Salon.com just published a fantastic interview with “Free for All” author Janet Poppendieck, a sociology professor at Hunter College, about the problems with today’s school lunches. She says the National School Lunch program — which is supposed to provide “subsidized meals to the country’s impoverished children” — is serving about 31 million unhealthy, un-tasty meals per day.
The article reports the most popular lunch meal is pepperoni pizza, nachos, a peanut-butter cookie, and, for a drink: diet soda. It all adds up to no veggies and approximately 1,116 calories and 51 grams of fat.
Now most of us don’t have fond memories of school lunches, but was it always this bad? Poppendieck wondered what was to blame and found that the sad situation comes down to budget, “in-school competition from food conglomerates,” and federal rules about calories and fat that don’t always work together to create a nutritious lunch. (Sometimes adding an extra dessert, of all things, helps the schools create a cheap meal with enough calories to comply with the guidelines.)
Poppendieck agrees that at one time, parents — especially stay-at-home moms — were mostly responsible for teaching healthy eating habits. But as more parents are forced to work, or to work even more, she says our institutions need to share this responsibility. For great suggestions on how we can all work together to improve school lunches and educate kids about nutrition, I suggest reading the entire article. Bon appetit!
Reminds me a lot of the Jamie Oliver series in Britain.
Hm and I not-so-fondly remember the lunches I enjoyed in a Catholic Private (Private!!!!) School in Indiana, where I visited my friend. Pizza and soggy salad…yuck.
Yeah, Jamie Oliver was also the first thing I thought of. He reformed the English school lunches to healthy food. We actually had ok food, where I went to school…always the choice between 2 menues…and it never was fast food.
It was alright here, nothing too healthy I daresay, more like German standard dishes..yanno meat, potatoes and veggies :-D
Has Jamie really reformed the school lunches though? I forgot to follow the whole situation, the last update I ahve is that they spend a few cents more per lunch now, but that children and parents are still hesitant to switch to healthier options. Could never really understand this, I think Jamie’s food looks delicious.
Well, the government took action and enforced it in all schools after his tv-show. They noticed that fewer kids were buying school lunches after that but said that they will keep the healthy food and that the kids will get used to it at some point.
The crazy bit? At some schools mothers complained that the healthy food made their kids picky. So at lunch time they went to the school and gave their kids fast food.
Oh I saw that mother bit to, amazing innit? I found it great that Jamie explained how i.e. turkey sizzlers are made. I think a lot of the children are not even in the slightest aware what’s in Fast Food.
Our school lunches were always reasonable. Usually meat, potatoes, and veg kinda meal. The only thing I remember being pretty unhealthy were the pinwheels which were cheesy mashed potatoes wrapped up in puff pastry but they were still served with veggies. We’d get dessert every day but it was small and reasonably healthy like fruit crumble, a meringue with a blob of whipped cream, or a slice of cake with custard. In HS they still offered a real food kind of option like stew and potatoes but nobody ever bought that. Most people had baked potatoes or one of the sandwiches which came on a choice of white or whole grain bread or buns. Milk was far cheaper than soda (a pint glass of milk was half the price of a can of soda, the smallest size was only a few pennies) and for a few pennies extra you could get it flavored so most people bought that. I’d guess about 80% of people buying lunch had something reasonably healthy, the rest would have a bowl of fries and a cream bun.
Now our local school serves pizza and junk most days. I just looked at the menu for October and they had pizza 8 days out of 21 and the rest of the days weren’t much better with chicken nuggets, cheeseburgers, and other junk. They do offer daily veggies but mostly peas and corn and they offer canned fruit in addition to the desserts. I’m definitely sending my son with a lunch box when he starts school.
For all of primary school we had to take packed lunches, and then once a week we could have ‘lunch orders’ where we ordered the food, and recieved a paper bag with our name on it delivered to our classroom.
Yeah, well i was NEVER allowed to have a lunch order because they used white bread for sandwiches and the juice had added sugar. So I was the only kid sitting there eating my organic, vegetarian, non-processed, home made lunch. Great parenting, Mum and Dad. Do you know how hard it is to be cool with that sort of impediment? Yeah.
The high school my kids attend has an amazing menu!
