Why did I bother?

[hillymum]

I finally applied and recieved free school meals but I just looked at this months menu and am disgusted with the options! Almost everything they have as a healthy option is deep fried then reheated. I'm not surprised none of my kids want to eat school lunch. the breakfast do look slightly better but according to one son, what they offer is not what s on the menu and isn't very nice.

Why did I bother?

[surrogate]

can you supplement the school lunch? Like since it is free let him eat the healthier parts like fruit, etc, and you just send a sandwich? I havent seen a school menu since I graduated 10 years ago, but I watched Jamie Olivers food recolution and cannot imagine how a french fry is a vegetable...i know they want to serve stuff kids will eat, but gimme a break...

Can you post the menu here?

[Gray's Mommy]

Our school lunches are the same....crapola.
I like the idea of the supplementation idea, but that sounds hard at the same time. Can you speak to the cafeteria manager & principal to see if changes can be made for healthier alternatives. I would love to see actual fresh fruit instead of all the canned they use.

[Mom2SammyJoe]

Can you just get the milk for free to go with a packed lunch? It was forever ago, but I remember getting just milk to go with lunch, and I had reduced lunch so it was cheaper.

[laura163]

Don't they have a few choices? Like 2 "hot lunch" choices, a sandwich and fruits and veggies? That is what we have at our school. At our school the sandwich is always turkey but at the next closest school they serve PB&J.

[ChetMC]

At One Point

one point we were looking at a move to a wealthy area of Connecticut. The school our kids would have gone to bragged about the fact that they did not participate in the USDA lunch program... but that's certainly not something that many schools could afford.

[philomom]

Our middle school had a great salad bar choice. Our high school has a potato bar that includes sweet potatoes some days. But yes, we have our kids take lunch most days.

[Pariah]

Before we worked out our homeschooling situation and I thought our DS would have to go to the local public school, I checked out the menus on the county's public schools website and it was SO gross. Pizza, hamburgers, or chicken nuggets CONSTANTLY. I'm going to pull up the site again...that stuff plus tacos, chicken strips (these are fried, I'm assuming? Breaded?), and fish sticks...and the "healthy" options include broccoli with cheese (not too bad, I guess), canned fruit, and occasionally something that's actually healthy like assorted fresh fruit or salad.

Agh, don't EVEN get me started on this topic.

[sunnysandiegan]

My DD doesn't really LIKE school lunches. She will buy lunch roughly once a month for a variety of reasons, but that is about it. She knows more about healthy eating than the person in charge of the reheating room (as I think of the cafeteria).

Her school does offer a salad bar and it does have fresh produce on it along with canned fruit. However, there is only one salad bar (one small cart with two sides...less than six feet total) and it is really, really crowded and runs out. The menu has gotten a bit better in the four years she's been attending. I think we already recycled this month's menu, but let's see if I can recall some choices...

I found the menu online:

Monday - Three Bean Chili Tostada (Meatless), Teriyaki Beef Dippers with Rice, Chicken and Cheese Quesadilla, Garden Salad Bar
Tuesday - Arizona Gold Bean and Cheese Burrito (Meatless), Chicken Patty Sandwich, Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, Garden Salad Bar
Wednesday - Cheese Pizza (Meatless), Turkey with Gravy and Mashed Potatoes, Cured Turkey and Cheese Sub, Garden Salad Bar
Thursday - Broccoli and Cheese Baked Potato (Meatless), Chicken Nuggets, Beef and Cheese Gordita, Garden Salad Bar
Friday - Mozzarella Breadsticks with Marinara Sauce (Meatless), Szechuan Chicken and Vegetables with Rice, All American Cheeseburger, Garden Salad Bar

These SOUND healthier than the average school lunch, but DD says they don't LOOK or TASTE particularly healthy. She actually LIKES healthy food and has never enjoyed eating of the "kids menu" at restaurants, unless they offered homestyle mac & cheese (no Kraft). I think the taste and looks factor is due to the methods used to prepare school lunches these days. Everything comes pretty much cooked and all the staff has to do is reheat the items to be served hot and open cans of the items to be served room temp and toss the milk and cold items on ice. For a kid used to home-cooked, mostly from scratch meals...this is not appealing.

For children without such meals, these lunches can be EVERYTHING! There are plenty of children in America who eat their most nutritious and most balanced and most tasty meals of the day at school through the free and reduced lunch program. This is a hot topic for me, but my "sweet dreams" reminder just popped up on my computer, so I'll leave it alone now.

[Pariah]

There are plenty of children in America who eat their most nutritious and most balanced and most tasty meals of the day at school through the free and reduced lunch program.

Exactly, and that is one of the many reasons why this topic gets me so worked up.

[TheSavedQuarter]

Originally Posted by Mom2SammyJoe

Can you just get the milk for free to go with a packed lunch? It was forever ago, but I remember getting just milk to go with lunch, and I had reduced lunch so it was cheaper.

I do this for my son. Their school lunch is crazy. There is no cafeteria; instead, hot lunch is catered by an outside company. It's all healthy, local veggies, real fruit, no-hormone dairy and anti-biotic free meat, compostable containers. Really lovely. But only if you pay, and it's $5 per kindergarten lunch. If you get free lunch, it's a brown bag cold sandwich brought in from another district.

The paid meal is brought to the lunch area, but the free lunch kids have to go to the front office to pick it up. The disparity is rotten.

Milk is brought to the lunch area, though, so my son brings healthy packed lunches (and fortunately really likes them!) and gets milk at school.

