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

[Anonymous]

If FCPS is still paying all of these lunch ladies, why can’t they use that human capital to make edible meals?

FCPS is still taking the full federal dollars for the program. I wonder if they are using the money to actually provide food to children or if it’s just getting used up to pay salaries?

If so, it’s just the latest in a long time of reasons why the adults at FCPS always come first and the children are an afterthought.

[Anonymous]

The federal dollars would be better used if they were given directly to the families to purchase food. Similar to what they did this summer.

What they are doing now does not serve the needs or interests of the intended beneficiaries, school-aged children.

[Anonymous]

There was a group of parents in McPS pushing for better food. Its really hard because the schools don’t have kitchens so you can’t make anything fresh. It’s like airplane meals but worse because the budget is lower. Even stuff like pancakes is awful because its prepacked in plastic and heated in a microwave. Yuck.
Maybe they should hire Lean Cuisine or something...they seem to make the best low fat low sodium frozen microwaveable crap. Or that Annie’s organic. Cooking by microwave really requires a whole different set of recipes and approach.

[Anonymous]

I’m Middle Eastern. We eat lots of vegetables and kids love it. The “healthy” meals serve in schools taste terrible and Michelle Obama’s entire Lets Move program was poorly executed. Who eats raw broccoli? It tastes disgusting. Undercooked vegetables taste disgusting as well. For broccoli sautee it in olive oil and garlic until soft or roast it in the oven. It needs to be cooked well. Vegetables shouldn’t be a side anyways. They should be incorporated in the meal. Same with beans. There are so many wonderful vegetable filled stews in Middle Eastern cuisine. The vegetables cook for a long time and taste delicious. Cook your vegetables people and actually learn how to cook! Kids will eat anything if it tastes good and they try it enough times. Also salads don’t need to be dosed in some disgusting dressing. Instead how about just lemon and olive oil and salt? Maybe a little bit of garlic. School meals can be healthy and delicious. But they aren’t. And it’s quite baffling that people don’t understand this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m Middle Eastern. We eat lots of vegetables and kids love it. The “healthy” meals serve in schools taste terrible and Michelle Obama’s entire Lets Move program was poorly executed. Who eats raw broccoli? It tastes disgusting. Undercooked vegetables taste disgusting as well. For broccoli sautee it in olive oil and garlic until soft or roast it in the oven. It needs to be cooked well. Vegetables shouldn’t be a side anyways. They should be incorporated in the meal. Same with beans. There are so many wonderful vegetable filled stews in Middle Eastern cuisine. The vegetables cook for a long time and taste delicious. Cook your vegetables people and actually learn how to cook! Kids will eat anything if it tastes good and they try it enough times. Also salads don’t need to be dosed in some disgusting dressing. Instead how about just lemon and olive oil and salt? Maybe a little bit of garlic. School meals can be healthy and delicious. But they aren’t. And it’s quite baffling that people don’t understand this.

By the way it’s entirely possible to have yummy school lunches. Check out NYC’s alternative lunch program’s menus. Also in Colorado. I forgot what school district.

[Anonymous]

Kids (and humans in general) are programmed to naturally enjoy sweet and salty flavors and not bitter. It's a survival mechanism of sorts. Repeated exposure to vegetables is the way to develop a taste for them and I mean dozens and dozens or more times trying something before you aquire a taste for it. It's expensive and tiring to keep cooking something and then have it not eaten, but that's what's necessary to change a palate. Were our society to invest in this strategy through the school lunch program, we could "train" millions of children to eat healthy. We served vegetables everyday at home but it wasn't until 2 years of Stokes' food and salad bar everyday he finally started eating salad. And he's particular about it but it's progress. DS is 5. He really only eats carrots and cucumbers for other vegetables but it's a work in progress.

[Anonymous]

PSA reminder. This discussion is not about anyone claiming entitlement to anything. The premise of this thread is that now that everyone can see see what school lunch/breakfast consists of, lets talk about providing better nutrition for kids who don't have any other choices. Thank you for the 99.9% of comments along these lines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now that school lunch/breakfast are available to anyone, is there any chance for a national dialogue on improving the nutrition of school feeding programs? I'm completely baffled by parents posting on Facebook how nutritious the food is. It is wonderful the meals include milk and fresh fruit and some vegetables, but the sugar cereal and prepackaged muffins leave me baffled. How is that nutritious? Obviously some food is better than no food if it is a choice between sugar packed "food" and going hungry, but can't we do better as a society, especially for kids who aren't getting fed at home?

One of the parents brought this topic up during a PTA meeting last year. The ES principal and the PTA president seemed unwilling to do anything about it. They actually seemed annoyed. At the end of the meeting the PTA president basically said these meeting are supposed to discuss $$$.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now that school lunch/breakfast are available to anyone, is there any chance for a national dialogue on improving the nutrition of school feeding programs? I'm completely baffled by parents posting on Facebook how nutritious the food is. It is wonderful the meals include milk and fresh fruit and some vegetables, but the sugar cereal and prepackaged muffins leave me baffled. How is that nutritious? Obviously some food is better than no food if it is a choice between sugar packed "food" and going hungry, but can't we do better as a society, especially for kids who aren't getting fed at home?

One of the parents brought this topic up during a PTA meeting last year. The ES principal and the PTA president seemed unwilling to do anything about it. They actually seemed annoyed. At the end of the meeting the PTA president basically said these meeting are supposed to discuss $$$.

