Dog, Tot, and Stick....

[emma'smom]

We've experienced 1 week of "school lunches" as part of a camp program (which serves the same lunches as the school lunch program)---I'm not impressed! I can't believe that, for some kids, this is the most nutritional lunch they receive. Everyday my daughter has come home reporting that they have eaten things like:

tater tots, cookies, cheetos, chocolate milk, hot dogs, french toast sticks, corn dogs, rice crispy treats....

Don't get me wrong...I'm not a junk food prude--my kids enjoy their share of junk. However, I see this "fair food" as a treat...not daily sustenance. What gives with the quality of school lunches?

 

[woodkins]

I'm not sure where you live, but where I am (Long Island, NY) our school district is in the opposite direction. They have things on their menu like greek salads, grilled chicken, and tomato soup. Even when they have pizza on Fridays it is whole grain with skim milk mozzarella cheese. They also only have water, milk or juice, no soft drinks at all. Last year the kids could not celebrate bdays with food either, only a favorite book or craft to share with the class. The bday treats will be back this year though!

 

[powellrj]

Our school lunches are like the first posters, All Junk. My oldest had never even had a tater tot until he started school and then found out they serve them almost everyday.

You would think in this day and age, food would get better, but instead its even more processed than it was when I was in school.

They make some stabs at being healthy like using turkey franks in the frozen corn dogs, but come on, why are they still even serving frozen corn dogs.

We pack alot.

 

[aestapa]

With the crazy schedules at our house, I was just going to let my kindergartener buy lunch. I even prepaid for a month or so. But, I was actually pleasantly surprised when he told me last night that he wants to take his lunchbox...he doesn't want to "get a tray". The conversation made me think twice and we will be headed to the store for lunch packing materials. It will be worth it to know he is eating healthy!

 

[allyphoe]

From the alternate perspective, my DD eats a much larger variety with the school lunch than she will in a packed lunch.

For camp the year before kindergarten, I needed to pack a lunch. We started off with a healthy lean protein, two fruits (she's not a veggie eater), animal crackers, and a bottle of water. She'd come home a screaming mess, having eaten nothing but animal crackers (more than half of which she'd shared with her tablemates) and a tablespoon of water. By the end of the summer, I'd narrowed it to one lunch she'd eat that would carry her through the day: 3 slices of precooked bacon, a sack of animal crackers for her and a second sack for sharing, and a bottle of water. Every day. And every day, she'd come home happy and smiling, with every bite eaten.

Camp is one thing, but I wasn't going to be the mom whose kid ate bacon and animal crackers and nothing else every day at school. So we didn't give her a choice: she got the school lunch. They offer her a fruit, a vegetable, a protein, a starch, and a milk every single day. Some days, she ate nothing but a bread roll and a chocolate milk. But a lot of days, she picked one of the two entrees, and ate it. And a lot of days, she took at least one bite of either the fruit or the vegetable.

For camp this year, she had a cold slice of cheese pizza and a wild cherry CapriSun every single day. And I was willing to be that mom at school, but she went through the first month's menu and was happy with the food choices. The entrees are relatively high in fat, but that makes them calorie-dense, which for my underweight-for-height small eater is a good thing. They have a higher-fat starchy vegetable (like mashed potatoes or tater tots) about once a week, but mostly it's steamed or raw fresh veggies.

 

[kevschickee]

It must depend on where you live because our school lunches aren't like that at all

 

[rt2dz]

Our lunches are a combination. They'll offer things like fruit plate and salad, but they also offer hamburgers, hotdogs, pizza, etc. What I don't like is that they count ketchup as a vegtable. It is not a vegetable! But that is the federal gov't that says it's a vegtable. All schools have to meet certain guidelines per the federal gov't, but the federal gov't is way too lienant.

Don't get me wrong, we're not a watch everything that goes into your mouth kind of family, but we're not that junky either. I have no problem with birthday treats and treats at class parties, but those are TREATS. I always figured if you offer your kids healthy foods, they'll prefer healthy foods, if you don't deny them junk on occassion, they'll never find it something they need to sneak and devour whenever the chance comes up.

 

[powellrj]

Here is the lunch menu for the first week back

August 18 Cheese/Sausage Pizza Choice: Chicken Patty Sandwich
(choose 2) Seasoned Corn, Green Garden Salad, Fruit Cocktail/Marshmallow
August 19 Chicken Noodles/Hot Roll/PNB Cup Choice: Steak Fingers/Hot Roll
(choose 2) Whipped Potatoes, Corn Relish, Jello with Fruit
August 20 Grilled Cheese Sandwich/Chocolate Chip Cookie Choice: Manager’s Choice
(choose 2) Green Beans, Creamy Slaw, Sliced Peaches
August 21 Cheeseburger Sandwich Choice: Fish Sandwich w/cheese
(choose 2) Oven Fries, Tossed Salad, Blushing Pears

It looks like something from the 1950's

 

[LuvMy3Monkeys]

My dad retired from the USDA, and from what he says, school lunches can be very deceiving. When DD 5 started preschool at Montessori last year (served the same lunch as the rest of the school up to 8th grade), I had alot of complaints about all of the pastas, pizza, corn dogs, sandwiches, etc.

