What has happened to kids school lunches?

[tvguy]

This makes sense. Sadly, it is at the expense of the quality of food served. I've looked at the ingredients of the food our school serves. Tasting bad is the least of the worries. The preservatives and additives are horrible. We have moved to eating a whole food, mostly unprocessed diet at home and it makes a world of difference as far as health. I feel lucky we have the means to do that. I know many students rely on schools to eat that is why more focus should be put on providing unprocessed meals (like another poster said, chicken breast and a fruit or veggie is a good one and add rice to that for an acceptable carb). Serving a donut and juice at breakfast is setting a kid up to fail. Eggs and bacon or sausage and whole fruit for breakfast would improve focus and behavior issues.

At least here the school lunch programs try to be healthy, after all Sacramento has started branding itself as the "Farm to Fork Capital"........but there are lots of strings attached to the Federal money for school lunches. You HAVE to use approved suppliers. So what is happening here is, we have Foster Farms just down the highway who can provide fresh, preservative free chicken for the schools, but they aren't an approved supplier. So they have to buy Tyson frozen and preservative laden chicken nuggets trucked in from Arkansas because Tyson is an approved supplier. And yes, Tyson is a huge political donor without regard to the party the recipient is affiliated with.

https://www.abc10.com/article/enter...bell/103-15c477b3-7b7b-4e4d-82b6-820e99a38925

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

I remember liking taco day and pizza day (the thin square cafeteria pizza) okay in elementary school. But mostly I brought my lunch, and I never bought the cafeteria lunch past elementary school.

The school lunches my kids had in elementary (a few years ago) looked nearly identical to what I remember 30 years ago, except it's now served on a disposable Styrofoam tray with a package of disposable plastic utensils. Oh and the little ice cream cup with a wooden stick is still a thing too. Early on, mine occasionally would buy the school lunch, but mostly they would bring from home. Especially with my oldest being vegetarian and also being very opposed to the single use trays and utensils. Neither of them ever bought the cafeteria lunch after about 3rd grade.

 

[monsterkitty]

Those are the lunches we need to get away from. We need a protein, fruit/veggie, starch and a small dessert if we must. It really is easy, but most children's palates are trained for junk food at a young age. I know there is a funding issue. The problem is that what the government approves for school lunch and what is actually healthy school lunch are two different things. This is when it becomes up to the parents to make sure their kids are eating healthy meals to the best of their ability.

Teaching at a low-income school was very eye-opening at times. For example, they could never make enough green beans because the kids would just pile them on their trays. Why? They didn't get them at home because their parents couldn't afford them. (They served fresh or frozen veggies at my school, not canned).

The lower one is certianly odd with juice and milk and no vegetable (ketchup? ). We would have hamburgers - no cheese, generally with just those little minced onions on them. The sides would still have been green beans or corn, etc. I feel like sometimes there were fries, but it wasn't that common. The burger bun already counted as a bread so there wouldn't have been more. I don't think there is anything wrong with a burger per se, but it has to be balanced out.

They are probably counting the lettuce and pickle as the vegetable.

You are lucky they are letting him simply turn it down- they can get in trouble for that. We went in circles with our school at one point because they can ONLY replace cow milk with soy milk. I had a son with anaphylaxis to both of those. In the end we refused to let them serve him anything ever because they had too many "but it HAS to be this" issues with the current federal guidelines.

The school was incorrect. They can offer juice for those students who cannot consume milk or other products, such as soy, almond, or oat milk.

If your son is still in school, request a 504 accommodation for him due to life-threatening allergies. By Federal law they must comply with the 504 plan.

 

[tvguy]

How did chocolate milk get on the school lunch list? Some have said "anything to get kids to drink milk" but do they really need twice as milk sugar? Of course, now they do serve low fat milk instead of whole milk so less fat there than when I was in school.
Not sure if there is a surge in food allergies, or just they pay attention to them now. I went to school 1962-1975 and peanut butter was a staple of school lunches both prepared and brown bag. Whenever they had a meatless entree like Macaroni and Cheese, they always had celery with peanut butter on it. I sure don't remember anyone having food allergies, just religious dietary restrictions like no meat on Fridays and no pork.

