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Healthy School Lunches. It Doesn’t Have to Be an Oxymoron! « What We’re Eating – A Food & Recipe Blog
Pizza School Lunch

Healthy School Lunches. It Doesn’t Have to Be an Oxymoron!

Photo Courtesy of:Andrea's Blog

Pizza School Lunch

Remember school lunches from back in the day? For me, what I remember is pepperoni pizza, chicken nuggets, Salisbury steaks, mashed potatoes and gravy, French fries….. WAAAAAAAAIT a second! I don’t remember any veggies at all from my school lunches! I think there might have been some kind of heinous succotash from a can. Ooooo and I also remember them serving some kind of canned strawberry banana mixture that always used to make me totally t. o.’ed that they would ruin my strawberries with some crappy-ass bananas! Woah, sorry for the tangent. But seriously, thinking back to the food that was served to me in my grade school cafeteria, it all seems somewhat ridiculous. How does anyone expect children to grow up and make smart food choices when they are being taught that a diet high in empty carbs and processed food is acceptable? Really, can you blame them?

I think it’s high time that we demand our school cafeterias get back to basics – basic ingredients that is. In a utopian cafeteria society, kids would only be given choices of fresh foods that were not processed in some plant several states (or countries!) away, but made from real grains, fruits, vegetables and meats. Frankly, I don’t understand why we cannot make this utopia a reality.

I say they stop having snack bars at school where kids can forgo the hot lunches and just dine on bread sticks, or snack crackers and high fructose corn syrup canned drinks. Kids do not need to have that many choices of their own pertaining to food. Do you feel like me and want to change the future of school food and make fresh, healthy meals the norm? Sign the petition from Healthy Schools Campaign.

PS – My hat goes off to the fabulous Leena of Leena Eats for spending her time working with the Healthy Schools Campaign and organizing this much needed petition! You freaking rock, Leena!

10 comments so far:

  1. Kitty says:

    Hear Hear!

    Unfortunately, school lunch workers are ridiculously low paid, and thus, not paid enough to do anything but open cans and boxes, and heat the contents up.

    I agree that soda and candy should not be allowed. Did you see that part of Supersize Me, when they focus on the school that uses that lunch provider who only makes healthy, whole food meals? That was a school for underachieving, delinquent kids, and they were showing vast improvements in behavior and grades since changing the meal plan.

  2. RecipeGirl says:

    When my kiddo orders lunch, he has a slice of pizza, a scoopful of fruit and a milk. His elem. school (PUSD) offers salad, etc. They’re actually pretty healthy choices.

    I understand that other places though haven’t jumped on the healthy bandwagon yet.

  3. Mark says:

    I think your “hat” not your “hate” goes off to Leena. In that case, my hat goes off to her too. Thanks!

  4. maris says:

    I totally agree with you! Its so important to form healthy eating habits early on.

  5. leena! says:

    Hey lady, thanks for not ho’ing out and for posting this! My school’s veg had the awful mix of frozen carrots, peas and corn that all seemed to taste like monkey butt. Every day. Ew.

  6. kayce. says:

    there is a chef named ann cooper who works in the CA area school lunch program (i can’t remember which area exactly), but hearing her talk about school lunches really moves me… her passion is astounding! she has spoken @ the TED conference, and i have included a link to her video…

    http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ann_cooper_talks_school_lunches.html

  7. Lee says:

    My boy’s school doesn’t even have a kitchen, so the food comes packaged, the way airplane food was in the old days. Great post, important subject!

  8. Shelly says:

    At my kids elementary school, all the lunches are bought pre-made by the school and just warmed up. Even my kids say the lunches are disgusting and they prefer to bring a lunch from home. A few times a year I make the get hot lunch and they always come home starving and telling me how nasty hot lunch is and how they never want to eat hot lunch again.

    I remember when I was a kid (long time ago), I looked forward to hot lunch.

  9. Ros says:

    The school I teach at has got an award winning (literally) chef. From poking my head into the kids dining room I see healthy, tasty and nutritious food with a few compromising desserts and sides. I swear they do the best roast pork I’ve ever had, some damn fine crispy tofu and don’t even get me started on the creamed spinach! But you know what happens? A number of parents give their kids money to buy a cheese sandwich from the snack store on the way in. Also, as soon as the kids get into the sixth form, half of them go to McDs or KFC at lunch.

    I agree that the vast majority of schools need to overhaul their lunches but there’s no point in doing it if the kids are just going to turn their noses up at the good stuff. I don’t know if Jamie Oliver’s school dinners ( I forget the real name now) programme was aired over your side but there was an incident of parents bringing junk food to their kids at their school gate in protest over Jamie taking over the kitchen and putting real food on the menu.

    So before we start thinking about putting pressure on schools to rethink their food policy, there probably are a load of parents (and kids) to get through to first.

  10. Lea says:

    What is the point of the pretzel in there? XD