Today we’d like to introduce you to Hilary Boynton.
Hi Hilary, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My story began as I struggled with infertility, at the age of 26, for three years after falling for the fat free craze in the 90s. I went on to have triplets and then two more and was suddenly blessed with five children under the age of four. My 4th child suffered greatly with severe eczema from head to toe. I was desperate for answers as the steroid cream and Zyrtec twice a day was clearly just a band-aid and not getting to the root of the problem. I was introduced to The work of the Weston A Price Foundation, and I was told about raw milk and cod liver oil. Within a few months of putting my child on a traditional, natural foods “WAPF” (Weston A Price Foundation) style diet, he was completely healed – no eczema, asthma or allergies …all conditions the doctors had said he would probably struggle with throughout life. This was my “aha” moment – real food just healed my child when every doctor said differently.
I was on a mission to learn as much as I could about returning to ancestral wisdom and traditional methods of cooking to source locally and support my local farmers. I wanted to shout this from the rooftops and share my knowledge with anyone who would listen. I began teaching cooking classes out of my home and trying to change the school lunches at my local public school in Concord, MA despite having children who were too young to be in school. To say I was hooked on real food was an understatement. I ran an Amish coop out of my home for six years supplying farm-fresh foods to my community and then embarked on writing a cookbook, The Heal Your Gut Cookbook”, as my family dove deeper into healing and began The GAPS Diet, which stands for The Gut and Psychology/Physiology Syndrome. As I handed over my book to the publisher, my husband, at the time, was diagnosed with throat cancer. This took our healing journey to another level. Knowing the power of food as medicine and the importance of building a healthy immune system, we dove even deeper into healing and ended up moving across the country to LA to get out of stress, get in the sunshine and pursue a more alternative way of healing. When I landed in LA, my book was published one week later. I was suddenly out of my small colonial town and swimming in a sea of people from all over the world. It was exhilarating to talk to so many, especially elders, who remembered the way they ate growing up in their respective countries and could reflect on its importance as they witnessed the dis-ease in their children and grandchildren, here in America, as they veered away from ancestral wisdom and traditional methods of cooking. The “American way” was not as nutrient-dense and was in fact causing more harm than good.
As we enrolled our children in school, we discovered a tiny nature-based school that had just opened in Topanga, The Manzanita School, where they had a chef who was very aligned with my philosophies and emphasized proper nutrition for the children. As the school grew the food was outsourced, and it was no longer truly aligned with nature and all that I felt was so vital for the health of our children. I managed to take over the snack program to demonstrate that we can feed the children local, seasonal bounty and introduce them little by little to the amazing world of farm fresh deliciousness right in their own backyard as CA is top top when it comes to accessing the best most nutrient dense foods. By Christmas time, I was handed the keys to the kitchen to take over the entire school lunch program. As a mom, having only ever cooked for my family of seven, I was terrified yet my ambition and belief in this mission propelled me to just jump in 100%. Now in my 5th year as head of Nutrition Services AKA “The Lunch Lady”, I can say through much R and D and a “learn by doing” spirit we have established what we believe to be the best school lunch program in the country. We focus on sourcing locally, properly preparing foods like grains, legumes, nuts and seeds to make them more digestible. We focus on fermented foods, such as krauts and in house homemade long ferment sourdough bread made with locally grown grains and freshly milled here in Pasadena.
We source the best meats from conscious farmers, from 100% grass fed beef to pastured chicken, turkeys and eggs, to Framani hams and salamis. We use raw dairy produced here in CA, and we highlight foods that promote balanced blood sugar levels preventing glucose spikes as well as nutrient density to keep the children satiated and strong. We tell the kids “we are literally building brains.” We have their stomachs for 6 hours a day, so the impact we can make on their overall health is huge! I want the kids to know what it feels like to feel good and to establish healthy habits as young as possible. It is a beautiful thing to see this way of life, eating from the local bounty and communing with peers and mentors around food daily, become the norm. We have K-12 now, and I can attest that getting to the children when they are young is so important as they take to this early on and then us parents don’t have to spend years battling them trying to reverse unhealthy habits and retrain taste buds. Whenever you can get to them is better than never, so to have lunch leaders that are passionate and modeling health every day in huge. We have started our company School of Lunch where we now run Lunch Leader Training Academies throughout the year to train Lunch Leaders to sweep across the nation and disrupt the trend of chronic illness in this next generation of kids.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
This journey has been, and continues to be, so rewarding, but I will say there have been struggles throughout. Mostly, I can say the physicality of a job in food can be downright exhausting, and the journey of learning to ask for help and bring on support has been critical. Our team is phenomenal and incredibly talented. We each bring our strengths to the table and we are stronger together. In terms of educating the parents and the children, it is a daily effort as new children and families are always coming in. As we have grown, this task has become much easier as many parents, I believe now are drawn to the school because of the nutritious lunch program. Adapting the menus and finding out what works and what doesn’t is always crucial. Now that we have such a range of ages, we must consider different palates and of course, we always encounter some “picky eaters.” We do our best to support the children as they transition to this way of eating – making it fun and engaging them in the process and encouraging them to self-advocate along their way. Making it fun, delicious and nutritious is our daily goal.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Well, it’s a bit like a reality show. We show up in the kitchen at 8:00 and by ten, it’s out with a nutrient-dense snack and by 12, it’s knives down, hands up time to feed the children. As lunch leaders, we focus on local beauty, taste and nutrient density. We make sure we are serving up deep nutrition to the community that will keep them satisfied and energized for the day – no spiking blood glucose levels that will set them up to crash! It is a super fun kitchen and we pride ourselves on our kitchen culture …it’s pretty much check your ego at the door and stay focused on the mission. As a good friend of mine said “mission is the boss.” Feeding the children and the community healthy food and setting them up with a foundation of health is our goal. If every child will know what it feels like to feel good then we have done our job. We engage with each other in the kitchen, collaborating, problem-solving and knocking ideas around. We engage with the kids encouraging them to try new things and having fun with it…for example: sampling bone broth, shots of fermented beet kvass, raw kefir smoothies and even flying ants “chiquitanas” from Oaxaca. It’s super fun to goof around and make it fun. The kids are all fun and quirky in their own ways, so figuring out what works for everyone is a challenge we all love!
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
Follow your heart, dig deep and find your grit, remember always forward, never straight and just keep showing up. Perseverance and persistence will pay off. Get good sleep, plenty of sunshine, time in nature and proper nourishment. Surround yourself with positive people and thoughts. My Grandfather used today: “you don’t gotta have anything, but you gotta have heart!” Lead with your heart and you can’t go wrong. Stay true to your mission and keep your eye on the prize.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.schooloflunch.com
- Instagram: @school_of_lunch
- Facebook: Hilary Hornor Boynton, School of Lunch and The Heal Your Gut Cookbook