 

[BrianL]

How did chocolate milk get on the school lunch list? Some have said "anything to get kids to drink milk" but do they really need twice as milk sugar? Of course, now they do serve low fat milk instead of whole milk so less fat there than when I was in school.
Not sure if there is a surge in food allergies, or just they pay attention to them now. I went to school 1962-1975 and peanut butter was a staple of school lunches both prepared and brown bag. Whenever they had a meatless entree like Macaroni and Cheese, they always had celery with peanut butter on it. I sure don't remember anyone having food allergies, just religious dietary restrictions like no meat on Fridays and no pork.

The thing is, a half-pint of chocolate milk shouldn't really be a problem (we also had a "milk break" in the afternoon too where cartons were brought to the classroom, so 1 pint total in a school day). We had PE and recess every day. Cutting back on that stuff has more of an impact than a little extra sugar. Again, it all has to be balanced, but when I was a kid it wasn't conisdered unreasonable that kids might eat a few things that weren't perfectly healthy. Moderation is the key phrase, something it feels like nobody understands today.

 

[leahgoogle]

The thing is, a half-pint of chocolate milk shouldn't really be a problem (we also had a "milk break" in the afternoon too where cartons were brought to the classroom, so 1 pint total in a school day). We had PE and recess every day. Cutting back on that stuff has more of an impact than a little extra sugar. Again, it all has to be balanced, but when I was a kid it wasn't conisdered unreasonable that kids might eat a few things that weren't perfectly healthy. Moderation is the key phrase, something it feels like nobody understands today.

I agree! When my kids were in elementary school, they only had gym twice a week! In middle school, it is 2 times one week and 3 times the next. In HS, students are only required to take 1 year of gym. When I was in HS, we had to take gym all four years. Exercise for kids that aren't in other scheduled sports or aerobic activities is lacking for sure.

 

[Lilsia]

School meals suck because the big companies have contracted with the government to provide the nasty, over salted, processed garbage instead of having meals made from scratch. They give kids the worst possible food imaginable and are proud of it. Frankly, Americans don't protest enough. The garbage that they are feeding our kids is criminal.
Not to mention how poorly animals are treated, how many preservatives and additives are in our food, etc. And we pay way too much for food that is over produced and the majority of it gets tossed. Most have no idea how much grocery stores throw away. They make billions in profit and yet refuse to sell their food for a decent price.
And the irony is that it is actually cheaper for schools to cook from scratch with fresh ingredients than to have to buy the garbage that they are forced to. Greed! It is all about greed.

 

[tvguy]

I agree! When my kids were in elementary school, they only had gym twice a week! In middle school, it is 2 times one week and 3 times the next. In HS, students are only required to take 1 year of gym. When I was in HS, we had to take gym all four years. Exercise for kids that aren't in other scheduled sports or aerobic activities is lacking for sure.

We never had gym in elementary school. Only thing we did was those stupid Presidential Physical Fitness tests. Not sure how they expected us to do well with no practice.
Gym was everyday in Junior High School (Grade 7 and 8 here) and high school.
My kids had PE everyday Middle School (grade 6-8 ). And they had PE three days a week during high school because they were on a block schedule. You had three of your classes on Monday and Wednesday, your three other classes on Tuesday and Thursday and all your classes on Friday. So your classes on the three class day were all 2 hours long, so worked better for sports.

 

[lanejudy]

If your son is still in school, request a 504 accommodation for him due to life-threatening allergies. By Federal law they must comply with the 504 plan.

