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The life of your average American cow is straight out of a fairy tale, if that fairy tale happens to be Hansel and Gretel. We credit industrial agriculture with pioneering the practice of cramming your prospective dinner into a cage and fattening it up fast. But it’s really kind of old school; Hansel and Gretel’s conniving cannibal host–a 19th century wicked witch–used the very same method in her zeal to make a meal of the lost siblings.

So why do our 21st century schools take their cues from the Brothers Grimm? I can see why a witch with a yen for chubby children would want to confine them and prime them with fatty foods. But unless we’re planning to eat our kids, too–as Jonathan Swift modestly proposed –I question the wisdom of keeping them indoors and pumping them full of empty carbs.

Slow Food USA’s Time For Lunch campaign aims to bring real food back to our schools. The campaign is part of a National Day of Action on Labor Day, September 7th, enlisting folks all over the country to host hundreds of “Eat-Ins”—potluck-style community events bringing people together to share a meal and show their support for school lunches comprised of wholesome, minimally processed foods, not commodity crop slop.

That simple, direct message stands in contrast to the schizophrenic signals we get from the USDA, which lobbies kids to eat their fruits and veggies even as it continues to underwrite the corn and soy farmers who flood our school cafeterias with cheap, high-calorie, low- nutrient foods that have driven fresh produce to the margins of school meals in recent decades.

One problem with fresh fruits and veggies, in addition to the fact that they can be a budget buster for perpetually cash-strapped schools, is that they’re more perishable than processed foods. Plus, someone has to actually prepare them. And many schools don’t even have kitchens, these days–or chefs who know how to make wholesome meals from scratch. They rely instead on prefab processed foods that can be nuked and scooped.

This abundance of lousy, unhealthy food, combined with rampant inactivity, is a formula that’s already saddled millions of kids with excess weight and the wide range of debilitating, depressing side effects that tend to come with it.

And kids are spending so much time online or on the couch that they don’t get enough sun exposure to get sufficient vitamin D. This may be a factor in the alarming rise of fractures and broken bones among children over the past decade; lack of vitamin D is a precursor to osteoporosis. Of course, drinking soda instead of milk doesn’t help, either.

It’s been widely publicized that kids today may “die at a younger age than their parents, thanks in large part to a sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits. Type 2 diabetes afflicts so many children now that it can no longer be referred to as “adult onset” diabetes.

Do we really lack the resources to provide our kids with nutritious, wholesome meals? We’ve found ways to fight a war of choice and finance a bunch of bailouts; surely we can find a way to feed our children better.

The Time For Lunch campaign calls on Congress to allocate $1 more per child per day for lunch, in addition to the $2.57 that the USDA currently provides. Only a small portion of that $2.57 actually goes for ingredients, by the way–most of it gets spent on labor and other overhead costs.

Slow Food’s campaign also seeks to:

“…protect against foods that put children at risk by establishing strong standards for all food sold at school, including food from vending machines and school fast-food. In addition, the campaign is pushing for the government to provide mandatory funding to allow schools to teach children healthy eating habits by establishing farm-to-school programs and school gardens.”

Will Congress be persuaded? One thing is certain; Slow Food has a powerful ally in Michelle Obama when it comes to making the case for reconnecting our kids with growing, cooking, and eating fresh foods. With the First Lady and her formidable forearms doing some of the heavy lifting, the campaign for real food’s sure to get a massive lift.