In this week’s Time magazine, there is an essay from an American writer in Paris that talked about the school lunches that her child was having at his school. She marveled how high quality the food was:

“The food is very good, Madame. The meat is 100% French,” the official said, picking up a brochure from her desk. I knew this brochure well, having e-mailed it to friends in the U.S. last year as a this-could-only-happen-in-France conversation piece. It lists in great detail the lunch menu for each school day over a two-month period. On Mondays, the menus are also posted on the wall outside every school in the country. The variety on the menus is astonishing: no single meal is repeated over the 32 school days in the period, and every meal includes an hors d’oeuvre, salad, main course, cheese plate and dessert.

She contrasts the seriousness of how the French approach serving meals in the school environment mainly to have the children appreciate the food they are served and to prepare them for a lifetime of good eating.

The French don’t need their First Lady to plant a vegetable garden at the Élysée Palace to encourage good eating habits. They already know the rules: sit down and take your time, because food is serious business.

In his new book Food Rules, Michael Pollan states in rule No. 58: “Do all your eating at a table.” French children quickly learn that they won’t be fed anywhere else. Snack and soda machines are banned from school buildings in France — a battle that is now raging across the U.S. And France’s lunch programs are well funded. While the country is cutting public programs and civil-servant jobs to try to slash a debt of about $2.1 trillion, no one has dared to mention touching the money spent on school lunches.

She also mentions that while it is difficult for her to know what was going on in her child’s classroom, she did know what he was being served for lunch:

I cannot tell you what my child learns, paints or builds on any given school day. But I do know that on Feb. 4, he ate hake in Basque sauce, mashed pumpkin, cracked rice, Edam cheese and organic fruits for lunch.

Contrast that meal with what is typically served in the cafeterias operating in our schools: french fries, burgers, pizzas, desserts, sodas. Of course, vegetables are served but generally are processed to the point of banality. In terms of preparation, many cafeterias can only reheat food; the ability to cook from scratch is severely limited.

In these troubled economic times, school budgets are always under pressure to cut costs or raise extra revenues. many school districts entered into exclusive contracts with snack and soda vendors to put machines in schools as long as the school gets its share. This is regardless of the nutritional value of the food themselves.

So it is a short term gain for the school. But for students and the economy alike, it extracts a far higher cost down the road.

The most significant health challenge facing people in North America now as smoking continues its long term decline to irrelevance is obesity. We live in a land that produces more food than it should consume. Relative to family budgets, food prices are cheap more even more cheap for the high fat, high sugar processed foods along with the ubiquitous fast food places that populate every town larger than a hamlet.

All these cheap calories are leading to our obesity epidemic which in turn is causing more severe health problems: diabetes, heart attacks, stroke and cancers of various sorts especially colon cancer as we avoid eating those healthy greens. These additional health problems will mean more strain on the health system here with more doctors visits, more surgeries, more drugs and long term care.

Is there is a relationship between the fact that even with a cuisine as rich as France’s, that it has a lower expenditure on health care than the United States because the French know what to eat and when? The evidence suggests more than a casual relationship. Consider too that in the United States, food is continually eat on the go and all of the time. It is almost like a grazing way of eating. Contrast that to the French where food is eaten at meals and rarely in between. There is something to the effect on how you appreciate food when you make a time and place for it rather than holding a burger in one hand as you navigate the lunch rush hour traffic.

Can something like the French school system’s approach to meals happen here. Perhaps not given the sizable shift in cultural attitudes at least in the public school system. It is also difficult to justify the cost as school programs are cut even sacrosanct athletic programs. But if we instill good eating habits in our children when they are young and let them appreciate good healthy food without reverting to the cheap easy way of going to McDonalds, then in the long term, we will all be much better off.

And the games end with a bang.

Or rather an overtime goal by Sidney Crosby.

The much hyped game of the United States and Canada for ice hockey goal was everything everyone expected to be though probably a bit too nerve racking for most Canadians as it went into overtime.