Unfortunately even a 504 plan can't dictate specifics of the alternative offerings, just that the student needs a safe alternative. If your school district follows the family's recommended alternatives, that's great. For example, my daughter would be served a yogurt parfait if the main meal wasn't safe for her, which I don't consider to be a replacement for whole-wheat spaghetti or mac and cheese (she can't have whole wheat). We gave up on the school's options and just sent lunch from home when the school lunch wasn't appropriate.

At least here the school lunch programs try to be healthy, after all Sacramento has started branding itself as the "Farm to Fork Capital"

We have a "Farm to Table" program that provides a lot of local produce, local dairy products and local beef.

 

[mjkacmom]

I agree! When my kids were in elementary school, they only had gym twice a week! In middle school, it is 2 times one week and 3 times the next. In HS, students are only required to take 1 year of gym. When I was in HS, we had to take gym all four years. Exercise for kids that aren't in other scheduled sports or aerobic activities is lacking for sure.

I think our elementary schools have gym a few times a week, but middle and high school every day every year except the marking period of health. Most of my kids (4 out of 5) had 3 seasons of varsity sports but no waivers allowed. This is NJ and a requirement.

 

[mistysue]

<snip>
The school was incorrect. They can offer juice for those students who cannot consume milk or other products, such as soy, almond, or oat milk.

If your son is still in school, request a 504 accommodation for him due to life-threatening allergies. By Federal law they must comply with the 504 plan.

When we filled out the paperwork 7 years ago, they were not able to do that. It was extremely clear you must take dairy or soy milk because soy was the only "nutritionally equivalent" option. I did specifically ask about juice, and at the time I knew other parents online complaining about the same issue. It's great if that has been solved.
We did have a 504 but they violated it so many times (including needing OCR to come in to investigate and them repeating things they got in trouble for) we now homeschool. Those plans really don't accomplish as much as most families think they do when you have a school who doesn't think it's fair to stop using a particular food in class activities. We are nothing short of lucky that he is still alive after numerous anaphylaxis reactions and he never even took food from them- it was the class activities alone.

 

[HopperFan]

The USDA funds meals for children through each state. I am surprised that they are only available for a month in your district. The funding is supposed to cover from the last day of school until the first day of school.

The bold is the number one problem. Our state does not fully fund Federal programs. They have not accepted full funding for Medicaid so there is a long waiting list for disabled adults to get services. They did not accept ACA so there is no reduced premiums for market place insurance. This could be a situation where they diverted or refused funding.

BUT when looking specifically at our district, it is possible there is leeway on how funding is used based on:

- Probably only 20% of the schools are even open to summer school. If your local school is not open, you get a bus at a school close by and they transport you to the summer school building.
- Cafeteria Workers are NOT 12 month jobs so the district is having to pay those that are working these programs above and beyond standard budgets, there might not be funding for full summer.
- Breakfasts are being offered as well as lunch.
- Meals in certain areas are being offered to ONE YEARS OLD AND UP, which means lots are getting food that are not covered under the education funding.

 

[mistysue]

How did chocolate milk get on the school lunch list? Some have said "anything to get kids to drink milk" but do they really need twice as milk sugar? Of course, now they do serve low fat milk instead of whole milk so less fat there than when I was in school.
Not sure if there is a surge in food allergies, or just they pay attention to them now. I went to school 1962-1975 and peanut butter was a staple of school lunches both prepared and brown bag. Whenever they had a meatless entree like Macaroni and Cheese, they always had celery with peanut butter on it. I sure don't remember anyone having food allergies, just religious dietary restrictions like no meat on Fridays and no pork.

The funny part about that is peanut allergies are not even that prevalent - they get way more attention than they really should - there are more people who can't have dairy or wheat/gluten due to allergy or medical sensitivity than who can't have peanut. It used to be that half of dairy allergies were outgrown before starting school, now it's half by high school and there are twice as many kids with dairy allergies as peanut allergies... yet here we are talking about how many cartons of milk we can get into them each day. So allergies get more attention, but not in a way that makes sense.

