I see the point but I am not sure DC should have the last word on school menus.
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Unfortunately what the government deems are "healthy" foods don't match with what I consider healthy foods for my family. My child is half Inuit and a grain based, fruit and vegetable (high carb) diet is not biologically appropriate and she has already suffered health problems because of it. I'm not Inuit and grains, fruit, vegetables are also detrimental to my health. Yes, I said vegetables. I can't tolerate them, and I'm not a special snowflake in that regard. Many people are suffering health problems from reactions to many plant foods but few ever actually figure it out. How can they with the current dietary advice that deems animal foods unhealthy, which humans have been eating for millennia (high mortalities were NOT caused by disease like we see today), and promotes consumption of insane amounts of insoluble fibre never before consumed in such a way by our ancestors.
When government and big business are in bed together, the advice can never be trusted. The most healthy foods for my family are the most demonized so I expect the government to stay out of my food choices. Period.
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I really don't agree with public schools telling parents what they can or can't pack, however.
Ok, maybe the peanut allergy thing. But otherwise, it's a bit invasive.0 -
DancingDarl wrote: »I was shocked when i saw what kids in america eat at lunch. Just terrible. There needs to be some big changes for the children.DancingDarl wrote: »I was shocked when i saw what kids in america eat at lunch. Just terrible. There needs to be some big changes for the children.
Since your not in the USA, have you ever first hand saw school lunches ? You say your not from the USA but now say you saw what kids eat here ? Are you talking about what you may have read or did you really see it ?
Well I have for many years . my son goes to a public school. They have 3 choices per day to pick from. A list is sent home weekly and the parents circle which meals their kids would like to have.
Here's a sample of today's lunch menu-
Option 1 -
Garden salad with choice of lite Italian or ranch dressing.
Baked Chicken 100% breastmeat strips
Celery and carrot dippers
Milk or water
Option 2-
Turkey breast on whole wheat bread served with lettuce tomato and onion on the side. Mayo packet optional.
Apple slices
Green bean and corn medley
Milk or water
Option 3-
Veggie burger party served on whole wheat bread with lettuce tomato and onion on the side.
Mayo packet optional.
Cesar salad with croutons
Orange or apple slices
Milk or water
So maybe before you make generalized statements , do your research and don't believe that every American school serves poor food choices.0 -
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Quite honestly I find the whole comparison thing pointless considering Australia is hot on the heels of the US with the rise of obesity. School lunches and portion sizes aside we are fast catching up.0
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Here's a sample of the breakfast menu ( my child eats breakfast at home . but there are many kids who do not have enough food at home to eat breakfast there so they must eat at school. These children receive free meals or reduced cost meals. Reduced cost meals are 30cents . the kids may pick 3 items from the breakfast list )
Apple slices
Milk or water
Scrambled eggs or hard boiled eggs
Plain yogurt
Avocado slices
Wheat bread toasted with turkey bacon and egg sandwich
Banana
Oatmeal cup
So once again , please explain how anything on this list is a poor food choice ?
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lemurcat12 wrote: »I'm still wondering where DancingDarl's information about all US school lunches came from, such that she knows they are all shocking and terrible, but in the meantime if anyone recalls that whole "school lunches around the world" thing, here's something kind of interesting that serves as a reality (including with respect to US lunches):
http://www.thelunchtray.com/why-im-fed-up-with-those-photos-of-school-lunches-around-the-world/
Jamie Oliver probably.0 -
Monsanto (and their girl HIllary) dissaprove of this topic.0
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Here's a sampling of Fridays specials , for all those people who have so many opinions of American school lunches ( but have never actually saw one first hand )
Get ready for it...this is the special meal of the week .....oh the filth....;)
Brown rice and black beans on a spinach tortilla wrap
Avocado slices
Garden salad with choice of oil and vinegar or lite ranch
Milk or water
Option 2
Grilled chicken breast 100% breastmeat salad ( iceberg lettuce , shredded carot , diced celery , chopped cucumber)
Orange or apple slices
Mixed veggie dippers with lite ranch optional
Milk or water
Option 3
Baked tilapia
Garden salad with choice of oil and vinegar or lite ranch
Orange or apple slices
Milk or water
Oh wow........nothing wrong with any of those ...
so before you speak about how terrible something is, it might be a good idea to actually know what's being served 0 -
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DancingDarl wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »@DancingDarl what are school lunches like in your country. Steven gave examples from Germany. For money reasons mom fixed our lunches especially in the lower grades. I had a friend that was an only child who always had money and he wanted to buy what mom fixed for me so I would sell my lunch for cash. He died in his 40's from stomach cancer so I wondered if Mom's food was bad for him. Since he lived on junk food a lot of the time and was heavy may have been more of an issue however. Of course the doctor having on antacids for years when it was cancer was the thing that did him in at the end I expect.