Much to my amazement, he showed me some things about requirements on school lunches and the nutritional content that they have. A frozen corndog I buy may not be the same as the corndogs the schools use. They have a requirement they must meet to serve the food to the kids. They might use wholegrain pasta, cook ingredients with skim milk, fat free vegetable shortening, etc. They have things in place to make the meals kid-friendly and familiar, but still healthy and nutritional.

With all the grants available that schools are now competing for, plus the crackdowns with fatty foods in schools and childhood obesity, and the step up to quality program, the schools are probably serving things you may not think are healthy because you're familiar with the walmart frozen version, which may be nowhere near what they are serving. Now, mind you this is not true for everyone, but typically what seems to be a junk food school meal may not be.

Another thing to consider... just because a school is serving salads instead of pizza doesnt mean it's serving healthier foods. Give that salad some diced up processed lunch meat ham, some cheese and some ranch dressing... you might as well be serving ice cream sundaes for lunch. But a pizza with whole grains and skim mozerella and tomato sauce could be a much healthier choice.

 

[dizneechic]

Our school district does exactly what the pp mentioned. Things are made to be familiar to the kids but use only non processed ingredients. We also only have low fat white or chocolate milk available to the kids, no juice or soda and no bottled water (they can bring it from home or have free cups and get it form the fountains), soy milk is also available for those with allergies. Here's a sample of the lunch menu from last June
http://www.framingham.k12.ma.us/foodservices/documents/Menus/ESlunch.pdf
The kids have things like fajitas, herb roasted chicken, Tuscan meatballs, whole wheat spaghetti, yet they also still have pizza Fridays, bacon burgers and nachos (all made fairly healthy although you would never know).

The middle and high schoolers in our area have a similar menu but also have buffets, soup and salad bars, even a vegan bar complete with tofu.

My dd4 is in a preschool class that is situated in the same building as the director of food services for our town and he comes into their class at least twice a month to treat them to new foods. I remember one day last year she came home asking for more Orzo... I had no idea what she was talking about.

Unfortunately my kids all prefer to bring so I end up being "that mom" sending in the rotation of the 3 things they will actually eat along with fruit/veggies and a carb.

 

[dayzemair]

I totally see your point about school lunches - I am a teacher (stay at home mom now) and when I was in the schools, I was frequently horrified by what they were serving as their "main" entree's. The kids can have pizza every day, and fries were served with just about every entree, or they could have the "healthy" thing which was a turkey sandwich and apple... how many kids do you think chose the sandwich and apple? not many...
but I am not convinced that this is as harmful as it may seem. Realistically most kids just don't eat all that much for lunch and as long as they are in fact offering healthy choices, its not a whole lot different than what I do at home, I offer her a variety, she chooses what she wants to eat and its not always balanced, but as my pedi says, if we all ate like toddlers there would not be an obesity problem in this country...

I would like to see the schools go to this model I saw in a documentary once though, they made all their food there in the school and found it didn't actually cost any more then hiring the mariots of the world to do it for them... I think this would be a huge improvement.

I think I will make my daughter's lunches when she goes to school though - school lunches are too pricey!

 

[kevschickee]

the way I look at it is as long as you are offering well balanced meals at home then lunch at school doesn't really matter. I say let the kids make the choice and try not to hover over them about thier choices.

 

[emma'smom]

That works for the folks who do offer balanced meals at home. However, for some children...the subsidized school lunch is the best meal they will have all day.

I talked with a few moms tonight whose kids are in the public schools and have the lunch options I described every day. They aren't very happy with these options. Most end up packing regularly--but let their kids pick a few "favorites" to buy. However, these are moms who had just finished a conversation about sustainable agriculture and the opening of our new coop to support locally grown produce--so a definitely a skewed perspective.

the way I look at it is as long as you are offering well balanced meals at home then lunch at school doesn't really matter. I say let the kids make the choice and try not to hover over them about thier choices.

P.S. I pack my dd's lunch daily during the school year because her school doesn't have a cafeteria (private school). They do have pizza fridays--and we send in sides to go with the pizza. They have their choice of low fat milk or water to drink.

 

[daisyduck123]

Simple solution though..if you don't like what the school provides, then pack the kids lunches.

