This is an issue close to my heart. Why, you ask? Aside from the fact that I'm not so many years removed from being a student in the public school system myself, I did a semester of K-12 substitute teaching after college. Here are some thoughts based on those experiences, and I'll try to go chronologically when at all possible.
I attended private school for my earliest elementary years. The school I attended participated in the federal programs, but was unique in that, since it was a small school and had an amazing (and ancient) lunchlady, the food was actually pretty darn good. There was still the usual canned fruit and veg fare, but the entrees were often quite good. PB&Js were rarely on the menu (and only then, I'd wager, by request). I remember the spaghetti being a particular favorite of mine, as well as the chicken noodle casserole. And she did something to those canned green beans that made them mighty tasty. Health-wise, they weren't spectacular, but pretty good in comparison with what Mrs. Q has been describing, and almost never reheated frozen foods. Despite this, I brought my lunch from home the majority of the time -- not for nutritional, but for dietary/health reasons, as well as the fact that my mother found packing cold lunches to be more economical.
The cold lunch trend continued most of the way through my public school years into secondary education. Since my parents refused to pay for hot lunches most of the time, in addition to declaring that packing my lunch was my own responsibility, I ended up with a two-part system for much of high school. If I didn't like what was at home to pack (one can only eat so many bologna or cotto salami sandwiches before tiring of them), I would eat an extra-large breakfast of something that would keep me full until after school, at which point I would eat a light snack after returning home to tide me over until dinner. When I had extracurriculars in the evening (and 3, sometimes 4 or all 5, days each week this was the case), I would turn the after school snack into a full dinner. Was it healthy? Meh. 2 bowls of oatmeal and some fruit in the morning, 2 Healthy Choice (or Lean Cuisine, etc. etc.) frozen dinners after school, and a couple spoonfuls of coffee Haagen-Dazs before collapsing into bed probably isn't the healthiest, but I was a teenager and on the go, darnit. But I digress, this is about school lunches. Let's move back towards those.
The doppelganger of yesterday's Haagen-Dazs, once again courtesy of Haagen-Dazs.
Admit it, coffee makes you smile just like this, doesn't it?
Admit it, coffee makes you smile just like this, doesn't it?
When I wasn't packing a lunch or skipping lunch alltogether, it meant I had the available cash to get lunch at school. This was sporadic at best, partially because my cash flow varied from season to season depending on how many extracurriculars I had going, and partially because the food was commonly unappealing to me. There were two hot lunch offerings each day, in addition to an 'a la carte' line where all the foods that are now being phased out of schools were located -- chips, cookies, snack cakes, molten cheese, etc -- as well as sandwiches, extra milks, and the occasional (and fast moving) gem like a sausage biscuit or those breakfast corn dog contraptions (a sausage wrapped in a blueberry pancake-like substance -- ugh). This is where I usually grabbed something. The tuna sandwiches were pretty good, when they were available, but I usually ended up with some chips and molten cheese, often accompanied by a couple of Slim Jims for good measure. There was a salad bar that was half-decent, too, though it cost more ($2, if I remember correctly). This was replaced one day each week by the end-all-be-all of lunchroomness in my high school: the baked potato bar. By no means was it healthy, but darn were they good, all covered in flowing nacho cheese and bacon bits and those little ham cubes that you can't get anywhere else but at buffets and salad/potato bars. There were occasional soft-serve sundaes or cones available too, which I often got if I had the spare cash. Every once in a while, usually around the holidays, there would be a special meal or dessert the cafeteria staff had prepared from scratch -- I specifically remember Easter cupcakes with green coconut and jellybeans on top -- and were especially proud of. For the most part, however, the main lunches were processed, frozen foods with canned fruits and vegetables on the side and white bread as the only option.
Image courtesy of Jimmy Dean
That was the summation of my public school eating experience as an attendee -- let me offer you two more points of experience.
