"Cooking" Class

Actress is in 7th grade.  She recently told me what they'd learned to make in cooking class:  Marshmallow Stuffed Pillsbury Rolls and Ramen Stir Fry.

Are there more worthless foods?  This is what they've chosen to "teach" to the youth of America -- how to stuff their faces with non-nutritive garbage?  I will concede that perhaps there is an appropriate time to sample sweets, but to teach it in a class at school seems deplorably irresponsible to me.  I looked up the description of the class on the district website:

Beginning Foods          7-8 grades
Students will learn about nutrition and basic cooking.  Units on safety, sanitation, measuring, abbreviations, equivalents, equipment, cooking terms, microwaves, and manners will be covered.

I would be very interested to hear how they describe nutrition.  And basic cooking?  Can they at least attempt to teach these students some skills that will actually help them make worthwhile food for themselves?  Someday, these kids will be responsible for feeding their own families and all they'll know how to offer are drugs coated in drugs:  sugar-dipped cholesterol-spiking insulin flooders.  And don't even get me started on school lunch.

Sometimes the task seems too big.  Is it even possible to change the system that teaches our nation to be unhealthy and obese?  I feel completely paralyzed in the face of so much craziness.

And people wonder why we are facing an obesity epidemic.