school lunches
 

Wow - I am amazed and saddened. I just went to my son's school for lunch (he is in kindergarten) and I could not believe the lunches. I knew they were bad so I always pack him a lunch but just seeing the kids eating it - it was shocking. This tiny little girl in front of me started with her pudding then moved on to her hamburger and french fries (using 3 packages of ketchup) and finished it off with a chocolate milk. Most of the other kids had similar lunches although a few opted for a pear instead of the french fries and one girl had something that resembled a quesadilla but it was obviously fried. This is what we are feeding 5 year-olds for lunch in this country? Horrible!

It's insane! And you should see breakfast. My son begs me to let him eat breakfast at school. I actually use the words "over my dead body". I do allow lunches. It's supposed to be a once a week thing where they sit down with me and preplan which day that's going to be. But sometimes I get overwhelmed and something's got to give. :rolleyes: Like this week.

It's one thing to "read" the menu..it's quite another to actually see it, isn't it?

But I tell you, some/most of those packed lunches aren't any better. :no:

Have to agree on some packed lunches not being better. I have a close friend who is a kindergarten teacher - lunches in her classroom, even when packed, tend to be really scary. One parent packed their child a tube of Pringles and a liter bottle of Pepsi.

Oh my! Seriously, do people not know better or do they just not care? What's wrong with a pb&j sandwich or something with at least SOME nutrition?

Wow - pringles and pepsi - that's wow - just wow. Most of the kid's packed lunches weren't too bad but lots of bologna sandwiches and desserts. It's funny because I have had this mom guilt about what I send in for him but most of that was alleviated today. I still could do better but in comparison, I am doing pretty awesome.

I also should add that I know some schools do a lot better than our school. I have a friend who lives an hour away and her kid's lunches are not nearly as bad as ours. I looked up the menu on-line and in one week they served Fish Nuggets, Chili cheese wrap, Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, hot dogs, bean & cheese chalupa, Chicken Chili Crispitos, Breaded Chicken Sandwich, Galaxy Cheese Pizza, and Galaxy Pepperoni Pizza. And those are just the entrees!

Because it's really easy to throw in a poptart. :( You have to actually make the sandwich. And that's not to knock the difficulty with the time factor! It IS hard to find time to make lunches! I hate it actually because when I do pack their lunches they're always healthy items. But that means making and bagging a sandwich and carrot sticks. I almost always throw in a whole piece of fruit. That's easy! Even grapes are time consuming. But pringels? Poptarts? Bags of chips? That's easy.

Drinks bug me in general. We either drink water or milk. I just have the kids buy the milk and I ENCOURAGE them to choose white and treat themselves to chocolate on Fridays. Whether or not they do, I have no idea. I wish so much that they would only offer white!

I was not sad when my son started going to a brand new charter school where there is no cafeteria. Parents have no choice but to pack lunches. Sadly, parents make bad choices.
I would be willing to bet that my son (who is in 7th grade) is probably the only kid who brings a balanced lunch. Chef salad, nuts, celery and natural PB. on occasion he will have a SF jello bowl. For a treat he gets one packet of Crystal Light single serving for his bottle of water. Sometimes a whole wheat wrap with tuna. He has actually lost about 20 lbs since starting school and not eating the "healthy" school lunches.

When I changed my lifestyle I changed the whole family's. My son is taller than me at 5'3 and was weighing about 190. I knew he was big, but never really considered it a problem, (because he is SO much taller and generally bigger than the other kids his age) until he started losing weight and told me how much better he felt! Now the problem I am having with him is making him understand that he is never going to be "skinny" at 12 years old and almost 5'4, and in a size 9 in mens shoes, he is not a small kid and he is just getting started! HAHA.

I find it horrible and disgusting that in this country, it costs twice as much to eat healthy, and we as parents have let ourselves fall into the trap of advertising and time constraints. Sure it takes me an extra hour in the morning to make a balanced lunch and breakfast for everyone,but the benefits FAR outweigh (pun intended HAHA) my temporary inconvenience.

School lunches scare the bejezzus out of me. My daughter is just in kindergarten (half day, so she eats lunch at home) but I've already been going over the weekly menus for lunches and talking to her about food choices. Right now she says she doesn't want to buy school lunches when it is time to, and I hope that stays! I plan on making fun bento lunches, with healthy foods....but we'll see what happens when it is time to actually do it. I do know I won't be sending Pringles & Pepsi!