Overall, this was been a most satisfying Olympics for Canadians. No, Canada did not own the podium but it won more medals than ever before in a Winter Games and won more gold medals than any games to date. In the medal standings, 26 medals ranked the country third behind the United States and Germany. So the efforts of the past six years to nurture an elite class of athletes to bring home as medals as possible should be deemed a success.

Of course, it did not looked like that at the end of the second weekend of the games when the country had just won 10 medals and saw many potential medalists come up short. But in the final week, Canada turned it on and started to rack up medals with a gold medal nearly every night to the final day of the Games.

So ends too my intense obsession with all things Olympian and the performance of the Canadian athletes. Most of my time was following the results of every competition, seeing how the Canadians did, read articles and posts on all aspects of the Games. Now, things will have to go back to the ways things were which is such a less than exciting life.

There were many memorable moments for me from these games:

• Joanie Rochette’s return to the ice after experiencing such tragedy in her life
• Jon Montromery’s run down the sliding track in the men’s skeleton race and his pure Canadian post medal reaction in winning
• Clara Hughes ending her Olympian career in style with a bronze medal in the women’s 5000m speedskating race. She is one of Canada’s most foremost Olympians with medals in Summer and Winter Games over 14 years and includes a gold medal in her specialty race.
• Jasey Jay Anderson finally winning his medal, gold at that too, after so many Olympics of not being able to succeed in reaching podium
• The Korean wipeout in the men’s 1500m short track race. The Koreans were poised to sweep but a bad turn knocked two of them out of the medals.
• Cross-country skiing having such a great venue for some thrilling races.
• The beauty of Moir and Virtue in the ice dance competition
• and finally the men’s hockey gold medal final.

So now the countdown begins for the Summer Games in 2012 in London. Canada has been declining somewhat as a Summer Games power as most of the sporting resources of the country has been dedicated to a strong performance in the Winter Games. Perhaps it is time to put together a program to improve Canada’s Summer Games performance though Canada can never own the podium in the Summer Games given the number of resources that the major sporting powers can dedicate to their athletes.

Much has been made of Canada’s bold statement to Own the Podium, to be the top team in the medal standings. But as we know, it was known by the mid point of the Games that the goal was going to be unattainable. Many medal favorites failed to live up to their medal expectations and ended up in the fourth or fifth positions, on the outside looking in at the podium.

For athletes not winning a medal in their events is something to be expected at all Olympic Games and it should have been anticipated by most people who follow the Olympics. What has not happened much for Canada at these games is the surprise medalists which Canada had been leaning on for the past few Olympics to give them that extra boost in the medal standings when Canadians start worrying about how the team is performing.

Of course, the United States team has had an outstanding Olympics winning medals across several disciplines which accounted for their insurmountable lead in the games.

But there are standards for measuring success rather than overall medal count. Some countries go by the number of medals they win, especially gold, in a discipline which they traditionally dominate such as South Korea in short track speedskating or Norway in cross-country skiing.

The other standard is total number of gold medals won overall.

There has been many measurements of how many silvers equate to a gold and then how many bronzes equate to a silver or a gold. Some countries prefer to have more medallists even if they are silver or bronze. Others prefer to just have the best athletes at an event; in this case second place does not do.

Associated Press gives weight on the relative importance of one medal compared to another or rather placement of athletes in terms of points. AP gives 10 points to a gold, 5 to silver, 3 to bronze, 2 to fourth place and 1 point to fifth place. So in this case, 2 silvers do equal a gold and 3 bronzes almost equal a gold.

Nonetheless, a country can claim by the number of gold medals it wins that it has more elite athletes than any other.

So it is that Canada now will set its goal from these games as the country with the most gold medals. It is a bit of a change from what the country started off as its ultimate goal of most medals but it is not a radical shift. To get the most medals at a Games, the nation should also be leading or close to leading in total gold medals too.

Coming into Saturday’s events, Canada does lead in total gold medals with 10 but it is a tentative lead. Norway, Germany and the United States are just one gold medal behind and all three countries have events which they can place a gold medalist.

