Congress pushes back on healthier school lunches

[jackfaire]

My school had unhealthy options in the cafeteria. Pizza from a local pizza place and Taco Bell. Everyday. The healthy food that our cafeteria made and served had the longest line.

Honestly I can't tell you why but my theory was always that since no one was telling us we couldn't eat junk food and we were supplied all alternatives that most days we chose variety. Somedays it was pizza other days the healthy choice. Most often the Healthy choice because it changed more often.

Seriously unless your 5 you can only eat the same thing every day so many times without going nuts.

And while seniors could leave campus most of us didn't. We didn't need to.

[Gravekeeper]

I find this entire concept surreal. At my school you brought lunch, went home for lunch or went out for lunch ( and there were no fast food places near us ). We didn't have a cafeteria, we basically had a student run concession stand that had snacks, fruit and some deli stuff ( subs, sandwichs ) from a local deli on occasion. Then some vending machines, which had a mix of healthy and unhealthy in them.

I went home for lunch myself.

[Kheldarson]

GK, you have to understand. Schools in the US are more like a babysitting service. The parents drop the kids off, go off to do work or whatever, and we keep them for the day. And some schools, particularly in the lower socioeconomic areas, will have afternoon programs to continue playing babysitter longer. It's ridiculous. But going home for lunch would be hard in some areas as rural school districts usually means the entire county goes to one school.

[Gravekeeper]

GK, you have to understand. Schools in the US are more like a babysitting service. The parents drop the kids off, go off to do work or whatever, and we keep them for the day. And some schools, particularly in the lower socioeconomic areas, will have afternoon programs to continue playing babysitter longer.

This is.....peculiar. >.>

[Panacea]

Here in town, when a high school cafeteria banned anything remotely junky, the students just migrated to the cafeteria of a local hospital. In essence, they traded one government cafeteria for another.

Unfortunately some of the kids doing this seemed to think that because they were off school grounds, they could get away with anything, and there started to be lots of problems with loud noise, horseplay, and even food fights. So the hospital cafeteria put security in there to keep the teens out.

Most hospitals, while non-profit, are private entities.

(I'm not sure pizza sauce counts as a vegetable, either.)

It's not, not anymore than ketchup is. Ugh. I thought we'd gotten past that kind of silliness in defining foods.

This is.....peculiar. >.>

Welcome to America School cafeterias started as a way for schools to make a little money. Now they are a drag on school resources. Studies have shown that hunger affects learning, hence the free food programs for poor kids. Problem is, the program has been over expanded, isn't well monitored to make sure the kids actually eat the food, so there is a LOT of waste.

We'd probably be better off going back to bagged lunches.

[Amanita]

^I'm referring to a Canadian hospital. Which I am pretty sure is government funded.

[Kheldarson]

This is.....peculiar. >.>

Tell me about it. It's part of why I'm looking at getting my doctorate so I can teach at a level other than public schools.

[IDrinkaRum]

Went to daughter's school for lunch today.

It was the Thanksgiving luncheon. Turkey was on the menu. Guess what they ran out of?

My daughter (for those playing at home) is in Elementary school (3rd grade).

The other options we had were: Popcorn chicken (basically smaller than normal chicken nuggets), a roll, mashed potatoes (the brussel sprouts and cheese looked gross), a sugar cookie (with orange sprinkles), and a container of milk (or we could have had a juice box or bottled water). There is, on the opposite side of the cafeteria, a little cantina with yogurt, ice cream pops, cookies, and stuff like that. Daughter & I went with the popcorn chicken. It wasn't too bad. But now she wants me to come have lunch with her once a week.

[Lace Neil Singer]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ool-meals.html

In the UK, laws were pushed thru to make school lunches healthier; however, ultimately it's up to the parents to feed their kids healthy food from the start. There was a case in a local paper where a mother brought in McDonalds meals for her son every day, cuz he didn't want to eat the healthy meals provided.

[Panacea]

^I'm referring to a Canadian hospital. Which I am pretty sure is government funded.

Oh. Sorry.

[RedRoseSpiral]

I remember eating the pizza at school until they banned salt. Why you ask did I stop? Because I would sprinkle salt on my pizza to help absorb the grease on the pizza, wait a minute or so for it to absorb as much as possible, wipe it off, then soak up the rest of the grease with napkins, and then finally the pizza was edible. Most of the food at school was crap except for the soups (in high school) but I was usually in the 3rd lunch shift so there would be little to none left. My entire senior year 3 out of 5 days I'd eat some type of icecream sandwich (also the year I ended up losing 30 lbs).

I remember in junior high I almost broke a tooth biting into a burger because there was a bit of bone in there. Never touched one again after that.

[LexiaFira]

because i want to have some control of what my kid eats due to her allergies i will send her to school having had breakfast and with her lunch. because of all the latest dumbfuckery with the cutbacks in school lunches in my town and in general.
pizza being a veggy? yeah no. and until daughter grows out of being allergic to dairy i can't trust the school to watch that. nothing against them but i'd rather be the parent that does a sack lunch or tries than just give her lunch money and leave it to chance.
but then i feel that since alot of kids have allergies the school menu is already crunched so instead of making them shorten it more let me just provide my own

[Lace Neil Singer]

Some schools over here police packed lunches; they'll contact parents who put chocolate bars and crisps into lunch boxes too often.

I don't see the harm in kids having a chocolate bar or crisps, as long as it's balanced out with fruit and a healthy sandwich. Unless a parent is just sending her kid to school with a box of junk food, I don't see why it's anyone's business.

[jackfaire]

Something my elementary school did. At the Elementary and Junior High level there were no alternatives you ate what the cafeteria was serving or you brought your food from home and at the time the meals were based on the food pyramid which was considered to be the be all and end all of health.

There weren't any snack or soda machines and no student store selling such items.

Both schools sent home a menu each month letting the parents know what was going to be served each day so if there were any dietary issues the parents could choose to send lunch with the kids. I live within walking distance of the school and we never got to go home for lunch until High School.

It was considered unsafe and unwise for kids to just leave campus. Any student leaving campus had to be signed out by a parent and the child had to come meet the parent in the Main office.

BTW this was mostly in the 80s when parents weren't as worried about safety. My school was on top of it though.

In what should have been my Freshman year of High School I moved across the river to where they still had 9th grade at the junior high level, yes that meant 4 years of middle school/junior high for me, and the school being in a more affluent area had snack machines, soda machines and a salad bar.

My high school in that area had the alternative foods from fast food restaurants and a student store that was fattening me up with Otis Spunkmeyer cookies.

[Racket_Man]

It was considered unsafe and unwise for kids to just leave campus. Any student leaving campus had to be signed out by a parent and the child had to come meet the parent in the Main office.

BTW this was mostly in the 80s when parents weren't as worried about safety. My school was on top of it though.

.

back in the late 1960's when I was in grade school (1st to 4th), I always walked home (2 blocks away) for lunch. it was rare that I ate at school. when I changed grade schools (5th to 8th) it was far away enough that I ate in the school cafeteria everyday.

back then it was "supposed" to be a "safer" world.