I would submit it's also about work, or avoidance thereof. The school lunch workers are accustomed to opening cans, heating up frozen stuff, and serving such mushy glop that the kids only need spoons and sometimes forks (not knives) to eat it. I suspect many of the lunch workers are there for a steady easy paycheck and a job that is not too demanding and doesn't require creativity or effort beyond going through the same motions week after week. (Not all of them, just a significant majority) I don't guess it's a secret to anyone that many school systems are really about jobs programs and not so much about education or what's best for the kids.
Did anyone notice what the lunchroom manager looked like? Overweight and pasty-skinned. Not the picture of vibrant health you would hope our lunchroom folks would model for our kids. She no doubt eats a lot of the same kind of stuff she serves, and probably feels threatened by this whole thing. No easy task for a healthy, energetic outsider like Jamie to step in as an expert and show her how to do the job she's been doing all these everhowmany years (sadly, that is how many folks think -- we do it like this because we've always done it like this and you're not from here so what authority do you have to tell me how to do my job....)
Also, education is a huge institution, and in any institution, rocking the boat is hard work, dangerous to the change-bringers, and often unsuccessful, no matter how utterly right and sensible the desired change may be. People who manage to last as part of a big institution are not typically the same kinds of folks who get a big charge out of blazing new trails. Granted, this is a broad generalization, but I do speak from several experiences in different institutions, including public elementary schools, a large public university, and a large diocese. The dynamics were the same in all of these places -- efforts at excellence, creativity, positive change were punished, while mediocre performance and plenty of kissing up to whoever was higher on the hierarchy than you was richly rewarded. Also rewarded was following the rules and policies even in situations where they were clearly not appropriate....
All that said, I think Jamie is right -- if the parents get behind this, it is sure to succeed, but it has to be dedicated parents who are willing to meet with administrators, cafeteria workers and managers, principals, school boards, whatever it takes. ou cannot simply present a good idea and expect that an institution will adopt it because it's a good idea. You have to show them how it will benefit them (the administrators, decisionmakers and workers). They don't care about the overwhelming statistics relating nutrition, health and learning. They care about their job security and how to make it through budget cuts and up to the next pay grade.
There are school lunchrooms in America where this sort of thing is already happening, and typically it's parents who are bringing the changes. In California, there is a small business owned and operated by two moms, and they are catering freshly prepared, healthy school lunches and snacks for a growing roster of public schools. By all reports, the kids love the foods, and they are doing this for the same amount as the schools were spending before on serving up processed grease, starch and chemical glop. I would post the website but cannot at the moment recall the name of the business.
I say Go Jamie!
The chicken patty experiment, even though I knew where he was going, just made me wanna puke. 