All the mothers make up lunches, it has to be healthy. Everyday 1 fruit for fruit time.
At least one serve of fruit, a healthy lunch I usually make him a wrap with lettuce carrot musheroom and chicken. Celery sticks with peanut butter. A treat I put in there is an extra fruit sttawberries and a yoghurt.
I actually got pulled up by his teacher once for putting a milo dairy snack in his lunch box..at first I was shocked,but then she explained how that totalled his sugar intake for the whole day(hence he wasnt allowed to eat it).
There is a movement towards eating for health with mothers here and we do allow them to have for instance "special treat day" which was 2 weeks ago and they got to eat things that normally werent allowed.
Teachers and the education system have made canteens also quite healthy. I do not know any school that would ever serve a burger or fries or coke. I don't see childhood obesity in any of the kids either which is great :-) i like it that we aim to give them very nutritious foods otherwise what is the point.
Does wormwood count as a fruit or a vegetable?0 -
@thorsmom01 I like that there is always a vegetarian option.
I will admit that my cafeteria food growing up was probably the stereotype that the other poster was thinking about. It was huge portions and not much of it was healthy. However, I am also a bajillion million years old and there has been a lot of movement to make the lunches better in many areas of the country.
There's always an option for vegetarians and also people who don't eat pork, people who can't eat nuts and so on.
In the beginning of each school year , parents are sent home a letter asking them to email the cafeteria with any special dietary preference and that they will try their best to accommodate within reason. They try their best to prepare meals that are healthy and filling. The parents are asked to voice their concerns at parent meetings and to think of ways to get better lunches served . one parent had an idea to ask local farms for donations in exchange for parents to clean trash and debris from their farms three times a year. This farmer now donates blue berries three times a year for the kids.
They also offer a sandwich bag to take home at night with peanut butter and jam and an apple with a water for any child that may not have enough food at home for dinner.
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DancingDarl wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »@DancingDarl what are school lunches like in your country. Steven gave examples from Germany. For money reasons mom fixed our lunches especially in the lower grades. I had a friend that was an only child who always had money and he wanted to buy what mom fixed for me so I would sell my lunch for cash. He died in his 40's from stomach cancer so I wondered if Mom's food was bad for him. Since he lived on junk food a lot of the time and was heavy may have been more of an issue however. Of course the doctor having on antacids for years when it was cancer was the thing that did him in at the end I expect.
All the mothers make up lunches, it has to be healthy. Everyday 1 fruit for fruit time.
At least one serve of fruit, a healthy lunch I usually make him a wrap with lettuce carrot musheroom and chicken. Celery sticks with peanut butter. A treat I put in there is an extra fruit sttawberries and a yoghurt.
I actually got pulled up by his teacher once for putting a milo dairy snack in his lunch box..at first I was shocked,but then she explained how that totalled his sugar intake for the whole day(hence he wasnt allowed to eat it).
There is a movement towards eating for health with mothers here and we do allow them to have for instance "special treat day" which was 2 weeks ago and they got to eat things that normally werent allowed.
Teachers and the education system have made canteens also quite healthy. I do not know any school that would ever serve a burger or fries or coke. I don't see childhood obesity in any of the kids either which is great :-) i like it that we aim to give them very nutritious foods otherwise what is the point.
See this would irritate me to no end as a mother, to have the school dictate what I can/cannot pack in my kids lunches. It's my right and responsibility as the parent to feed my kids/make food choices for them. This topic could be a whole different thread
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thorsmom01 wrote: »DancingDarl wrote: »I was shocked when i saw what kids in america eat at lunch. Just terrible. There needs to be some big changes for the children.DancingDarl wrote: »I was shocked when i saw what kids in america eat at lunch. Just terrible. There needs to be some big changes for the children.
Since your not in the USA, have you ever first hand saw school lunches ? You say your not from the USA but now say you saw what kids eat here ? Are you talking about what you may have read or did you really see it ?
Well I have for many years . my son goes to a public school. They have 3 choices per day to pick from. A list is sent home weekly and the parents circle which meals their kids would like to have.
Here's a sample of today's lunch menu-
Option 1 -
Garden salad with choice of lite Italian or ranch dressing.
Baked Chicken 100% breastmeat strips
Celery and carrot dippers
Milk or water
Option 2-
Turkey breast on whole wheat bread served with lettuce tomato and onion on the side. Mayo packet optional.
Apple slices
Green bean and corn medley
Milk or water
Option 3-
Veggie burger party served on whole wheat bread with lettuce tomato and onion on the side.
Mayo packet optional.
Cesar salad with croutons
Orange or apple slices
Milk or water
So maybe before you make generalized statements , do your research and don't believe that every American school serves poor food choices.
