Introduction

Food is a tool of power that has permitted capitalismto be established as the dominant mode of production(McMichael, 2001). Within capitalism, cheap foodfrom the ‘Green Revolution’ sought to prevent the‘Red Revolution’ (Patel, 2013), or so-called‘communist threat’. Even though it is recognised asa fundamental human right (UN, 2013), food isincreasingly mercantilised as a commodity (Murphy,2009). This term refers to the perversion of foodfrom a social good into merchandise, produced andsold as any other. As this volume demonstrates, thisprocess in connected with many harms associated withfood and agriculture (Gray and Hinch, 2015).

Although for some time global agriculture has producedenough for every person in the world to have accessto 2,850 calories – enough to live healthily (TheWorld Bank, 2008) – about 795 million people arestill subject to hunger (FAO, 2015). Concurrently,the World Health Organization (WHO, 2016) indicatesthat more than 1.9 billion people are overweight dueto unbalanced diets. This is not simply because theyeat too much, but because they consumeindustrialised foods of low nutritional value(Guthman, 2011).

Children and youth are among the most vulnerable to theconsequences of such discordance in the agri-foodsystem (Gunson et al, 2016). For instance, in manypoor countries malnutrition starts in utero when amother's precarious nutritional intake affects theformation of a foetus's biological structures(Ziegler, 2011). Additionally, due to a powerfulprocess of ‘conquering minds’ through advertising,millions are persuaded to partake in a low-nutrientdiet model, exemplified by fast foods (Azuma andFisher, 2001; Schlosser, 2001; Nestle, 2002; Pollan,2007). Hunger and obesity are not episodicmanifestations; on the contrary, they havebiological, economic and social determinations, tothe extent where one can even inherit its detriment.This chapter discusses the standardisation of dietsas the result of neoliberal capitalism, as well asthe forms of resistance and countermeasures inschools.

The school-aged demographic of Western countries havelargely adopted food habits based primarily onprocessed goods of low nutritional value (Winson,2010). Changes in school meal programmes are seen asa form of reverting this process (Poppendieck,2010).