(going down that rabbit hole, dairy has been killing more people in recent years than peanut as well, and the Canadian law that removed peanuts from schools comes from a child who died from a milk allergy )

 

[DeeBee3]

The funny part about that is peanut allergies are not even that prevalent - they get way more attention than they really should - there are more people who can't have dairy or wheat/gluten due to allergy or medical sensitivity than who can't have peanut. It used to be that half of dairy allergies were outgrown before starting school, now it's half by high school and there are twice as many kids with dairy allergies as peanut allergies... yet here we are talking about how many cartons of milk we can get into them each day. So allergies get more attention, but not in a way that makes sense.

(going down that rabbit hole, dairy has been killing more people in recent years than peanut as well, and the Canadian law that removed peanuts from schools comes from a child who died from a milk allergy )

Gluten allergy is definitely more percentage wise in the US. Dairy is about the same as peanut. I think the big issue with peanut is that you can have anaphylaxis and need that epipen stat. Coming from experience with someone who had that reaction. It's a terrifying thing when you have a child with it and it's the first time you have that reaction.

I will say I knew no one until college who had a peanut allergy. Now I know quite a few people - not a ton, but not 2 either.

I know gluten is tough because you don't always know there is an issue until time passes and other issues pop up.

 

[Lilsia]

Gluten allergy is definitely more percentage wise in the US. Dairy is about the same as peanut. I think the big issue with peanut is that you can have anaphylaxis and need that epipen stat. Coming from experience with someone who had that reaction. It's a terrifying thing when you have a child with it and it's the first time you have that reaction.

I will say I knew no one until college who had a peanut allergy. Now I know quite a few people - not a ton, but not 2 either.

I know gluten is tough because you don't always know there is an issue until time passes and other issues pop up.

Dairy can also cause anaphylaxis. Actually any allergy can. They always say that just because you didn't have that severe of a reaction this time, doesn't mean that you won't next time. I have seen this with my own allergy to cigarette smoke. It started out just smelling really bad, then moved onto giving me headaches, then migraines, then having my eyes water, to my nose plugging, and now I can feel my throat start to itch. And most people don't take my allergy seriously. I would be rich if I got a dollar for every person that said "I have never heard of that, you are lying".
Dairy is in a lot more foods than people realize. Whey protein seems to be in everything now.

 

[tvguy]

Dairy can also cause anaphylaxis. Actually any allergy can. They always say that just because you didn't have that severe of a reaction this time, doesn't mean that you won't next time. I have seen this with my own allergy to cigarette smoke. It started out just smelling really bad, then moved onto giving me headaches, then migraines, then having my eyes water, to my nose plugging, and now I can feel my throat start to itch. And most people don't take my allergy seriously. I would be rich if I got a dollar for every person that said "I have never heard of that, you are lying".
Dairy is in a lot more foods than people realize. Whey protein seems to be in everything now.

My last employer, before I worked there, had an employee die from anaphylaxis after drinking a craft beer. The coroner said there was something in the beer he had a reaction to, and said the odds against that happening are so high he couldn't even begin to guess what the odds are.

 

[nw6675]

So we've moved on from the quality of school lunches to which allergy is the worst? I didn't realize it was a competition.

FWIW, my daughter outgrew her peanut allergy at age 4. Thankfully.

 

[tvguy]

So we've moved on from the quality of school lunches to which allergy is the worst? I didn't realize it was a competition.

FWIW, my daughter outgrew her peanut allergy at age 4. Thankfully.

Food allergies are a HUGE issue in schools.

 

[nw6675]

Food allergies are a HUGE issue in schools.

I'm WELL aware. Note the comment that my daughter was allergic to peanuts until 4. She was in preschool heading to kindergarten when she grew out of it. So I believe I understand the risks and concerns. My point was one isn't worse than the other. They are all bad.

 

[White Cat]

So we've moved on from the quality of school lunches to which allergy is the worst? I didn't realize it was a competition.

FWIW, my daughter outgrew her peanut allergy at age 4. Thankfully.

It is on the dis.