Well in her defense-my kid's public school menu is pretty crappy (Michigan here). I posted up a bit what their menu is, for the first week in April. It must be a location/state thing?0 -
thorsmom01 wrote: »Here's a sample of the breakfast menu ( my child eats breakfast at home . but there are many kids who do not have enough food at home to eat breakfast there so they must eat at school. These children receive free meals or reduced cost meals. Reduced cost meals are 30cents . the kids may pick 3 items from the breakfast list )
Apple slices
Milk or water
Scrambled eggs or hard boiled eggs
Plain yogurt
Avocado slices
Wheat bread toasted with turkey bacon and egg sandwich
Banana
Oatmeal cup
So once again , please explain how anything on this list is a poor food choice ?
Our school serves poptarts, waffles, cereal bars etc. My kids ate donuts for breakfast this morning, in between orchestra practice and school drop off, so I can't point fingers at the school for their crappy breakfasts. They were freshly made from a local bakery though, maybe that cancels out some of the crap 0 -
Food offerings at schools in the USA differ wildly depending on the district and it's tax base/poverty level. I live in Oklahoma and roughly 50% of the kids at my daughters pre-K are on free or reduced lunch. I always feed her breakfast at home and pack a lunch but ONCE I let her eat breakfast at school because we were running late. Breakfast that day was poptarts...not kidding, poptarts and milk.0
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ReaderGirl3 wrote: »thorsmom01 wrote: »DancingDarl wrote: »I was shocked when i saw what kids in america eat at lunch. Just terrible. There needs to be some big changes for the children.DancingDarl wrote: »I was shocked when i saw what kids in america eat at lunch. Just terrible. There needs to be some big changes for the children.
Since your not in the USA, have you ever first hand saw school lunches ? You say your not from the USA but now say you saw what kids eat here ? Are you talking about what you may have read or did you really see it ?
Well I have for many years . my son goes to a public school. They have 3 choices per day to pick from. A list is sent home weekly and the parents circle which meals their kids would like to have.
Here's a sample of today's lunch menu-
Option 1 -
Garden salad with choice of lite Italian or ranch dressing.
Baked Chicken 100% breastmeat strips
Celery and carrot dippers
Milk or water
Option 2-
Turkey breast on whole wheat bread served with lettuce tomato and onion on the side. Mayo packet optional.
Apple slices
Green bean and corn medley
Milk or water
Option 3-
Veggie burger party served on whole wheat bread with lettuce tomato and onion on the side.
Mayo packet optional.
Cesar salad with croutons
Orange or apple slices
Milk or water
So maybe before you make generalized statements , do your research and don't believe that every American school serves poor food choices.
Well in her defense-my kid's public school menu is pretty crappy (Michigan here). I posted up a bit what their menu is, for the first week in April. It must be a location/state thing?
I was going to say... what school is that?! Wow, I want to go back to school!0 -
Oh noes...not pop tarts and milk.
My kids usually eat at home too (if they'll eat breakfast). Some days its.....pop tarts and milk. Some of that has to do with the time kids get to eat breakfast at school. I had breakfast with my kid at school last Friday. When the late bus got there the b breakfast kids got something like 8-10 min to eat.0 -
I have 2 daughters. 1 is 15 slim athletic build. Takes her own lunch. She will take leftovers in a thermos or make a sandwich.
2nd daughter would prefer to eat school lunch and she is obese.
Our school still offers bags of chips, cookies and ice cream for the kids to buy. I caught her buying this crap and told her I'm not putting money into her lunch account anymore for the rest of the year.
As for the salad bar I know my oldest daughter would love a salad bar.
Lunches here (rural midwest):
Corn dog, au gratin potatoes, peaches milk
hamburger on bun, broccoli w/cheese, peaches, milk
so on and so forth. Pizza, pizza crunchers, tacos, quesadillas, hot dogs, country fried steak, and bbq on a bun. I know that the girls have stated they can get a breaded chicken sandwich on a bun as another option. That's if they don't run out.
I guess the addition of veggies and fruit is what makes it healthy. Personally I wouldn't eat any of this on a daily basis.
I would like to know where lunch costs $1.95 since I'm paying $2.90 a lunch. Another reason why I told my youngest I wasn't paying because I can easily buy this same crap for a lot cheaper than what I'm paying the school to sell it to her for.
Um...so are you saying the school lunch is to blame that one kid is obese and the other isnt?0 -
If your school is serving foods that you don't like, you can pack your own foods. If you can't afford to do so, you can apply for tanf ,wic , or you can plant a small garden and grow your own. You can also voice your concerns with your school district and think of ways to earn extra money for the district to buy fresh foods.
Or you can allow your kids to eat some of the foods from school and then prepare healthy foods at home .
