<p>“There’s no ‘mystery meat’ at one Queens public elementary school. Public School 244 in Flushing is the first public school in the nation to serve all-vegetarian meals for breakfast and lunch, according to city education officials.”</p>
<p>I’m a vegetarian but I never try to impose my choice on anyone else. This is really outrageous. I hope the families who have decided that their kids should eat meat can afford to pack lunch for them.</p>
<p>I don’t know how I feel about there being no meat alternative, but I looked at the menu, and it looks pretty good, and the kids seem to like it.</p>
<p>I’m sure they’ve had nutritionists look at the menu to ensure that the protein and fat needed are in there.</p>
<p>What I would like to see is a return to more mandatory exercise and outdoor time.</p>
<p>I think the exodus of serious physical education in schools and outside time has been a terrible thing for our kids physically, emotionally and intellectually.</p>
<p>Cromette, I agree completely. My son went to a NYC middle school that had gym twice a week and that’s it for movement. I don’t think that is either healthy or productive. I don’t care for that lunch menu because it seems very specific and limited. I prepare and have always fed my kids healthy food, but not everyone likes the same things and, frankly, meat is not the enemy. An omlette with cheese is questionable.</p>
<p>Since fast food standards for meat are higher than the standards used for public schools, it sounds that the district wants to improve the safety of the food available to children. i think this is a good thing.</p>
<p>I agree that limiting PE & recess is bad.
Everyone needs to be active especially children.
The saddest thing is when children who cant sit still in class are then punished by losing their recess.
Did it help?
:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Salad bars are very hard to keep safe and there is a movement afoot to have one in every school. Even though I’m a serious veggie lover, I wouldn’t let my kids eat out of a salad bar in a public school.
However, it really does bother me that they are imposing a specific set of preferences on everyone. But I always packed lunch for my kids because they liked to choose.</p>
<p>Perhaps there is the undercurrent of cost cutting here. Meat tends to be more expensive than vegetarian foods, so for the same cost, one can serve low quality meals with meat or better quality vegetarian meals.</p>
<p>It’s very difficult to get enough of the essential B vitamins on a vegetarian diet, and B vitamins are essential for healthy brain and central nervous system growth.</p>
<p>Unless someone is going to sit there and absolutely make sure they mix the ghee with the lentils and rice and eat it, they are risking a lot of stuff in this experiment. I don’t think people really understand that vegetarian isn’t always healthy and is more often, at this age, cheese and carbaterian, which isn’t good for obesity either.</p>
<p>I wonder why they decided this was a good idea?</p>
<p>One vegetarian meal a day isn’t going to do a kid any harm.</p>
<p>But this experiment still rubs me the wrong way. It’s teaching kids that a vegetarian diet is necessarily healthier than a diet that includes meat, poultry, and fish, and that isn’t correct information. </p>
<p>There are healthy diets that include meat and there are unhealthy diets that exclude it. The idea that vegetarian = healthy is a gross oversimplification.</p>
<p>But, also, do you supplement with a B-complex? Do you know the food and food combinations you need to make sure you don’t develop anxiety and whatnot? It’s doable, when you have vegetarian children, but it’s a lot of work and supervision to make sure they are getting the essential nutrients they need to grow their brains.</p>
<p>I have close friend who is vegan who feeds her children meat protein and will do so until they are old enough to understand the way a vegetarian or vegan eats. And then she will teach them if it’s something they WANT to do.</p>
<p>Which B vitamins are you referring to? B12 is the only one found exclusively in animal source food, but generally only vegans would worry about that (vegetarians who consume milk and/or eggs would get it from those foods).</p>
<p>My daughter was a vegetarian from a very young age, UCB. I know how you have to cook to feed a child who is eating a vegetarian diet. It’s not as simple as that.</p>
<p>The vegetarian meals are probably tastier and healthier than the budget-limited meat meals that a school lunch program would otherwise provide. And budgetary reasons are probably the actual motivation.</p>
<p>It’s not just one meal, though, Marian. Breakfast every day as well as lunch, and many schools have after school programs that either involve dinner or a late afternoon snack. In low income schools, many kids get at least two and sometimes all three meals in school five days a week.</p>
<p>warbrain, then someone is thinking carefully about nutrition in your household. The same can’t be said of every family in a particular school, which is why always two and often three meals are available in NYC public schools.</p>
<p>As zm said, it’s not uncommon for children in poverty to get their only meals at schools. It’s not just as simple as “oh they’ll get it at home, no worries”</p>
<p>Which makes it even more egregious when the choices are poor.</p>
<p>I remember the breakfast options at Ds school were usually yogurt with waffle sticks. Many choices are equally high in fat/sugar/salt.
Food isnt made in the cafeteria, any more,as when I was in school. I actually liked hot lunches although I rarely got to buy them, because my sack lunches were soggy tuna or peanut butter.
Neither of my kids bought lunch at school. Oldest attended private schools without a lunch program and youngest just didnt like it. The cafeteria was crowded & noisy anyway as the entire school of 1600 had the same lunch period. She mostly went to a Somalian cafe across the street from her high school. ( or Ezells)</p>
<p>But at least it was at lunch time instead of before 10am.</p>
Many choices are equally high in fat/sugar/salt.