I’m aware that there are many people who applaud the school lunch rules forced on the schools by Michelle Obama. I’m not one of them. Perhaps it’s not true at every school, but at my children’s school it has essentially resegregated the lunch counter, as very few full-pay students eat the school lunch any more. They all bring a lunch from home.
Some of the lunch rules are ridiculous. Salt requirements are so low that it’s impossible to make palatable bread, even though scientists now realize that salt isn’t bad for most people. The fat content is so low that some of the food in inedible. My view is that there were already rules in place requiring pretty healthy food, and we’ve essentially decreed that America’s schoolchildren have to be placed on an extreme diet whether they need it or not.
My kids used to love the school lunches served by our district. Not any more. We started packing lunches for my daughter last year, and this year we are packing them for my son. They only get 25 minutes for lunch and often have to wait almost 20 minutes for their table to be called if they eat the cafeteria food, so there is a real incentive to taking one’s own lunch. Just about the only kids eating the school lunch these days are the kids on the free and reduced lunch program. There is a clear and obvious racial divide, as virtually no white girls and few white boys go through the school lunch line any more. It’s gotten more pronounced each year since the new lunch rules went into effect.
Have any of you with kids observed this, or is my school district an extreme example? Are the people who decided to micromanage the school lunch program aware of the consequences of their actions? Is it fair to make poor kids eat food that everyone else thinks tastes terrible? Just curious as to conditions at other schools as well as opinions of other parents.
I guess I don’t understand how the lunch wait can be 20 minutes if fewer and fewer kids are buying lunch. In fact, what what do nutritional requirements have to do with the wait in the first place? My kids never ate school lunch because it was always terrible–same for me a zillion years ago. I think a great school lunch is a rarity. If the cafeterias can’t make lunches that are both tasty and healthy, it’s because they use the cheapest possible ingredients and poor technique. And sad to say, but a lot of low income kids in our district eat school lunch because they come from dysfunctional homes where no one is going to bother making them lunch or the ingredients aren’t even in the house. But if you just want to blame something on Michelle Obama (and I’m curious to know how she “forced” anything on the schools), I won’t stop you.
Funny you should have brought this up. I had this exact conversation with a neighbor this weekend. Your experience is exactly the same as is occurring at the middle school that my neighbor and I, as well as our kids, attended. Back in the dark ages, there was real scratch-cooked food and everyone ate it. This was the case up until the tougher regulations which came into place in the last few years. It is as you say - feeding the poor kids food that nobody else wants.
@MommaJ I’m just reporting what my daughter told me. I would assume if fewer kids are eating the lunch then they have fewer employees. They used to sell “extras,” such as hamburgers, on which the school made quite a profit. Presumably without this income they have less staff.
Also, my kids used to rave about how good the school food was. They certainly don’t any more. I keep hearing people compare today’s school lunches to those more than four years ago. Many people are unaware of just how drastic the changes have been.
I guess where I have a problem with the plan is the restriction on calories, as part of the First Lady’s efforts to curb childhood obesity. Growing up (military brat), we lived all over the country, including poorer areas. I remember a 3rd grade teacher pointing out that the school lunch was the most important meal for some of our class mates (many who were my friends), due to their economic challenges and home life. That always stuck with me and one reason I’m a supporter of reduce/free lunches. It would be nice if the food was tasty enough for the kids not to skip lunch, but at least let them eat a decent amount of calories…
I don’t think our high school follows those guideline. I know they sell Domino’s Pizza and Chick-Fil-A in the cafe. They also sell cookies and fruit smoothies.
I used to buy lunch every day in middle school. Always the same thing, turkey sandwich with cheese, lettuce, and tomato. With chips and tea. It wasn’t bad at all, and shouldn’t have been excessively unhealthy (I don’t like mayo/other sauces so it was always just turkey, cheese, lettuce, and tomato). Haven’t had any of the lunches under the new requirements, but I wonder if that same meal fits under them?
I imagine they probably don’t sell the tea any more but the sandwich with chips?
Aren’t kids supposed to be able to eat a full caloric load (tasty food) because they have like an hour each day, or more (if they get both recess and gym class…), to run around and burn those calories?