Every day they have a choice of 2 main entrees – today it is Cheese Ravioli or Toasted Cheese sandwiches – but there are other options every day. In addition to the usual nachos with cheese, the also have a really nice salad bar, a sandwich bar that serves things like tuna salad on a croissant, turkey paninis, basic ham or turkey on a bun and fresh bruschetta. There is always a big variety of yoghurts available, too. Soft drinks are banned. If they don’t want the choices of different milk, they can choose from 4 or 5 juices or bottled water.
Everything is low or no fat and sugar, whole wheat, etc.
The desserts? Every day there is a choice of apples, oranges, bananas, kiwi, strawberries and grapes. About once a month there is pudding or jello (low sugar, non fat ) on the menu – the rest of the time – all fruit.
We have a new dietitian, a young woman – and she has really turned things around. My kids LOVE the cafeteria food now!
The only room for improvement I can see is in the choice of vegetables – it is mostly frozen, not a huge amount of fresh. Then again, there is salad available every day as well.
Holy cow! I wish my school had been like that.
At my university, currently, I have a choice of Subway (ok, but expensive), the cafe (cheap, but awful food), or the cafeteria (thoroughly mediocre, expensive, and it’s all the way across the lake, so I never go there anyway).
We had awesome food at the college I did my bachelors had, our dorm chef was excellent. Hot and cold breakfast option, hot lunch with a large salad bar every day, and a choice of about 4 dishes for dinner every night complete with a couple of desserts. Even once I moved to non-catered accommodation I’d often pay for lunch at a dorm or in the union because the food was great and so cheap, about a dollar for a baked potato with topping like chili or ratatouille.
On the other hand, the college I went to for my graduate degrees had the worst food ever. I very rarely ate on campus and when I did I usually went for vending machine food or a muffin or something similar. One time I had pasta alfredo there and I swear the pasta was about the same consistency as the sauce and there were random over-boiled veggies on top.
In America, most of the ground beef for school lunches has an added funky ammonia treated fat sludge as well.
My son is going to face Lady Goo Goo’s problem, I think…
Funky Ammonia Treated Fat Sludge,thats my favorite punk band!!
If they just called themselves Funky Ammonia Treated Sludge they could be FATS.
Thats way cool!
I’m the school cook (I HATE being called lunch lady!) at my kiddos very small private school. It’s preschool, 2′s, 3′s, & 4 yo’s & elementary, K-8th. I make pretty healthy lunches. A protein, carb, veggie & fruit most everyday & the kids only have milk to drink. Wednesday is pizza day but we also have applesauce & salad. You only get 1 slice of pizza & if you want a 2nd you have to finish the applesauce & salad 1st. I do serve alot of canned fruit & veggies but fresh is so much more expensive. I do serve at least 1 fresh fruit & 1 fresh veggie a week. When I was in school I remember that there were healthy options but there was junk food too. (pizza, burritos, french fries, ice cream, etc) My best friend would get french fries & dip them in her chocolate ice cream! I was usually 50-50 on what I chose. Sometime healthy food but sometimes junky stuff. I used to love those fried burritos w/ nacho cheese on top. Ugh! But we had a great salad bar that I loved too.
Schools are the only places besides prisons allowed to buy and give out Grade D meat. It’s not safe for the public to buy in grocery stores so they get rid of it by serving it to inmates, and oh yeah, your kids.
Come on, Bia.
This is so old. When are people going to learn to do a little bit of research before posting crap?
Yu have a computer, everyone has heard of Google, right?
Bah :(
http://www.snopes.com/food/prepare/badmeat.asp
Grade D? Really?
Someone put an “O” in that Yu up there, please?
Thanks!
My son goes to the preschool that is run at the state university I attend. They use the completely disgusting and unhealthy cafeteria food (I can’t tell you why they use this company, Sodexho, when our University has the South’s best culinary program, but I digress) that not even the students are willing to eat to feed developing 1-5 year olds. Unfortunately, every other day care in the area has food programs that are just as bad and his day care is really good besides the food. For example, they serve pizza once a week, one time they had FRIED EGG ROLLS (for babies!), sodium-packed red beans and rice on Mondays, cookies for snack, all canned fruits and veggies.. needless to say, my 15 month old does not eat this food. I pack a breakfast, lunch, and snack, even though his tuition is paying for him to eat their food. That’s all I need is to start an addiction to unhealthy foods when he’s still a baby. I just can’t believe that the other parents let their children eat that crap.
OH MY GOD!
Cookies? For a snack?
What rotten bastards!