When I picked up my daughter yesterday from school, she was sullen — more so than her preteen moodiness usually allows for.

“What’s up, boo?” I asked.

“I’m really hungry,” she semi-snapped.

“What did you eat for lunch, babe?”

“A piece of bread and a cookie,” came the sad reply. Further inquries led me to the cold, hard truth: the choice for lunch was hot dogs or fish sticks.

“Everyone knows not to eat the hot dogs, Mom. They bounce. And the fish makes everyone sick.”

Wait just a tic. Are we living in the United States of America? Shouldn’t a healthy, good-tasting school lunch be the right of each and every child in public schools across this country? Doesn’t it peeve you just a little that your child is likely eating food products instead of actual food in their school cafeterias?

Chef Ann Coooper thinks so. She spoke last night at Morningside Elementary School to a group of about 200 concerned parents, mostly women, who would like to see farm-to-school initiatives and healthy school lunches broguht to every cafeteria in every public school in America.

“This is the social  issue of our time,” Cooper said. “It should be our moral imperative that no child is hungry in school and that every child gets a healthy meal.”

Cooper has partnered with Whole Foods to bring her “school lunch revolution” to cities like Berkeley, Cal., Boulder, Col., and Harlem, in New York City. The program is subsidized by the Kellogg Foundation as well.

“Implementing these programs costs money,” Cooper explained decisively, “and you’re going to have to learn that there is a lot of compromise involved.”  She sees the implementation of better lunch programs as a community effort, and cites several initiatives that need to be realized for a plan to work on a grass roots level. Here’s her recipe for change, in a nut shell:

1. Finances: It costs a lot of money to implement a new system. The USDA reimbursement rate per child in public school systems is $2.70, and according Cooper, all but about 95 cents goes to things other than healthy foods. In other words, the government is currently spending less than a dollar per day to feed your child if she is in public school.  Reauthorization this December of  Section 122 of the Child Nutrition Act  is asking the government for $50 million more in funding, which roughly adds up to about $1 more per child. Partnering with business is a good way to get much-needed funds (see below on how you can sign the petition).

2. Equipment and facilities: Have you ever visited your child’s lunch room? Do you know that the majority of lunch rooms in public schools don’t even contain the equipment needed to actually cook food? When all a cafeteria worker is doing is opening a box and warming up chicken nuggets, stoves, knives and other crucial kitchen equipment aren’t needed. Funds will be needed for facilities to be improved, or, as Cooper recommends, a central kitchen that services many schools may be the answer.

3. The food itself: Where do we get it ? How do we implement farm-to-table initiatives and sustainable practices in a system embedded in spending $45 million a year on tater tots and fish sticks? The paradigm has to shift to the community — local farmers and producers have to get involved, and school communities have to let them. Cooper said none of the three cities she’s actually implemented the school lunch revolution in got started without an airtight business model and a feasibility study.

4. Human resources and marketing: Once the plan is in motion, people are what keep it moving, and the push to make it work has to come from an overhaul of current media and marketing, which spends billions a year in advertising Doritos and Cheez Whiz to kids. “We had a national anti-smoking campaign, and a national seat belt campaign,” said Cooper. “Why can’t we have a national campaign for better school lunches?”

For those of you who are complacently scratching your heads thinking that we’ve all got better things to worry about — like health care reform, for instance — stop scratching for a moment. Redesigning the school lunch program is health care reform. At our current rate of childhood obesity, our children may be the first generation since WWII that dies of disease before we, their parents, do. According to Cooper, the CDC estimates that one-third of Caucasian and one-half of black and Hispanic children born in 2000 will develop diabetes. Prevention is health care reform.

“Don’t our children deserve a chance to be the best that they can be?” asked Cooper of  a receptive crowd that gave several rounds of applause throughout her presentation. A chefs’ team from Whole Foods (that’s exec chef Butch Raphael and Sabrena Hayat in the above photo) created a meal, using Cooper’s guidelines, of a “reformed,” affordable school lunch, which the group happily enjoyed: roasted chicken with roasted broccoli and cauliflower, as well as sweet potatoes and a sweet apple crumble. No tater tots in sight. “In Boulder,” explained Cooper, “we don’t serve dessert — it’s just not an option I can afford. I’d rather fight for hormone-free milk and organic strawberries. Children get fresh fruit or nothing sweet at all.”

“Pick something — anything — that you can change,” said Cooper. “Agree to do one thing differently, then do it. That’s my mandate to all of you.”

You can get involved:  sign the petition for reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act or contact Georgia Organics to see how you can implement a  metro-Atlanta farm-to-school program.

Left, chef Ann Cooper talks school lunch reform at Morningside Elementary.