Canada does have opportunities to win additional gold medals in men’s hockey, men’s speed skating team pursuit and men’s curling. In two of those events, Canada faces the United States so Canada has some control of how the gold medals will be won between the two nations.

Still, with three guaranteed medals to come, total medal count for Canada will be at least 24 medals which ties the Torino games for most medals won in a Winter Games. But more importantly, 10 gold medal ties the most gold medals won by Canada in any games, which was in the 1984 Los Angeles games, boycotted by the Eastern Communist bloc nations.

Events:

• Alpine – Men’s Slalom
• Boblsled – Men’s 4-man sled
• Crosscountry – Men’s 50km (Sunday) Women’s 30km
• Curling – Men’s Final
• Hockey- Men’s Final (Sunday)
• Snowboarding – Men’s Parallel Slalom
• Speedskating – Men’s Team Pursuit, Women’s Team Pursuit

Canadian Medal Hopes
The final weekend of the Winter Games are upon us and the last big events of the games will be on this weekend.

Like the Summer Games with the men’s marathon on the final day, there is an endurance race, the Men’s 50km cross country race. There is also the marquee team event, Men’s hockey final featuring for what NBC believes is the dream match up of Canada versus United States. That game will be on nearly ever television set in Canada.

But there are events going on featuring Canadians in good medal positions.

The Men’s speedskating team will go for gold in the team pursuit race. In their heats, they have been putting up extraordinary times and they will go up against the United States team who beat the favorited Netherlands team. If the Canadian men win gold, that would help make up for a a shocking loss by the women’s team in their qualifying heat.

The Canada-1 sled driven by Lyndon Rush sits in second place going into the final run, fighting with Germany-1 sled for appears to be the silver medal. Much like the Canada-1 sled in the women’s two-man sled, the USA-1 sled seems to have found a groove that will allow them to keep and build upon their wide lead against all other sleds.

Kevin Martin is going for gold in the curling final. He has been dominant throughout the tournament and he should preserve.

In snowboarding, Jasey Jay Anderson will try to win Olympic medal. He has been a dominant force in snowboarding for years but flamed out entirely in the Torino games. He enters the event as potential medalist which if previous snowboarding events are any indication, the favorites have typically done well in the events.

A most auspicious day for Canada and it celebrates the winning of four medals today. After a few days where self-doubt and national soul searching occurred after the poor medal showing on the second weekend of the games topped by a loss to the United States in hockey, there is sense now that the worse is over and that the nation will start showing some success at the Games.

First off was the women’s 5000m speedskating race. Clara Hughes, one of Canada’s most decorated athletes of all time, ended her Olympian career with a bronze medal. This is the third medal she has won in this event having won bronze in 2002 and gold in 2006.

Next up is the silver medal won by women’s short track speedskating team. This is an event that Canada has won a medal in since it was added to the Games schedule. As always with short track, this event was marred by controversy where a disqualification on the South Korean team cause them to lose the gold medal and helped move Canada up from the bronze position to silver behind the Chinese team.

The big event was in women’s 2-man bobsled where Canada came 1-2 with sleds driven by Kaillie Humphries and Helen Upperton respectively. Canada entered the games as favored for a medal and from the very first run, Humphries lead the competition. Upperton had a harder course to a medal starting fifth on the first run but slowly moving their way up the standings helped in part by a poor fourth run by the American sled and a crash by the leading German sled.

Finally, the demons that seemingly beset the men’s hockey team throughout the tournament appear to be behind them as they routed the Russian team 7-3. This sets up the team well with the momentum it needs going into the semifinal game on Friday.

Another potential controversy has arisen in the women’s giant slalom race as run 2 was postponed to Thursday. Some racers want a do-over of the first race as required by the sport’s rules. The Austrian team, well positioned for medals want to keep intact the first run results. For now, there is only one race scheduled.

The other big event of the day was the men’s 4×10km cross country relay. Canada had a chance in this event based on previous race results but it was not to be. What we did get was an inspired comeback by the Norwegian team from 24 seconds down in the final lap to win silver behind Sweden.