School Lunches

Alright, in college we have it easy as far as lunch goes- there's on campus dining halls to eat at, we can make and bring our own lunches, we can drive off and get something and hope to find parking again, etc. We have options. But remember back when we were in elementary school and there was only the one cafeteria line? Your parents either made your lunch for you or gave you money, or you had the special government plan and that was your lunch- not much choice. Remember how bad some of the food tasted? It wasn't all that healthy either...a lot of hamburgers, pizza, chili fiesta sticks (which I thought were delicious- but not exactly healthy, I mean a bunch of ground beef in a flour tortilla that you dip in cheese?), french fries, chicken fried steak, etc. I mean sure they always had an apple or an orange and probably a little pre-packaged salad, but they always looked old and bruised (and you couldn't exactly go wash off your pesticide-filled apple that you probably didn't know had pesticides because you were 5). I remember one time I went to turn in some lunch money for my balance in middle school and saw a lady arranging the lettuce leaves for a salad 3 hours before lunch...while not wearing any gloves... that was it for me with those pre-packaged salads.

So why am I talking about this right now? It's not like I have a kid in school or anything- I am my own kid in school that I have to make lunch for (although I often forget). No. I'm writing this because there's been some buzz about an anonymous school teacher who has had it with the unhealthy lunches they serve at her school and has decided to prove the point by eating her school's cafeteria food for a year and blogging about it. You should check out the blog link- it's pretty interesting. In a recent post, she had a guest blogger who has his own blog and occasionally talks about food. He's a teacher too and travels around, but right now he's teaching English to kinder-gardeners in Japan. His guest post kind of made Japan seem like a magical place for school children to me lol.

Anyways, it got me thinking- if you were to raise your kid vegetarian you'd have to pack their lunch EVERY DAY. I mean they really don't have that many healthy options at the school lines involving the proper servings of vegetables and fruits. Even if your kid wasn't being raised a vegetarian, they're getting used to eating these fatty meats and salty and fried foods all the time and won't think anything of eating it later and get into bad eating habits and you should probably pack their lunch anyways.

Personally, I never really thought about it much as a kid. I was lucky, my mom made me lunch most of the time and I'd get goodies like PB&;J, yogurt, trail mix, washed fruits and veggies, etc., but not everyone was getting to eat that kind of healthy food. I ate in the lunch line on the days when they had the "yummy" food. And at home, my parents always had me cook with them, which is why I'm a good cook now. I mean, in middle school we went through a rough patch after my dad died and we couldn't afford to pack my lunch all the time- I qualified for the discount lunches so we did that more often than before. But by middle school the school had more options because kids that age are more picky and I didn't really think anything of it. When my parents cooked with me they also taught me what foods were good for you and which you shouldn't eat as often, so I knew how to pick healthier options and when I could indulge and grab the pudding. But a lot of kids don't have that. A lot of families don't know proper nutrition and can't teach it to their kids. A lot of parents don't know when to tell their children 'no, you can't have another bowl of ice cream'. A lot of parents don't have enough income to buy enough healthy food to get their kids a good lunch every day.

So, what do you think? Do you think school lunches should be regulated to be healthier? Or do you think that school lunches are something that shouldn't be as high on the priority list as other important things such as classroom sizes that are getting bigger and bigger with recession budget cuts or the way that we are teaching (or rather not teaching) our kids to read?

Also, would you raise your kid to be vegetarian or would you let them eat meat and educate them and let them choose for themselves?