So what’s weird about the school lunches is they are largely NOT fatty, salty, and sugary. They are made to look like those foods, but are largely disgusting , tasteless, imitations. The macros are not horrible but kids would be better off eating fresh, whole, foods instead of processed garbage. Experiments with this, however, have shown that many kids won’t eat it if it doesn’t look like processed food. It’s a shame. My kid will eat off the salad bar and prefers meat that looks like it came off of an animal, but that’s because it’s how we eat at home. The school lunch situation could be improved to be sure, but the nutrition is adequate to serve the needs of kids that aren’t getting adequate nutrition outside of school. I’d be fine with rice, beans and cheese, with some raw vegetables and fruit every day. Most kids wouldn’t be. I’m not really sure what people expect school food to look like. DP. |
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I mean, I think you start to stray a bit into a different area when you get into what I think can be summed up as…when you always give kids a “kids menu” of chicken nuggets, pizza, etc (whatever usual suspects so to speak) you are training kids that those are the foods they should eat and like. It’s not like kids are all just born that way. Again though that is a much bigger picture (but maybe one that needs to be considered) than what schools offer.
It’s not a switch that can be flipped but I’d love to imagine lids instead being trained to eat real (less processed) food and schools being a part of that pictures. Even little things - it’s always chicken nuggets ir tenders or patties. Never just plain, real chicken. |
This. |
NP. It does seem like this year's (and last year) school lunches are a bit different, a bit worse, than before. So I wonder if all these complaints are specifically talking about this year's school lunches or just "general school lunches". In general, the FCPS school lunches are not sugary or salty or bad. Over-processed, yes, mostly, but reasonable kid fare. But there used to be more interesting options and mostly that's gone this year. |
In past years, there were other options. FYI One of my kids learned to like minestrone soup, which used to be in the school lunches. It seems to be gone now. As are some of the other better options. |
| A good example perhaps is how they used to (pre-Covid) offer “orange chicken” which my child informed me is jist the same chicken tenders as “chicken tender” day but served with rice and there is an orange sauce. Not knowing NutriSlice had pictures, I ne er looked to confirm if this was true - but it is something I haven’t seen offered so far this year. |
Exactly the same but smaller portions, and students are doing time. |
DD wouldn't eat chicken tenders in school, but loves their orange chicken, served with brown rice. She tells me that although both are fried chicken, they don't taste the same. No idea if that's true. Anyway, it's not served anymore, so we pack lunch every day of the week, instead of having one day off a month. |
| My kids loved the orange chicken and the minestrone. So bummed they are not offered anymore. |
The orange chicken was pretty much the same thing as the frozen orange chicken you get in the freezer section of Trader Joe’s. The minestrone is Campbells condensed soup. I agree that these were some of the better things served in the school lunches and I’m not sure why they stopped. |