MrMMO and I attended the same public school and graduated together, and his cafeteria experiences differed somewhat from mine. First of all, my mother-in-law, while an amazing cook, wasn't really one for packing lunches, and as a result, MrMMO and his siblings all frequented the cafeteria lunchline. The square cafeteria pizza that Mrs. Q has been so adamant about hating is still one of his fondest memories of school food. I think she actually hit the nail on the head; it's an acquired taste, and something that, if you haven't eaten it from kindergarten on up, might turn your stomach rather than make you salivate. He also lovingly remembers something called 'sausage and shells' that I have tried, without success, to find a recipe for on the internet. He ate school lunch on a regular basis, and was a perfectly normal-sized kid, and about as healthy as they come. He has, however, between his mom's food and the cafeteria's, a powerful addiction to all foods of the super-duper-processed variety. Even after several years together, I'm still working to drive healthier things into his diet, especially now that his metabolism is no longer that of a teenager's. It's something I'll blog about in the upcoming weeks if there's nothing else particularly exciting for me to write about.
As I mentioned above, I subbed for a semester after college and got a teacher's perspective on the school lunch situation. The only time I actually ate a cafeteria lunch it was, ironically enough that square, flat pizza with cheese-like substance on top. I was never particularly fond of it when I was in school, but I was hungry. It was pretty awful, and gave me a solid case of indigestion in the following hours. It was accompanied by a chocolate milk (the only kind I like other than an organic, soft-pasteurized milk that a local dairy produces), a salad, and some sort of trail mix that I had to decline because of my one and only food allergy -- walnuts. The salad was a bit wilted and sad, but the dressing was pretty darn good -- a vinegarette of some sort. I noticed most of the kids tossed the trail mix, and (interestingly enough) later overheard a conversation between the two lunchladies wondering whose fool idea it had been to serve the stuff in the first place when it was so unappealing to the kids. Many of the days I subbed I spent lunch in the teacher's lounge, so I can't really comment on those days, although in all the days and all the schools I was at, I only saw teachers eat from the cafeterias a handful of times. Incidentally, a couple of the times when I passed by the cafeterias (or went to escort the younger kids back to the classroom if I was subbing elementary), the sheer processed, greasy smell of the food turned my stomach -- I'm no health fanatic, and don't have the opportunity to buy much organic, but the smell of the stuff was just overpowering. If it was mediocre when I was in school, it's certainly not gotten any better since.
So, if you've made it through the massive wall of text above, why do I find this to be a vital issue? Because, as Mrs. Q has already stated, many of these kids are getting one meal a day -- that one. MrMMO and I were lucky that we had the option of breakfast (at home or at school) in the morning and dinner at home in the evening. Lots of kids don't, and if the school lunches are full of crap, that means these kids are ingesting 100% crap, all the time. Even if you don't want to look at the statistics for obese kids in the US, the aforementioned fact should be enough to make anyone want to do something about this.
What needs to be done? Baby steps -- removing sugar-filled (and I'm talking added sugar in any form, be it real sugar or HCFS) drinks and trans-fatty snacks from vending machines and lunchlines is a start. Entrees made of whole pieces of meat rather than patties of pressed chicken-type meat and hot dogs. Convenient, ready to eat fruits and veggies in eye-catching spots would also be good. If I'd had the option to eat those instead of chips and molten cheese, I probably would have gone for the veggies. At the very least I would have bought the veggies AND the molten cheese to dip them in. A better and cheaper (or even included in the lunch price) salad bar option? Heck yeah! Whole grain bread options? Fantastic! Side dishes that don't come out of a can? Awesome! And if you want to say it's going to be more work for the lunchladies and gentlemen -- they would probably welcome it just as much as the parents and the kids; most cafeteria workers care about what the kids are eating just as much, if not even more, than everyone else. Are all-organic and freshly prepared lunches a must-have right now? Not really, but more of an ultimate goal to be taken step by step.
Finally, a link for you to consider:
A (legitimate) video of how hot dogs are made can be found here, on YouTube (couldn't embed it, sorry). Note how hot dogs contain the 'trimmings,' of meat, and also contain corn syrup. Food for thought, no?
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