The School Lunch.

[Desertthorn]

Just read an article about childhood obesity and was interessted in this quote
"Who is crying "foul" about the carb-laden lunches offerred up by diaticians in charge of menu planning in our schools."
The article went on to say that our kids are being fed pizza, sloppy joes, corn dogs, cheeseburgers, french fries and tacos, topped off with cookies and washed down with chocolate milk, or sugary juice.
I guess one solution is to get involved with the PTAs and discuss this point at every chance we get, but also to send our kids a lunch that is not only healthy, but gets eaten.
So, any lunch suggestions?

[SanSSanity]

arent these lunches supposed to be balanced meals?? Sounds like junk to me! I thought they had like a school nutritionist to plan the meals?

[dreamof145]

Funny you should mention this. I heard a discussion on the talk radio show the other day about school lunches and their determination NOT to give in to the LOW-CARB fad. The supervisor of a school lunch program was saying that they have "healthy" selections and that children need the occassional pizza and fries and sloppy joes. She said that school lunch is only one meal a day and that the parents are responsible for the other two meals.

The person who was debating her said that they requested to get a low-carb menu in the high schools so that the kids could choose to eat healthier. Her example was that instead of pizza and fries and coke, the health conscious child could eat baked chicken and a salad. The school lunch person said that if they took away the foods that kids love, then the school lunch program would suffer.

It was an interesting conversation and I'd have liked to listen to all of it, but I got where I was going and shut the car off.

Too bad that kids and teens can't choose healthy meals -- I think we'd see a lot less unhappy overweight kids if we gave them the right choices to make. And if it is on the menu, I don't think there would be peer pressure and taunting about what they are eating.

[moonwish]

I think my son gets pretty good food at school - the problem is does he eat it? LOL
I ask what did you have for lunch today and he says - this-and-that but I only took carrots and dessert :yikes ...

[miaike90]

My son just finished 5th grade last in June, and that is what was served to them at school. Yes they had options each day usually the main "meal" option was chicken nuggets, they were always served a vegetable usually french fries with the option being corn (rarely green beans), and a fruit usually an apple with the option being pears, and a roll (white bread no wheat at all) and no option for the bread. Most of the year we spent argueing with the school on the fact that when he did have to eat school lunch they MADE my son take at least one of each item: main food, vegetable, fruit, and bread even though he wouldn't eat it. Being last class for lunch rarely were there choices left for him to make due to lack of planning and he doesn't eat pears, doesn't like the rolls served and well when the chicken nuggets were burnt those weren't fit to eat either so he'd throw it away. While they could MAKE my son take this food, they couldn't MAKE him eat it and many days he came home to tell me he threw most of his lunch away (which I already knew since they'd call me at home).

We did our best to send lunches with him to school and one of his favorite meals to take was:

Meat and Cheese Roll Ups: (Deli Meat and cheese rolled up, either leave
whole or slice into bite size peices after rolling up)
Vegie Bag: (Snack size bag with bite size pieces of baby carrots and
celery)
Fruit: Usually an Apple or Banana
Nut Bag: (Mixed nuts, or whichever specific nut he wanted in a snack sized
bag. Sometimes he'd have actual trail mix instead).
Bottle of Water

Occasionally he'd want a "hot lunch" and would have burrito's: heat leftovers up until VERY hot, make burritos up, wrap in several layers of foil while hot, stick inside paper bag and roll bag around it then into his hot/cold lunch container and they'd still be warm enough to eat come lunch time.

This year will be easier for us with him moving up to middle school as the lunch room has a salad bar as well as the regular school food, hot water will be available to them as well as a microwave to use! He has already started planning different foods he can try out to see if they will work or not lol

[SanSSanity]

I can remember eating caf lunches. The problem is what they fixed for us tasted terrible, and I would just pick at my food and never eat. I was skinny then too. I think they started serving pizza in middle school, and in highschool we had a choice to eat in the caf, or to go to the 'snack bar' which consisted of tons of a canteen, and a counter where they sold pizza, pizza pockets, and chick fila sandwiches. More kids bought it, and ate this stuff...and this is when I started packing on the weight.

The thing that bothers me is that some of the less unfortunate kids are depending on school meals alone or for the most part. So if this is all they are getting. That kinda sucks!

[Kibs]

Re: The School Lunch.

Just read an article about childhood obesity and was interessted in this quote
"Who is crying "foul" about the carb-laden lunches offerred up by diaticians in charge of menu planning in our schools."
The article went on to say that our kids are being fed pizza, sloppy joes, corn dogs, cheeseburgers, french fries and tacos, topped off with cookies and washed down with chocolate milk, or sugary juice.
I guess one solution is to get involved with the PTAs and discuss this point at every chance we get, but also to send our kids a lunch that is not only healthy, but gets eaten.
So, any lunch suggestions?

Yep, thats exactly what I was fed. And not just young kids, this was in high school. Heres what my HS fed us.

