Saw the movie Fed Up last night. Can you tell me about public school lunches around this area?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with films like this is they're rarely unbiased and often have hidden agendas. A classic example is "Waiting for Superman" which was just a front for the charter school movement.

Fed Up doesn't have a hidden agenda. It's pretty straightforward. Nice try, though.

Really? It's not part of the ZOMG OBEEESITY panic?

Arlington schools have done a lot of make food lowfat and whole grain. In the process, they've made it taste terrible, according to my kids.

I don't think foisting bad food, bad jobs, or bad housing on poor people and telling them they should be grateful to have anything at all is the best this country can do.

[Anonymous]

DCPS uses Chartwells at our school: http://www.chartwellsschools.com

And the DC Healthy Schools act is pretty clear about healthy food in schools.
http://dchealthyschools.org

Now, does it taste good? Dunno.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi - my DS is too young for me to know anything about Public School lunches in this area, but I was shocked by the statistic in the movie that 80% of public schools in the US have contracts with fast food companies to provide their meals!!! They were literally showing cafeteria lines stocked with hamburgers, fries, and pizza. It was kind of stunning and certainly enlightening as to one reason kids are having such a hard time with obesity these days.

Is that what it is like around here? I'm not sure I even realized public schools provided lunch, I thought kids brought their own. I went to private, so I don't have any personal experience to recall, but we intend to send DS to public.

I always pack my kids lunch. They never ate the lunch served by the school.

[Anonymous]

If the only exposure to healthy food these kids get is the school lunches, and the healthy lunches taste disgusting, the only thng we teach the kids is that healthy food is gross and should be thrown in the trash rather than eaten.

[Anonymous]

How is this shocking and how did you not know already...school lunches are REALLY bad. REALLY. BAD. I would never let my children eat school lunches, unless maybe at a private school that offers really good ones. But certainly not without actually getting a menu and ingredient list. They feed the kids pure crap because it's cheaper that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCPS uses Chartwells at our school: http://www.chartwellsschools.com

And the DC Healthy Schools act is pretty clear about healthy food in schools.
http://dchealthyschools.org

Now, does it taste good? Dunno.

My DCPS school used Revolution Foods one year and Chartwells the next. Both were pretty mediocre, there were pros and cons for both. Revolution foods did a lot of stupid things like serving sunflower seeds which made a big mess, or gigantic oranges that the children had a hard time peeling. Their menus did not really consider the needs of small children. They gave the kids whole grain snacks like whole grain goldfish. Chartwells offered fruits or vegetables as snacks. When they gave away oranges, they were the tiny cuties that were easy for little hands to peel. However Chartwells had a really weird approach to alternative menus . They (or at least the cafeteria workers at one particular school) had this weird thing where they'd make about 10-15 vegetarian entrees but instead of waiting for kids to ask for a vegetarian alternative they'd just randomly pass them out, no rhyme or reason. It was confusing for the kids if they hated what was being served and saw a classmate getting a quesadilla or cheese sandwich. Revolution foods offered sun butter and jelly sandwiches to kids who asked.

In any case while the food being served was nominally healthy the kids tended to throw most of it the trash. A few kids would bring in lunchables. Many more children would bring in a huge, family sized bag of chips and share them with friends. I used to tell the kids that they had to eat get a lunch to go with the chips, not just eat a bag of chips for lunc. It often created lots of issues because you'd have a whole table of children begging one or two kids for the chips. I guess parents bought them so their kid would feel popular?

[Anonymous]

I used to work in a school cafeteria. The food was healthy enough, but most of the kids hated it & threw a lot of it in the trash. The typical meals would be chicken nuggets with a container of veggies and a piece of fruit with skim milk. They also served pizza, sandwiches, hot dogs etc. But really, most of it ended up in the trash. The school I worked at was title one and more than half were getting their lunch for free. Probably around 70%.

The reason I say healthy enough is because they were required to get veggies and fruit. The veggies were usually fresh broccoli and carrots, salads, and sometimes steamed veggies, and the fruit would be apples, bananas, oranges etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to work in a school cafeteria. The food was healthy enough, but most of the kids hated it & threw a lot of it in the trash. The typical meals would be chicken nuggets with a container of veggies and a piece of fruit with skim milk. They also served pizza, sandwiches, hot dogs etc. But really, most of it ended up in the trash. The school I worked at was title one and more than half were getting their lunch for free. Probably around 70%.

The reason I say healthy enough is because they were required to get veggies and fruit. The veggies were usually fresh broccoli and carrots, salads, and sometimes steamed veggies, and the fruit would be apples, bananas, oranges etc.

Those highlighted words don't work well together...at all...just because you throw in some fruits and veggies doesn't make the main part of the meal any healthier. Ugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to work in a school cafeteria. The food was healthy enough, but most of the kids hated it & threw a lot of it in the trash. The typical meals would be chicken nuggets with a container of veggies and a piece of fruit with skim milk. They also served pizza, sandwiches, hot dogs etc. But really, most of it ended up in the trash. The school I worked at was title one and more than half were getting their lunch for free. Probably around 70%.

The reason I say healthy enough is because they were required to get veggies and fruit. The veggies were usually fresh broccoli and carrots, salads, and sometimes steamed veggies, and the fruit would be apples, bananas, oranges etc.

Those highlighted words don't work well together...at all...just because you throw in some fruits and veggies doesn't make the main part of the meal any healthier. Ugh.

Out of curiousity, if you were manager of the elementary school cafeteria, what would you serve on the budget you had to get it to your standard of healthy? You seem to be so disgusted that elementary students are being served chicken nuggets, but what would you serve on a limited budget that the kids wouldn't dump straight into the trash? Perhaps do away with school lunch and require a bagged lunch from home?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It really doesn't matter what's being served. If you don't like it or have a problem with it send your child to school with his lunch.
Fwiw, I think the school lunches here are quite nice compared to where we use to live.

It matters to the children who receive free or reduced lunches. Why should they get junk because they were born into circumstances that can't provide a daily lunch?

I was directing that response to the OP who is concerned about the nutritional value of the lunches. I'm sure those parents of children who are receiving free or reduced lunches are grateful for the food and aren't complaining about it.

Arsehole.

[Anonymous]

"Fruits" in the public school where I worked came from gallon sized canned applesauce or canned peaches/pears. School lunch was always gross IMO and if pizza/burger places had offerings at the school cafeteria most kids would choose them. My children had pizza/burger/Subway choices in high school and they did like those..