School Lunch on TV

After my post earlier this week about school lunch with my daughter, a few readers let me know about other things happening with school lunches around the country.

Tonight the new show "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" will air on ABC. I watched it online earlier this week. His main objective is to teach people to cook their own food and be aware of what they are eating. His first attempt was in a school cafeteria in Huntington, West Virginia, the unhealthiest city in the U.S. It's really interesting to see their reaction: not only are the lunch ladies not grateful to see him there, they are downright hostile towards him. The big shocker to me was that they don't see anything wrong with the food they are serving. Looking at a box of hamburger patties, where ground beef was the number one ingredient, Alice (a lunch lady) didn't mind that there was a long list of other ingredients mixed in there too.

In Chicago earlier this week, students prepared to meet with their school board to protest against the school lunch food. They are concerned that nachos, fries, pizzas and slushies are the daily fare. Their suggestions include: having an organic school garden and cooking the food on site. The board turned down the students request to meet with them, but a teacher promised to deliver their speeches for them. You can read the full article here. The powerful part is that students here care enough to try to make a change in what they are served.

Jessica Ortega, one of the high school students involved in trying to make changes in her school lunch, said, "If we could get used to the nasty food, why couldn't we get used to the healthy food too?"  That's part of why the school lunch is such a concern: at a very young age, we are getting kids used to  unhealthy food as the norm.


Michelle Obama has taken school lunch up as one of her issues. “Every day, with the food you serve, you're teaching them these critical lessons about nutrition and healthy eating,” Obama said. “You're shaping their habits and their preferences, and you're affecting the choices that they're going to make for the rest of their lives.”  She is working from the top down, and students working from the bottom up, maybe we have a chance of making a change in the quality of food we feed our nation's kids.


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School Lunch

I met my daughter for school lunch today. I rarely let her buy lunch, so it was a double treat-- buying lunch and having her parents there (my husband met us too).

I had seen the school lunch menu and was not impressed. Corn dogs, pizza, chicken nuggets, and always a choice of yogurt if they don't like the main entree. So I had pretty low expectations. I'm glad to say there were some positives, although there is definitely room for improvement.

We started with milk. We had 3 choices: plain, chocolate or strawberry. I chose plain, but that was the only one I saw at our whole table. Most kids went for chocolate (including my daughter and my husband). The milk was not labeled as low-fat, and I am assuming it was whole! I was pleasantly surprise to see these kids getting healthy fats. I was also very surprised to see "Grade A. Pasteurized." Notice something missing? The milk was not homogenized, and had instructions to "shake well." Homogenization breaks up the delicate fats, so I'm thrilled that the milk is un-homogenized. One environmental note: the milk was served in little pouches as opposed to cardboard containers. I'm just guessing here, but thin plastic like that seems like it would take longer to break down, even though it does take up less space in a landfill.

As we moved down the line, we were able to fill our trays ourselves with orange slices, salad, cucumber slices and baby carrots-- as much as we wanted. The fruits and vegetables were fresh, and most kids took  at least some of the fruit and veggies. I liked that they were able to choose, and help themselves to whatever quantities they desired. There was only one type of salad dressing offered- ranch. I put it on my tray, but when I saw the ingredient list, I left it unopened. The ingredients list covered the entire packet, and the first ingredient was soybean oil. Kind of takes away from the healthfulness of the salad if all you have to dip it in is that.

We were on to our entree next. There were three choices. A tostada, macaroni and cheese, something labeled "Taco Nada" that looked like a tamale, or a low-fat strawberry yogurt. My husband and I chose the tostadas. It was a little soggy on the bottom and cooked-in-the-microwave-style crispy on the edges. Our daughter had the neon orange macaroni and cheese. These are the kinds of foods that give school lunch a bad name. Processed, reheated foods with little nutritional value. White noodles in a fake cheese sauce or a melted cheese-like substance on a fried shell are not my idea of healthy choices.

I'd break it down like this: Positives: un-homogenized whole milk offered, fruits and veggies offered, no dessert. Negatives: two of the three milks have added sugar, the only dressing is made with soybean oil and other unhealthy ingredients, the entree is highly processed. So, while they has lots of room for improvement, I'd give the overall lunch a C+.  School lunches have long been known for being less-than-desirable, but our school is trying.

Being at school lunch today brought back a memory from my own school days of Brad Benner following me around the playground asking me if I liked soggy hamburger buns. I could see he was holding something under his shirt, so it was with caution that I asked, "Why are you asking?"  "Just answer the question," he insisted. "No, I don't like them." I said, still wary. Out from under his shirt came a petition and a pen. "Sign your name here if you don't like soggy hamburger buns." I signed. And you know what? We still had hamburgers at school, but they changed those soggy buns. Instead of heating the burger and bun together, which did make a soggy bun on the bottom, they heated them separately. It was a simple solution, and the most amazing thing of all is that the change was brought on by an elementary school student.

Maybe we need to start another petition for healthier school lunches. Until there are significant changes, my daughter will continue to bring her lunch. But what about all the kids who have parents who don't think they have time to bring a lunch, get school lunch paid for, or just don't care? It's for those kids, that are eating this food every day, that something needs to change.

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This post is part of Things I love Thursday.