This is a hot button issue with me. My son is in kindergarten, and when I saw their menu I said no way. There were days they were having NO VEGGIES, unless you count french fries and the iceberg lettuce on their burgers a serving of veggies. And I get that sometimes schools lack funding, etc... but SERIOUSLY?

And I also agree about the packed lunches. It makes me sad to see what some of the kids take to school. One boy sat down on the benches before school, right next to me, and had a chewed-up ziploc bag with a bologna lunchable and can of Pepsi. The lunchable wouldn't have kept because he didn't have an insulated lunch bag. Another time he had a pre-packaged rice krispie treat, 2 mini-laffy taffies and you guessed it, another can of pepsi in that same ziploc.

My son's lunches aren't always perfect, but I do try to take the time to make it nice for him. If I won't eat it, he doesn't.

When I look at my immediate family, in comparison I'm a nutrition expert at this point. I shudder to think of what I ate at school growing up - including Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, which were both available in my HS cafeteria, as well as a month-long stint on Slimfast when I was in 7th grade. My mom endorsed that, btw.

My sister, whom I dearly love (when we're not irritating the crap out of each other, as only sisters can do :)) has 2 kids. Her older son goes to school with Lunchables . . . pretty much processed junk masquerading as "balanced" food. They eat Hamburger Helper for dinner, and doughnuts for breakfast, and both kids think "nuggets" are a separate food group. But I'm single without kids, and I have no idea what it's like to work full-time and raise kids, so I can't really criticize her decisions - there's no way I could approach this subject without my sister getting defensive. I just hope I can be a good, alternate, example.

I think the USDA and the food industry have a lot to do with terrible school lunches, but I think poor understanding of nutrition has a lot to do with poor packed lunches.

Well as a single mom who works full-time and just moved 800 miles to a town where she knows no one, trust me I understand the pain of making a healthy lunch every day with limited time. But so far I have made it every single day so I am proud of that. I am not proud of the granola bar or fruit chews I let him take. I need to stop doing that but everything else is good - homemade popcorn, hard-boiled egg, and whole wheat pita with tuna fish. Oh and water to drink.

ETA: When I was in 5th grade, our school burned down and we had no cafeteria for the rest of the year. I remember being so excited because we got to have Burger King and McDonald's every day - why my parents allowed that I will never know. I would never let my child eat that for lunch everyday - never!

Can I ask--what do some of you pack for your kids? This is a constant challenge of mine. My son is 3.5 and pretty much refuses to eat most fruits and vegetables--some of this is general toddler pickiness and some of it is sensory issues relating to the texture of fruits and veggies. Given the choice, he'd eat Cheerios for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I feel like I'm stuck in a rut in what I give him in his lunch box, and would love to hear what kind of healthy lunches others send.

HAHA Jezlyn. Have fun with the cereal thing, my kids are 19-16-12 and they STILL like cereal as much as they can get it!

I pack my kids different stuff than you would, because they have more grown up tastes, but I used to put celery with PB and raisins, cheese sticks, graham crackers (which until the kids actually started going to friends houses they thought were cookies) fruit and carrots with a bit of ranch. Protein was usually some of whatever we had for dinner the night before, shredded chicken, steak or whatever.

It honestly was not until I started working full time and became a single parent that my kids started having issues. And then it was only the younger two, the eldest has always been a fantastic eater and until she started college preferred fruit and veg to candy and coffee! Go figure.

Well, today's lunch was natural honey baked ham and cheddar cheese bat-wiches (cut out with a bat-shaped cookie cutter) on 100% whole wheat with cheese eyes, 1/2 a dragon fruit, 5 balsamic broccoli florets and 10 M&Ms. Oh, he had a Fruitable juice box and mini-bottle of water. He ate both bats, which equaled about half a sandwich, all the dragon fruit, 3 broccoli florets, drank the mini-water and all the M&Ms. I usually sneak a surprise in on Fridays, like the M&Ms or 1/4 of a Hershey's bar.

He also like celery and hummus, pistachios, carrots, Annie's cheese bunnies, natural peanut butter & simply fruit jelly on wraps or bread, almond butter sandwiches, ham and apple wraps (he LOVES those), berries, kiwi, red grapes... I've even made him some California rolls before. He is a picky eater in the sense that he won't eat things like ravioli from a can, or most canned foods, really. The things he's picky about aren't things we would want him to eat every day anyway, so it's not really a problem.

I already listed what I pack now but I have also packed carrot sticks, raisin boxes, apple sauce, yogurt, bean taco, and cheese sticks. I find that my son often won't eat the fruits and veggies which is a pain but at least it could be worse - for sure!