1. Hamburger/fries basket line (veggies for your burger were extra btw)
2.Nacho line with that nasty fake cheese sauce, beans, meat, chicken, lettuce, tomato etc. This line also had the slushie machine.
3.The sub sandwhich/baked potato line.
4. Fried food, which ranged from fried chicken balls, curly fries, hot pockets, burritos, cheese sticks, etc.
5. The original food line with stuff like chicken rings, fried steak, mashed potatoes, corn etc. This line had all the snack cakes and a big ice cream freezer. I ALWAYS went here after eating to get a Little Debby snack cake.

Then there were all the coke machines! Every line had a section for Frutopia *sugary fruit drink*, ice cream, chips etc.

And this is what I ate for 4 years.

Also every thursday spanish club sold little ceasars pizzas. you could buy a whole pizza for like 7 bucks, or 1 dollar a slice.

Dreamof145, I DEFINATELY think there should be healthier choices for kids in HS who want to eat healthier. There was no way to do atkins when I was in HS unless I skipped lunch altogether. The only way to get a salad was to order a sub sandwhich, which was about 3 bucks, and throw away the bread. Some of us cant afford to do that every day! In middle school we had a salad line, where the heck did it go in HS.

[Shufflebutt]

I am lucky to live in a school district that is realising that children like options. My youngest two go to an elementary that has a salad bar and my daughter (7) will have that 9 times out of 10. Her brother (7) will alternate between the options. The school has also replaced white bread products with wheat bread. Alot of the once fried foods have been replaced with baked. Since the school started doing this the children have commented on how much better school lunch tastes. My eldest (16) has always been stuck with an early lunch at high school (10:30am!) so he mostly has a muffin and milk.

[SanSSanity]

eww 10.30 is too early to eat peroid! Thats terrible they have to eat so early! Id be so hungry by the time I got home!

[Vanillabeanduck]

I never eat the food at my school.

What they serve is so ridiculous to be called "balanced."

But we do have a salad line. So i can't complain too much.

[Shufflebutt]

SanSSanity ..... thats the biggest problem he has! He would get home from school at 3:15 and be famished! He starts cruising the kitchen like you wouldn't believe! Luckily I now got all the right stuff stocked up and its a way of life now for us so when he goes back to school in September he'll have better options and he will be used to them!

[Kibs]

the 1st or 2nd year of HS for me (cant remember!) There were 3 different lunches, the latest was at 1:30. I never ate breakfast becuase I was either in a hurry or wasn't hungry, so by 1:30 I would stuff myself because I hadn't eaten all day. The years after that the administration got all strict on kids eating in class, cause it "distracts the learning invironment". Ironically all the teachers thought it was idiotic. If the kids hungry, they arent gonna pay attention to class. So all the teachers let you eat if you were hungry anyway.
I had weird blood sugar problems my senior year, and i'd get very light headed/dizzy/sick feeling at random times, even after I just ate. I'd usually just have someone walk with me to get a pack of crackers, and often a teacher would stop me and harass me about having food in the halls for half an hour before theylet me go. THEN they'd get the teacher that let me leave in trouble.

[softnred]

I don't remember exactly what we had in our lunches in high school, but I remember that I liked the mexican food!!

My son goes to a private Montessori school, so I guess I've lucked out in the lunch/snack department. Each parent brings the snack for their kid's class once a month, and the school heavily discourage bringing sugary or highly refined items. When it's our turn, my son usually chooses whole-wheat mini pitas and hummus, with carrots on the side. He's never been a sandwich person, or even a bread person, so his lunches usually include cheese and/or yogurt, some pepperoni or a healthy variety of a granola bar, either a fruit or veggie, and yes, I do let him choose one sweet thing for dessert. I've never made sweets a big deal in our house, and he's never really been into them. Heck, three weeks ago he asked me to buy some Oreos for him. I did, and he's only eaten a few of them!! And he never eats all his halloween or easter candy. I've lucked out there!! His one big "thing" is that he likes Powerade. I let him have it, but make sure he drinks lots of water and milk as well.

[theresad]

School lunches for my 5th grader are a joke. He brings his lunch - neither of us like the hot lunch choices! It is run by Sodexho Marriott and it is BAD. They started a nutritional choice, but it did not live up to its name.

When I was in HS, my mom never wanted to spend the money on hot lunch, so I rarely ate it, only as a special "treat". In reading this thread though, it brought back memories - in my HS, they sold chocolate chip cookie dough as a dessert! I used to get like 3 big hunks of it whenever I could sneak money to school. OMG the things they feed kids! What are they thinking?

[book]

not long ago they started studying the feasability of enriching the foods in school by adding fish oils. They spent all this money testing tater tots with added fish oil, nacho cheese with fish oil (they said that one was really difficult to get the consistency right!) This was not long ago so they are probably still studying it.

My thoughts are this.....how much fish oil are you going to get into these kids by adding a little bit to their food? Not much, right?

Just hand out the bloody fish oil caps and be done with it! That way they could actually eat HEALTHY food, (well if they bring it from home anyway!) and still get the fish oil!

book