School menu ridiculousness

Maybe I'm just romanticizing things, but I recall there being a STEEP dropoff in food quality when I went from elementary school to middle school, so around 2005. Not sure if new laws went into effect or something then, but man. I remember GOOD fresh fruit, mashed potatoes (never fries), and peaches 'n cream for dessert. Of course there was Domino's Pizza day 1x a week and most of the food was still bad choices, but it seemed like higher quality bad choices.

My kids bring their lunches and we've had no issues with peer pressure. Actually the opposite has happened with other kids trying to take stuff from my kid's lunches :grumble: As for cost-it's almost $2 for one cafeteria lunch x3 kids-heck no! I can pack their lunches for cheaper than that. One time last year grandma gave my kid's money for a hot lunch and my kids kept the money and asked me to pack them something :laugh:

I'm at war with my husband over feeding our little girl. I don't want her to be so sheltered from "junk food" that she binges on it in secret or when she's away from us when she gets older, but I don't see how it's necessary. He, his mother and his brother constantly try to feed her sweets and desserts and potato chips. It makes me incredibly upset when I see him giving her drinks of soda. She's ONE for goodness sakes...let her teeth grow IN before you start trying to rot them out!

That food will also destroy her teeth.

I make my kids lunch every day to take to his day camp. He starts school again this Monday, and that's not going to change. I can't say I make the perfect lunch, but I'm happy with it:

Natural PB and standard jelly
Fruit leather (I'm usually able to find things that aren't complete sugar)
Granola Bar (the Clif krispy bars are pretty tasty!)
Bell peppers, carrots, apple, peaches, oranges, or some other actual fruit/veggie
Juice Box (apple juice or those V8 splashers things)

Not perfect, but it works, and he eats it all.

I take my kids to the grocer, talk about healthy choices, and pack their lunches.

If kids are getting consistent messages about what is healthy and what isn't, they can make good decisions. Parents bring in birthday cupcakes and random treats constantly. It isn't just the lunches.

When my son's preschool teacher handed out giant lollipops, he said, "Ms. Barbara, why did you do that? I thought you cared about us". Our school also limits water to mealtime and right after recess, so the sugars stay in a dry mouth all day long.

Weird. Our school's lunches are now extremely healthy and well-balanced. They usually have a baked protein source, a fruit, a vegetable, and a starch. They took away the option (cheese quesadilla) that was available if a child didn't like what was being served. Every kid must take either a fruit or a veggie option. Regular milk or low fat chocolate milk are the beverages provided.

I don't pack my child a lunch because the school lunches are far more healthy than anything I would pack. My child is a very picky eater, but she is more willing to try new things at school than she is at home. I'm actually very impressed with our school's lunches.

Holy crap! It's like taking your own lunch to school isn't even an option... oh wait, it is.

Maybe, just maybe, the idea of school providing lunch shouldn't be seen as the school's obligation but as an option the school is providing.

Also, all the food listed in that menu is real food. I didn't see any mention of styrofoam cutouts or paper mache creations.

Don't want your kids to eat those sorts of foods? Take the responsibility on yourself as a parent and send them to school with what you consider 'good' food.

I loved that you posted this! I think so many parents going back to school assume the schools are preparing nutritional meals for our kids but they aren't! They can't with the budgets they've been given and the staff that they are hiring. Parents need to review the schools menu and opt out if they feel it is inadequate which it probably will be.

I'm at war with my husband over feeding our little girl. I don't want her to be so sheltered from "junk food" that she binges on it in secret or when she's away from us when she gets older, but I don't see how it's necessary. He, his mother and his brother constantly try to feed her sweets and desserts and potato chips. It makes me incredibly upset when I see him giving her drinks of soda. She's ONE for goodness sakes...let her teeth grow IN before you start trying to rot them out!

WOW! My daughter is 5 and while she does get some sweets and chips now and then, soda is a rarity for her. She actually considers most of them "too spicy" as she's not used to the taste.

She's currently at a private daycare, and will be starting kindergarten in a few weeks. She is already requesting what foods she wants in her lunches, and yogurts/go-gurts, string cheese, and fresh fruits such as apples and berries are right at the top of her list.

EDIT: And the only thing she wants to purchase is her milk.

It's not the food that's making kids obese, it's the TV, and the Ipad, and the Xbox, and the overprotective parents who shelter their kids indoors. When you're a kid, you're supposed to be active, many of us just went until we crashed face down on the carpet, and as a result, what we ate was largely inconsequential. Not saying that kids don't benefit from real food, just that they don't suffer as much as adults from over processed food (assuming the kids are active.) Kids in school these days sit in class for hours on end, many schools have done away with PE programs, and recess, and when they get home they vedge in front of the boob tube. That's what's making them fat. When I was a kid I spent hours playing basketball, football, night games, or riding my bike. At that point I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain an ounce. Kids need to be kids, otherwise, they get fat.