Neither of my kids (11th grade, 6th grade) has ever bought a school lunch. They have always brought lunch from home.

 

[powellrj]

Simple solution though..if you don't like what the school provides, then pack the kids lunches.

Neither of my kids (11th grade, 6th grade) has ever bought a school lunch. They have always brought lunch from home.

Its a simple solution for us, but our school district has many schools that are over 95% free or reduced. As a tax payer I hate to think I am paying for these kids to get a junk breakfast and a junk lunch and then go to an afterschool program that offers things like hot dogs and chips for their dinner.

You can feed kids good nutritious meals that don't include jello with marshmallows as a fruit choice.

I envy the kids who get great offerings for their lunches. My kids won't see changes made in our school lunches, but I hope the younger kids will get more options in the future.

 

[HLDisney]

I'm with the PP who said that at least her child got to try a variety of foods. When my DD started pre-kindergarten, she was used to Chinese food (we're Chinese and she eats some of her meals with my parents before I get home) and only wanted things like rice or noodles, the only exception being chicken nuggets and fries. She wouldn't eat the typical kids stuff, like pizza, PB&J, mac and cheese, burgers, hot dogs, chicken drumsticks, etc. On our first trip to Disney, she ate 7 days of chicken tenders and fries (with grapes and bananas for fruit)

When pre-K started, she did have a hard time in the beginning and would come home starved after school but then we gradually started hearing that she ate a chicken drumstick ("and it wasn't that bad, mom!" ) or that she tried the burger or the fish sticks. And since the "backup" choice is always PB&J, she will actually choose to eat a PB&J sandwich sometimes (usually when the choice is something she really doesn't like, like salad or Mexican food)

So while school lunches may not be great (although ours aren't as bad as the OP's), they've taught my DD to expand her food repertoire and to be willing to try new things and for that, I'm extremely grateful. If I had to pack a lunch for her everyday, she'd probably be eating ham sandwiches or macaroni in a thermos most of the year.

Helen

 

[pilesoflaundry]

Here they are full of junk but they do have salad as an option sometimes. I was told the reason is we are in a low income area and they "assume" that may be the only meal these kids get in a day so they are full of calories, similiar to a military MRE. Enough calories to sustain you in one meal if you can't eat for another day or so. We have been title 1 for the last 4 years so we have a high percentage of free and reduced lunch kids here.

Yesterday was mac n cheese and little smokies or pb/j sandwich as option 2. Today is cheeseburgers I think? They stopped sending menus home, you have to get them online to save paper.

It varies by location I'm sure.

 

[mom2val]

Here is the lunch menu for the first week back

August 18 Cheese/Sausage Pizza Choice: Chicken Patty Sandwich
(choose 2) Seasoned Corn, Green Garden Salad, Fruit Cocktail/Marshmallow
August 19 Chicken Noodles/Hot Roll/PNB Cup Choice: Steak Fingers/Hot Roll
(choose 2) Whipped Potatoes, Corn Relish, Jello with Fruit
August 20 Grilled Cheese Sandwich/Chocolate Chip Cookie Choice: Manager’s Choice
(choose 2) Green Beans, Creamy Slaw, Sliced Peaches
August 21 Cheeseburger Sandwich Choice: Fish Sandwich w/cheese
(choose 2) Oven Fries, Tossed Salad, Blushing Pears

It looks like something from the 1950's

We live in North Texas and this menu looks just like the options we get. There is a veg option- trix yogurt and a piece of fruit plus the 2 sides. Lunch cost $2 a day for elementary.

 

[dis-happy]

What I don't like is that they count ketchup as a vegtable. It is not a vegetable! But that is the federal gov't that says it's a vegtable.

You must be too young to remember....this change re. ketchup as a vegetable came about during the Reagan years. Lots of hue and cry at the time. Plus, it became fodder for late night television comedy for several months. Ah, the good 'ole days.

 

[rt2dz]

You must be too young to remember....this change re. ketchup as a vegetable came about during the Reagan years. Lots of hue and cry at the time. Plus, it became fodder for late night television comedy for several months. Ah, the good 'ole days.

Oh, I remember, but I didn't have kids so I didn't care. I care now, especially when they have ketchup, they don't give the kids another vegtable choice. Our school offers 3 meal choices and 2 a la carte choices. Each line is supposed to have 2 fruit choices and 2 vegtable choices, but the ketchup is the only vegtable offered on those items. My oldest won't even touch ketchup, but LOVES most vegtables. He is the kid that chooses the salad or fruit plate.

FYI (because I know someone will think it, if not say it), no, an extra vegtable/fruit is not offered when the main entree is a vegtable/fruit item.