, they set standards for us. The amount of exercises happens on a regular basis. What's going on in the kitchen? What kind of education are we giving kids? So you look for those opportunities to, one, set the

• 1:12:07Speaker 03

  standards, and, two, set your goals, and help guide you in a place to be. None of us went to school to be nutritionists. We didn't have that background. But it's something that you have to be open to learning and spending time with. Christian teaches science, full day, science. And I'm, as principal, have plenty of things going on. But we've dedicated time to this. Time outside of what would be a normal teaching day, or a normal administrator's day, to devote specifically for this purpose. It's a big commitment.

• 1:12:48Rich Roll?

  Well, it's paying off.

• 1:12:50Speaker 03

  We think so.

• 1:12:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you guys are doing amazing work here. Like I said, I'm super inspired and I can't wait to see this kind of thing cropping up in schools across the nation. And you guys are mavericks and my hat is off to you. I applaud you.

• 1:13:08Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:13:08Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:13:09Speaker 02

  Thank you for coming by us.

• 1:13:10Rich Roll?

  You're changing lives. So thanks so much. I know you guys gotta go.

• 1:13:14Speaker 03

  As we were saying before we started, we were happy to have you in because as people that love to exercise ourselves, we get to look at you and say, that's an opportunity for us to target. I don't think I'm going to be doing an ultra marathon or ultra Ironman anytime soon, but you know, it's a good place to be.

• 1:13:36Speaker 02

  In other words, we want to be like you.

• 1:13:40Rich Roll?

  Well, listen, I'd love to come back. I'd love to talk to the kids too, next time I'm in New York and keep doing what you're doing.

• 1:13:46Speaker 02

  For sure. We could have you over for lunch.

• 1:13:48Rich Roll?

  All right. I would love that.

• 1:13:49Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:13:50Rich Roll?

  That would be great. All right, cool.

• 1:13:52Speaker 03

  Thank you, Rich.

• 1:13:52Speaker 02

  Thank you for coming.

• 1:14:58Speaker 02

  The.