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Not much to add, but here is the school lunch calendar for my kids for April. I don't limit the foods I eat, I just eat the right sizes and I teach my kids the same. I can see exactly what options my kids chose as well -
http://browardschools.nutrislice.com/menu/elementary/lunch/april/2016/
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lemurcat12 wrote: »I'm still wondering where DancingDarl's information about all US school lunches came from, such that she knows they are all shocking and terrible, but in the meantime if anyone recalls that whole "school lunches around the world" thing, here's something kind of interesting that serves as a reality (including with respect to US lunches):
http://www.thelunchtray.com/why-im-fed-up-with-those-photos-of-school-lunches-around-the-world/
Jamie Oliver probably.
Yup, you're right on the money
The images we see of American school lunches are from shock-article journalism through our news outlets and shows like Jamie Oliver's school lunches series, showing sad limp chicken nuggets, string cheese, bright pink strawberry milk and a little withered apple. It's not newsworthy for them to report that some schools have options that are healthy and look pleasant on the plate.ReaderGirl3 wrote: »DancingDarl wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »@DancingDarl what are school lunches like in your country. Steven gave examples from Germany. For money reasons mom fixed our lunches especially in the lower grades. I had a friend that was an only child who always had money and he wanted to buy what mom fixed for me so I would sell my lunch for cash. He died in his 40's from stomach cancer so I wondered if Mom's food was bad for him. Since he lived on junk food a lot of the time and was heavy may have been more of an issue however. Of course the doctor having on antacids for years when it was cancer was the thing that did him in at the end I expect.
All the mothers make up lunches, it has to be healthy. Everyday 1 fruit for fruit time.
At least one serve of fruit, a healthy lunch I usually make him a wrap with lettuce carrot musheroom and chicken. Celery sticks with peanut butter. A treat I put in there is an extra fruit sttawberries and a yoghurt.
I actually got pulled up by his teacher once for putting a milo dairy snack in his lunch box..at first I was shocked,but then she explained how that totalled his sugar intake for the whole day(hence he wasnt allowed to eat it).
There is a movement towards eating for health with mothers here and we do allow them to have for instance "special treat day" which was 2 weeks ago and they got to eat things that normally werent allowed.
Teachers and the education system have made canteens also quite healthy. I do not know any school that would ever serve a burger or fries or coke. I don't see childhood obesity in any of the kids either which is great :-) i like it that we aim to give them very nutritious foods otherwise what is the point.
See this would irritate me to no end as a mother, to have the school dictate what I can/cannot pack in my kids lunches. It's my right and responsibility as the parent to feed my kids/make food choices for them. This topic could be a whole different thread
Isn't that what the school lunch programs are doing anyway? Dictating what your child can eat?
I'd like to add to that this level control over what goes in a child's lunch in Australia is usually restricted to the kindergarten / primary schools, and varies from school to school; some are much stricter than others. Government legislation has had 'Junk food' (fried food, hot dogs, candy bars) and 'sugary drinks' (soft drinks, iced teas, sports waters, energy drinks, slushies) banned from primary and highschool canteens and vending machines since 2007.
School provided/subsidised lunches have just never been around in Australia, although many schools (and this is many many years ago when I was in highschool) have their own program to provide a free basic breakfast to students to make sure that they aren't going hungry. It's deemed the responsibility of the parents to make sure that their child has a (hopefully nutritious) lunch available to them. I grew up in a single income household where we were brushing the edge of the poverty line, and my mum always managed to scrape together a decent lunch for me on the cheap. I grew up tall, healthy and relatively illness free because I was well fed. Would I have done better with a government subsidised school lunch? Probably not, but there were other kids in my school who would have greatly benefited.
Note: I'm not saying our way is better or worse than any other system, just different. You kinda have to wonder what kids were getting in their lunches beforehand to make some of the schools have such a strict policy though.0 -
My issue is with people who comment when they really don't know first hand about the topic but make generalizations.
Example ,I know two Aussies. Both are odd looking and dimwitted. It would be moronic of me to think that Aussies are ugly and dim just because I know two that are. Or better yet, if someone creates a thread asking for low carb recipes I don't reply because I don't know enough about the topic to comment. I may point the person towards someone else who can help them but that's about all. But there's many people who just type up a reply without even knowing about the topic. If someone hasn't ever dealt with American school lunches , it would be best to learn about them first before commenting on how terrible they are.
And if you are in America and have a problem with what your school serves, the good news is that you have many options . you could grow your own foods in a small garden . seeds are not expensive. ( I know a mom who has a little garden on her fire escape . if she made it work, surely you can ) you could pack your own foods. If you can't afford your own foods, you can apply for assistance. You can do many things to change what your children eat for lunch. Or you could just sit back and complain about it and blame the government for the poor school lunch menus. Its up to you. Remember- where there's a will- there's a way.
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