CHANGE DCPS SCHOOL LUNCH

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I worked in DCPS the lunch was horrifying, plastic wrapped, reheated in wrapper...just bad, plastic food. Cant imagine the chemical profile in these children's blood. Private schools in DC have the most amazing food.... they pay of course, and these are smaller operations. There has to be some middle ground, after all public schools pay out massive contracts too

Maybe my kid just doesn't have very discerning tastes, but she ate DCPS food PK3-K and didn't really complain. She's in private now, and we pack her lunch, but she still talks about morning pancakes at our IB school. *shrug

I mean, yes, I wish our IB could grow and prepare fresh food on site, but we don't have a full kitchen, so this isn't possible anytime soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I worked in DCPS the lunch was horrifying, plastic wrapped, reheated in wrapper...just bad, plastic food. Cant imagine the chemical profile in these children's blood. Private schools in DC have the most amazing food.... they pay of course, and these are smaller operations. There has to be some middle ground, after all public schools pay out massive contracts too

Maybe my kid just doesn't have very discerning tastes, but she ate DCPS food PK3-K and didn't really complain. She's in private now, and we pack her lunch, but she still talks about morning pancakes at our IB school. *shrug

I mean, yes, I wish our IB could grow and prepare fresh food on site, but we don't have a full kitchen, so this isn't possible anytime soon.

Well yeah. Pancakes + syrup might as well be birthday cake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When I worked in DCPS the lunch was horrifying, plastic wrapped, reheated in wrapper...just bad, plastic food. Cant imagine the chemical profile in these children's blood. Private schools in DC have the most amazing food.... they pay of course, and these are smaller operations. There has to be some middle ground, after all public schools pay out massive contracts too

Maybe my kid just doesn't have very discerning tastes, but she ate DCPS food PK3-K and didn't really complain. She's in private now, and we pack her lunch, but she still talks about morning pancakes at our IB school. *shrug

I mean, yes, I wish our IB could grow and prepare fresh food on site, but we don't have a full kitchen, so this isn't possible anytime soon.

Well yeah. Pancakes + syrup might as well be birthday cake.

PP, I guess so. We rarely took her to before care, but she still talks about missing those pancakes, lol.

[Anonymous]

What we need here is a legit alternative menu to challenge DCPS with.

[Anonymous]

While I totally agree with increasing fruits, vegetables, and healthy protein sources, I have a feeling i grew up eating much worse. If everything else at DCPS were in order, this would be a priority. Guess what? It is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While I totally agree with increasing fruits, vegetables, and healthy protein sources, I have a feeling i grew up eating much worse. If everything else at DCPS were in order, this would be a priority. Guess what? It is not.

Have you looked around at the health of your now-adult peers? Feeding kids non-crap is important to their futures and our economy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CMI contracts with Stokes Kitchen which my kids loved! Healthy, local meals that are delivered to the school daily. DCPS needs to do better.

Isn't Stokes almost double the cost of a DCPS meal? I can't keep them all straight but most of the elementary charters we toured were $3.50-$5 per lunch. DCPS $2.80-$3.30 keeping costs down limits the options on "farm to table". I would be happy with a couple more health choices for kids that want them. Heck, I would be happy if the school menu was accurate.. it is a 50/50 shot at our school if the printed menu is what will actually be served!

Yes, and we've had both and the expensive charter lunch or almost 5 dollars is about the same quality if you take out the ones that serve stokes food. So more money for same processed quasi-junk because they don't have the economies of scale.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone feel like DCPS is promoting this meeting more heavily than usual? I have received multiple emails and calls regarding the meeting. It has also been advertised at school. I am not on any advisory board and have not shown a particular interest in learning about DCPS food options. I do participate in my school PTA but that is all.

Just curious as to why this particular meeting is being promoted so heavily. So many other meetings on a variety of topics happen frequently during the year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone feel like DCPS is promoting this meeting more heavily than usual? I have received multiple emails and calls regarding the meeting. It has also been advertised at school. I am not on any advisory board and have not shown a particular interest in learning about DCPS food options. I do participate in my school PTA but that is all.