^meetings

[Anonymous]

I’m sure that schools and school systems would happily feed kids better food if they had the money. As it is, even with federal subsidies, they only have enough to spend a little more than $3.00 per kid for lunch and $2 something for breakfast. Round up and that’s $6 a kid. They also have to buy things that are going to last and not go bad as quickly. Buying fresh fruit and veggies is costly and not economical. This is an overall societal problem. Junk and processed food is notoriously cheaper than organic, healthy meals. Everyone wants something better, but few are willing to pay more to get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m sure that schools and school systems would happily feed kids better food if they had the money. As it is, even with federal subsidies, they only have enough to spend a little more than $3.00 per kid for lunch and $2 something for breakfast. Round up and that’s $6 a kid. They also have to buy things that are going to last and not go bad as quickly. Buying fresh fruit and veggies is costly and not economical. This is an overall societal problem. Junk and processed food is notoriously cheaper than organic, healthy meals. Everyone wants something better, but few are willing to pay more to get it.

+1

My kid went to private elementary school where we paid a meal fee in our tuition, which came out to be about $10 for lunch. The food was freshly cooked every day. Wasn’t necessarily healthy, but it wasn’t processed. I can’t imagine what a school system like FCPS would need in terms of funds to pull something like that off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m sure that schools and school systems would happily feed kids better food if they had the money. As it is, even with federal subsidies, they only have enough to spend a little more than $3.00 per kid for lunch and $2 something for breakfast. Round up and that’s $6 a kid. They also have to buy things that are going to last and not go bad as quickly. Buying fresh fruit and veggies is costly and not economical. This is an overall societal problem. Junk and processed food is notoriously cheaper than organic, healthy meals. Everyone wants something better, but few are willing to pay more to get it.

No it’s completely possible. They just aren’t making it a priority. Check out this menu from NYC a public schools. My friends say the food is excellent.

http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/898916/27977561/1535570315703/September2018PreK-8AlternativeLunchMenu.pdf?token=XtBgwD9rMuc7iwvClNYR1gOygLY%3D

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m Middle Eastern. We eat lots of vegetables and kids love it. The “healthy” meals serve in schools taste terrible and Michelle Obama’s entire Lets Move program was poorly executed. Who eats raw broccoli? It tastes disgusting. Undercooked vegetables taste disgusting as well. For broccoli sautee it in olive oil and garlic until soft or roast it in the oven. It needs to be cooked well. Vegetables shouldn’t be a side anyways. They should be incorporated in the meal. Same with beans. There are so many wonderful vegetable filled stews in Middle Eastern cuisine. The vegetables cook for a long time and taste delicious. Cook your vegetables people and actually learn how to cook! Kids will eat anything if it tastes good and they try it enough times. Also salads don’t need to be dosed in some disgusting dressing. Instead how about just lemon and olive oil and salt? Maybe a little bit of garlic. School meals can be healthy and delicious. But they aren’t. And it’s quite baffling that people don’t understand this.

I grew up in deep South. People are under the impression that Southerners don't eat vegetables. Actually, they do. We, too, cook them a long time. I grew up not particularly liking vegetables, but there was not a meal in my house that did not include at least one vegetable.
Diners and cafeterias in the South traditionally offered a meat and "three." Cafeterias also offered a "vegetable plate" that was composed of three or four side dishes and cornbread or biscuit. (Admittedly, one of the sides might be mac n' cheese.)
I am always surprised at people who don't cook veggies. FWIW, I like my green beans cooked a very long time. They should be olive green.

But, I agree with PP about raw brocolli. (Unless it is slathered in Ranch).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sure that schools and school systems would happily feed kids better food if they had the money. As it is, even with federal subsidies, they only have enough to spend a little more than $3.00 per kid for lunch and $2 something for breakfast. Round up and that’s $6 a kid. They also have to buy things that are going to last and not go bad as quickly. Buying fresh fruit and veggies is costly and not economical. This is an overall societal problem. Junk and processed food is notoriously cheaper than organic, healthy meals. Everyone wants something better, but few are willing to pay more to get it.

No it’s completely possible. They just aren’t making it a priority. Check out this menu from NYC a public schools. My friends say the food is excellent.

http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/898916/27977561/1535570315703/September2018PreK-8AlternativeLunchMenu.pdf?token=XtBgwD9rMuc7iwvClNYR1gOygLY%3D

I’m from NY. They pay higher taxes than we do here in VA, which was the overall point of PP. There’s a lot of literature out there about school nutritional programs, and they all say the same thing—feed kids good, nutritionally dense foods is expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m sure that schools and school systems would happily feed kids better food if they had the money. As it is, even with federal subsidies, they only have enough to spend a little more than $3.00 per kid for lunch and $2 something for breakfast. Round up and that’s $6 a kid. They also have to buy things that are going to last and not go bad as quickly. Buying fresh fruit and veggies is costly and not economical. This is an overall societal problem. Junk and processed food is notoriously cheaper than organic, healthy meals. Everyone wants something better, but few are willing to pay more to get it.

No it’s completely possible. They just aren’t making it a priority. Check out this menu from NYC a public schools. My friends say the food is excellent.

http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/898916/27977561/1535570315703/September2018PreK-8AlternativeLunchMenu.pdf?token=XtBgwD9rMuc7iwvClNYR1gOygLY%3D

I’m from NY. They pay higher taxes than we do here in VA, which was the overall point of PP. There’s a lot of literature out there about school nutritional programs, and they all say the same thing—feed kids good, nutritionally dense foods is expensive.

Also from NY and new to VA. I can tell you that there were a ton of controversies in the last two of so years about NYC school lunches. They had a mold issue, and food was spoiling because it wasn’t being consumed. I will say that my kid had a greater deal of options. Our NYC school had a salad bar out VA school does not.