[surrogate]

Originally Posted by TheSavedQuarter

I do this for my son. Their school lunch is crazy. There is no cafeteria; instead, hot lunch is catered by an outside company. It's all healthy, local veggies, real fruit, no-hormone dairy and anti-biotic free meat, compostable containers. Really lovely. But only if you pay, and it's $5 per kindergarten lunch. If you get free lunch, it's a brown bag cold sandwich brought in from another district.

The paid meal is brought to the lunch area, but the free lunch kids have to go to the front office to pick it up. The disparity is rotten.

Milk is brought to the lunch area, though, so my son brings healthy packed lunches (and fortunately really likes them!) and gets milk at school.

How are they allowed to do that?

[vannienicole]

My kid eats school breakfast and lunch every day. At her school you can either bring your lunch or get a lunch. No supplementing one with the other. It's supposed to assist with confusion I think.

[TheSavedQuarter]

Originally Posted by surrogate

How are they allowed to do that?

I have no idea, but it's a really, really rich area, with less than 1% on the free lunch program. We're in the 1%!

[UberMama]

Originally Posted by surrogate

How are they allowed to do that?

NO kidding. I was wondering the same. My mouth dropped open. In our school district, they don't even use different colored meal tickets (for low income) anymore - as kids were getting picked on.

[hillymum]

Originally Posted by TheSavedQuarter

I do this for my son. Their school lunch is crazy. There is no cafeteria; instead, hot lunch is catered by an outside company. It's all healthy, local veggies, real fruit, no-hormone dairy and anti-biotic free meat, compostable containers. Really lovely. But only if you pay, and it's $5 per kindergarten lunch. If you get free lunch, it's a brown bag cold sandwich brought in from another district.

The paid meal is brought to the lunch area, but the free lunch kids have to go to the front office to pick it up. The disparity is rotten.

Milk is brought to the lunch area, though, so my son brings healthy packed lunches (and fortunately really likes them!) and gets milk at school.

Thats disgusting that the school would encouraqge such a divide!

Originally Posted by UberMama

In our school district, they don't even use different colored meal tickets (for low income) anymore - as kids were getting picked on.

Yea for the school! Shame on the parents who have allowed their children to be bullies! Makes me proud that my children are more likely to offer to share their food than anything else.

Originally Posted by vannienicole

My kid eats school breakfast and lunch every day. At her school you can either bring your lunch or get a lunch. No supplementing one with the other. It's supposed to assist with confusion I think.

I told the kids today that they could see if they can suppliment their packed lunch. They don't need to but I want to know if they can.

[justmama]

my kids get free lunch and the lunches here are junk too. french fries and spaghetti sauce are considered vegetables apparently. they are slightly better this year. slightly. there's more local produce and fresh stuff a few times a week. but they haven't gotten rid of the "nacho dippers" lunch or anything like that. but the fact that they are supporting local agriculture and introducing fresh local produce to our kids makes me happy. I'm just about ready to pack my kids' lunches everyday based on what they eat for lunch. It's ridiculous. I mean, we look at the menu together and try to pick the healthiest options that they will eat but. . . . . . . it's not always possible.

[Pariah]

Originally Posted by TheSavedQuarter

I do this for my son. Their school lunch is crazy. There is no cafeteria; instead, hot lunch is catered by an outside company. It's all healthy, local veggies, real fruit, no-hormone dairy and anti-biotic free meat, compostable containers. Really lovely. But only if you pay, and it's $5 per kindergarten lunch. If you get free lunch, it's a brown bag cold sandwich brought in from another district.

The paid meal is brought to the lunch area, but the free lunch kids have to go to the front office to pick it up. The disparity is rotten.

That is awful.

[confustication]

For a lot of kids, these meals WILL be the most healthy, nourishing meals they get on any given day. I know that in our schools, we have our fair share of packaged stuff as well, though we are also blessed to have a chef who makes most of her stuff from scratch and stays within budget. Our system has a 78% free/reduced population though- and there are very few kids who do bring food from home since what the school serves is quite good.

When my daughter was in school I decided that the 'less than ideal' days were still ok- because it was balanced out by what she had at home, and because it was a great opportunity for her to try a variety of things I don't make at home- and the lucky bum got Japanese noodles with TONS of veggies at least a couple times a month!

Additionally, our school welcomes parents to stop in and eat lunch with their kids if they want, so parents can really see and experience what their kids are eating.

[Norasmomma]

Originally Posted by TheSavedQuarter

I do this for my son. Their school lunch is crazy. There is no cafeteria; instead, hot lunch is catered by an outside company. It's all healthy, local veggies, real fruit, no-hormone dairy and anti-biotic free meat, compostable containers. Really lovely. But only if you pay, and it's $5 per kindergarten lunch. If you get free lunch, it's a brown bag cold sandwich brought in from another district.

The paid meal is brought to the lunch area, but the free lunch kids have to go to the front office to pick it up. The disparity is rotten.

Milk is brought to the lunch area, though, so my son brings healthy packed lunches (and fortunately really likes them!) and gets milk at school.

How is that even legal? I'd be calling about that, it's just wrong. That seems like a very valid example of blatant discrimination to me.

I feel lucky to live in an area where the public school, private partnerships and non-profit community oriented organizations exist. We have an on campus garden where much of the veggies for the school are raised, the flour used in much of the baked goods is local, the list goes on. None of this is segregated, it is available to ALL students, regardless of IF they pay or not.

Shame on your district, I cannot fathom having my children treated like that. I'd have to say something.

I also agree with the fact that there are many children who's most nutritious, healthful meal comes from free school lunch, even if it is processed crap, there are MANY children who wouldn't even eat if it weren't for that. It's heartbreaking really.