Just curious as to why this particular meeting is being promoted so heavily. So many other meetings on a variety of topics happen frequently during the year.

Probably because they did relatively little outreach last time the contract was headed out for bids, and I think the Council told them to do more next time.

[Anonymous]

The demonstrated best way to improve the quality and healthfulness of meals provided to children, is to put a real kitchen, not a reheating station, in each school. It doesn't have to be implemented in all schools all at once, but each renovation should include and account for a brand new functional school kitchen.

I would love to see regular pictures snapped by students and teachers of what's on their DCPS lunch tray. It would be a wake-up call.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I totally agree with increasing fruits, vegetables, and healthy protein sources, I have a feeling i grew up eating much worse. If everything else at DCPS were in order, this would be a priority. Guess what? It is not.

Have you looked around at the health of your now-adult peers? Feeding kids non-crap is important to their futures and our economy.

The majority of my adult peers are a normal weight, but a lot more than school lunch impacts health and weight. Again, while important, not a priority right now. I think it is slightly more important to focus on getting the vast majority of kids reading at or above grade level at all schools in DC and not on whether they are eating farm to table, organic apples at lunch. Call me crazy!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I totally agree with increasing fruits, vegetables, and healthy protein sources, I have a feeling i grew up eating much worse. If everything else at DCPS were in order, this would be a priority. Guess what? It is not.

Have you looked around at the health of your now-adult peers? Feeding kids non-crap is important to their futures and our economy.

The majority of my adult peers are a normal weight, but a lot more than school lunch impacts health and weight. Again, while important, not a priority right now. I think it is slightly more important to focus on getting the vast majority of kids reading at or above grade level at all schools in DC and not on whether they are eating farm to table, organic apples at lunch. Call me crazy!

NP. OK, I won't call you crazy, just ignorant. Dumb, perhaps, from all the additives in your junk food. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2984519.stm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What we need here is a legit alternative menu to challenge DCPS with.

The menu doesn't look terrible. I'm not in the area anymore. My daughter goes to a public with Aramark food service. The difference is that they have a full kitchen, a cooking staff that prepares meals mostly from scratch every day. The cook has to in be line with federal nutrition program guidelines, but he is given enough flexibility to respond to student requests. One student complained that they never had Dominican food, so he made sancocho one day. My daughter can be picky but she likes most of the food. She actually asked me to make her a "yummy soup with vegetables, like at school." The cost to families not getting free or reduced lunch is $2 a day. Once you lose the ability to prepare meals at the school it's hard to get lunches that are both affordable and taste good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I totally agree with increasing fruits, vegetables, and healthy protein sources, I have a feeling i grew up eating much worse. If everything else at DCPS were in order, this would be a priority. Guess what? It is not.

Have you looked around at the health of your now-adult peers? Feeding kids non-crap is important to their futures and our economy.

The majority of my adult peers are a normal weight, but a lot more than school lunch impacts health and weight. Again, while important, not a priority right now. I think it is slightly more important to focus on getting the vast majority of kids reading at or above grade level at all schools in DC and not on whether they are eating farm to table, organic apples at lunch. Call me crazy!

NP. OK, I won't call you crazy, just ignorant. Dumb, perhaps, from all the additives in your junk food. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2984519.stm

Thanks for schooling me. Getting a master's in public health clearly wasn't enough. Even with all the additives in today's food, we still live longer and have seen consistent, steady increases in IQ year after year compared to previous generations (despite a dip in overall life expectancy driven not by junk food but opioid deaths). So yeah, still prioritize reading (So my child can actually read cool articles like this about how processed food isn't the best option because how would he have ever figured this out otherwise??? Certainly not from his dumb, ignorant mother! ) over marginally better food at lunch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The demonstrated best way to improve the quality and healthfulness of meals provided to children, is to put a real kitchen, not a reheating station, in each school. It doesn't have to be implemented in all schools all at once, but each renovation should include and account for a brand new functional school kitchen.

I would love to see regular pictures snapped by students and teachers of what's on their DCPS lunch tray. It would be a wake-up call.

yes - it sounds so much better than it is