By the way, I'm no fan of the school lunch program, or public schools in general, but it's become an easy scapegoat for parents who are largely vacant from their children's lives.

Rigger

1. Tax payer dollars in schools go towards repairs, equipment, teachers, maintenance, books, education - the stuff that the kids go to school for.

2. School Lunches are a convenience for parents that don't "have time" to make their kids lunches, and aren't provided directly by the school, but rather an outside food catering / prep company. The schools order what the kids eat, and frankly that's never the "good" stuff.

3. Breakfast?! Damn, I'm not old, but I remember we got one lunch, and we ran our *kitten* off during recess so the quality of food didn't matter unless kids chose to sit on the swing instead of playing with everyone else.

4. If you want the menus changed, go to board meetings and complain about it. Become more active and contact other parents with the same concerns and continue to voice your opinions at the board meetings. You may think they're a bunch of cheap stiffs, but what they really care about most is making sure the kids are getting the best education, and are happy. They'll listen to you if you voice your opinion

5. If they don't because it's not in the budget, make their lunch

Okay, first off, government regulations control everything a school is allowed to order for their cafeteria. I know that because I used to work in food distribution and some of my customers were very large school systems. You cannot sub any item at all without reviewing the entire nutritional info and making sure it falls with the government guidelines. The problem is the government was more worried about saving money when they set those guidelines than they were about nutrition. The schools order based on their set budget, and as we know, the school's budget is always the first budget to be cut by any government be it local, state or federal. As long as what they order is in their budget and in those horribly set nutritional guidelines they can order it. Most lunches are still provided by the school cafeteria, not by some catering company, although in high school they do offer some restaurant foods like pizza hut pizza and subway sandwiches.

I do agree with you that kids were much more active fifteen or twenty years ago, and that helped to keep the junk food from making them fat, however you can be thin and be unhealthy due to poor nutrition also. I agree that the ultimate responsibility falls on the parent and parents should pack healthy lunches for their kids.

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"For some children school's provide 2 meals a day. And for those living below the poverty level, sending homemade lunches when the school will provide them for free is just not a luxury they can afford.

I don't know if the OP's school is public or private, but when tax dollars are spent on public school lunches we ought to at least be outraged when it's spent on junk food lacking in nutrtition."
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Actually, if someone was providing FREE food to my child so they didn't have to be hungry, I don't think I'd complain at all. If you don't like the FREE food schools provide, buy your own food and send a lunch.

Not a coincidence that programs like the FREE lunch program provided by tax dollars are labeled "ENTITLEMENTS."

Edited because the quote box didn't appear -- quoting a previous comment.

Morgan Spurlock addressed both the nutrition and cost of school lunches in Supersize Me. He clearly shows that there ARE suppliers who will provide healthy food to students at the same cost as providing the pizza, french fries, and sloppy joes that they currently serve. It's really a matter of principals and school administrators doing their homework. Perhaps if the children were fed properly there would be fewer incidences of hyperactivity and distractions from the actual LEARNING that is supposed to be going on in the classroom. If a kid eats pizza and fries and soda for lunch of COURSE they're going to crash an hour later and be completely unable to focus in class. School adminstrators really just need to reprioritize and do a little research.

Whoa! Hold on a minute, the nutrition is not that simple. The school principle does not get to choose. Each county takes bids from food distributors and then the whole county is stuck with whatever distributor wins with the lowest bid.

Having said that, the federal government has set guidelines each state/ county/ individual school must meet. The problem is the guidelines are pathetic- actually being set up by the old food pyramid combined with meeting a certain minimum calorie count (there is no maximum calorie count enforced) because the program was primarily set up to feed impoverished children who lived in homes where the school meal was the only meal the child would get that day. There is the problem- it hasn't been reviewed or revised for many years, combined with budget cuts taking away workers who used to cook things from scratch and also locking the budgets at lower amounts, so the kids end up with processed re-heated garbage to eat.

My daughter is starting full day school for the first time Monday. It's $2.50 a meal. I think they get to chose between 3 options. They seem like good options to me.

Aug 19:
#1: Entree salad w/ dinner roll
#2: Hot dog
#3: Turkey sandwich

http://www.jeffcopublicschools.org/food_services/Elementary Lunch Aug.pdf