School Lunch - Can We Talk About Improving Nutrition for Kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We already had a national dialogue--remember Michelle Obama? Let's Move? Big changes in the school lunch program thwarted by the food industry, so badly that pizza is now considered a vegetable?

Plus kids wouldn't eat the food. But to be fair, it sounded like it was not very appealing. Raw vegetables, salads, bland steamed vegetables. Our family eats a ton of vegetables but we cook them in interesting recipes (usually Greek).

Lunch lady dorris isn’t cooking briam for 400 kids

Now I really want briami.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish there were more “real food” and less processed food. I just don’t see that happening easily.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We already had a national dialogue--remember Michelle Obama? Let's Move? Big changes in the school lunch program thwarted by the food industry, so badly that pizza is now considered a vegetable?

Plus kids wouldn't eat the food. But to be fair, it sounded like it was not very appealing. Raw vegetables, salads, bland steamed vegetables. Our family eats a ton of vegetables but we cook them in interesting recipes (usually Greek).

Lunch lady dorris isn’t cooking briam for 400 kids

Other countries manage to provide good meals in their schools. France, Greece, etc

Other countries manage universal healthcare, massive amounts of employee rights, free secondary education... We’re the outlier on all of those, there’s no reason to think school lunch would be different.

[Anonymous]

I think the issue is that many American kids are brought up thinking they can only eat kid food. And many poor people are only used to junk food. It’s hard to change palates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We already had a national dialogue--remember Michelle Obama? Let's Move? Big changes in the school lunch program thwarted by the food industry, so badly that pizza is now considered a vegetable?

Plus kids wouldn't eat the food. But to be fair, it sounded like it was not very appealing. Raw vegetables, salads, bland steamed vegetables. Our family eats a ton of vegetables but we cook them in interesting recipes (usually Greek).

Like look at the sample menu you can open here: https://www.fns.usda.gov/pressrelease/002312

I wouldn't want to eat this. Why is there ranch dressing almost every day?

One could make significant improvements to the meals without immediately going to whole grain everything.

[Anonymous]

Some of you should go work in a school cafeteria for a week and then see if that changes what you think.

[Anonymous]

Some people are just happy to have food for their children, OP.

[Anonymous]

If you start down this path, then you'll end up with a lot of backlash. Schools in Canada are policing the food that people bring from home!!

https://www.cbc.ca/parents/learning/view/lunch-shaming-is-real-and-it-happened-to-my-daughter?fbclid=IwAR23IUqi1x7Sa3Y5KvAUHNT7jKOlOeIs953O_-ACt03o8JwbaRehAVdH96A

[Anonymous]

Michelle Obama, is that you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We already had a national dialogue--remember Michelle Obama? Let's Move? Big changes in the school lunch program thwarted by the food industry, so badly that pizza is now considered a vegetable?

Plus kids wouldn't eat the food. But to be fair, it sounded like it was not very appealing. Raw vegetables, salads, bland steamed vegetables. Our family eats a ton of vegetables but we cook them in interesting recipes (usually Greek).

Lunch lady dorris isn’t cooking briam for 400 kids

Other countries manage to provide good meals in their schools. France, Greece, etc

Other countries manage universal healthcare, massive amounts of employee rights, free secondary education... We’re the outlier on all of those, there’s no reason to think school lunch would be different.

That doesn't mean we should just accept the status quo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the issue is that many American kids are brought up thinking they can only eat kid food. And many poor people are only used to junk food. It’s hard to change palates.

That's true. And some kids are just picky eaters. I was pretty picky as a child but my daughter will eat anything and loves spicy food.

[Anonymous]

Bottom line: If we truly cared about equity, we wouldn't be feeding processed food to kids who have no other options. America can do better.

12:31 I thought I acknowledged in my original post that any food is better than no food. If I didn't, I absolutely meant to.

Another poster wrote "many American kids are brought up thinking they can only eat kid food. And many poor people are only used to junk food. It’s hard to change palates." I don't want to argue whether or not this is true, but palates and eating habits are never going to change if bad habits are reinforced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you start down this path, then you'll end up with a lot of backlash. Schools in Canada are policing the food that people bring from home!!

https://www.cbc.ca/parents/learning/view/lunch-shaming-is-real-and-it-happened-to-my-daughter?fbclid=IwAR23IUqi1x7Sa3Y5KvAUHNT7jKOlOeIs953O_-ACt03o8JwbaRehAVdH96A

The examples in that article are pretty bad and the teachers need to be more flexible. But my previous job was at a school and this one (yes, overweight) child would have a big thermos of mac n cheese every single day. So there should be some basic guidelines.

[Anonymous]

Each meal costs something like $2.00 to make because even with subsidies we (the general public) don’t want to fund school meal programs to provide healthy food, some of which won’t get eaten and will likely go to waste.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you start down this path, then you'll end up with a lot of backlash. Schools in Canada are policing the food that people bring from home!!

https://www.cbc.ca/parents/learning/view/lunch-shaming-is-real-and-it-happened-to-my-daughter?fbclid=IwAR23IUqi1x7Sa3Y5KvAUHNT7jKOlOeIs953O_-ACt03o8JwbaRehAVdH96A

The examples in that article are pretty bad and the teachers need to be more flexible. But my previous job was at a school and this one (yes, overweight) child would have a big thermos of mac n cheese every single day. So there should be some basic guidelines.

I volunteered in my kid’s class a lot last year and the stuff people brought for snacks, provided by parents, often wasn’t healthy. Muffins, fruit cups, jello,etc. even the “healthy” stuff was often sweet and laced with sugar, which would have them bouncing off the walls. That being said: I get it. You want your kid to eat, and sometimes you have to give in to the madness. My youngest went through a faze where she would only eat chicken nuggets, so we would either have to let her starve or feed her what she wanted.