My K-8 and high schools’ food wasn’t great by any means, but it wasn’t terrible – it did have flavor, generally; in fact, I can still “taste” a few items to this day – so many kids actually preferred it to a bagged lunch. And those who had little choice in the matter, looking back, at least did get a usually decent-tasting and decently filling meal each day.
I had a neat red plastic Empire Strikes Back lunchbox, inside of which was a small blue Thermos with Yoda on it. It was basically only used for field trips.
Domino’s Pizza and Chick-Fil-A likely don’t fall under the reduce/free lunch plans. Also, several school districts are dropping out of the plan, even though it’s costing them the federal subsidy.
Our school started doing this before the recent changes (more around the time that Jamie Oliver show about WV school food was on, like 2009 or so).
Lunches used to be cooked at a larger district (think chicken nuggets and tater tots) and simply reheated here and it was gross. It’s now not only healthy (lots of veggies and almost nothing processed) but almost half locally sourced (w/in 50 miles), and cooked onsite. The school even grows some of the veggies on school property and the enviro kids started an aquaculture thing with tilapia. Turkey is roasted onsite, not cold cuts brought in, etc.
The per-plate food costs went up by 10-cents per lunch but far more students are eating the cafeterias’ food. 22% bought lunches before, the next year it was 57%. Lunch prices went up 10 cents per the first year but haven’t changed since.
I think a lot of it is in the execution. Our schools did a LOT of talking to kids about what they wanted.
The kids in our large urban district definitely know the changes that have made school lunches less attractive to those who can afford to bring food from home. For example the"white"hot dogs" that my kids won’t eat. These are the turkey dogs that aren’t even pretending to look like regular hot dogs. French or garlic bread can no longer be served with pasta. And french fries are no longer served and maybe once a month a tiny square of a brownie is offered as a dessert.
Our district has received national attention for its healthy foods, but too often the various stews or chicken and rice look like barf.
My kids used to eat the school lunch a couple of times a week but now the specific items they used to like are no longer offered.
Maybe where you lived. Back in the Dark Ages in New Canaan, CT–not exactly a hotbed of poverty–the school lunches were truly revolting and most people brought their lunch if they could. I remember a grade school “field trip” to the kitchen. Think canned carrots. Canned potatoes. Canned green beans. Just really horrible. I developed a life-long aversion to Salisbury Steak. (At least that’s what they called it.) The food at my British boarding school was more edible, and boarding school food is notorious.
I have always packed school lunches for my kids because we follow a very healthful diet. I try to get them all natural nitrite free meats, rBST free cheese, whole wheat bread, organic fruits and veges. They used to complain a lot about how horrible their elementary school lunches were, not because they were too healthful, but the opposite, because they looked very unhealthful, with pizza and burgers that looked like cardboards, chicken nuggets that were round and didn’t look anything like chicken. But since they started middle school, they’ve often mentioned that the cafeteria food actually looks and smells good and the lines are long. I pack them a lunch from home everyday anyway. I like to know what goes into my kids’ food.
If the changes mandated actually make school lunches more healthful then that’s a good thing. The cafeteria people just need to adjust and learn to cook good food with much less salt, sugar and fat. You can have healthful food that taste good, the two are not mutually exclusive at all. Overtime kids’ palate too will adjust.
Edited to remove political reference. Point is completely unchanged
Most people still get too much salt, including children.
Lowered fat content does not make food inedible, except, maybe, to people who are accustomed to wanting too much of it.
You would have to define “everyone else”. I’ve eaten the meals and they are fine.
One of the problems with diets is that Americans eat too many calories. Lunches are balanced appropriately. Free and reduced price programs often include both breakfast and in many places…dinner.
More schools are finding that it is cheaper and easier to go back to hiring cooks and cooking from scratch. The food that was available when my kid was in high school was horribly unhealthy. He came from a school district with salad bars (and gardens that filled them) and stations that kids liked. He moved to a place with pizza every day and the healthiest thing on the menu was a taco salad. There were no fresh fruits or vegetables. When I was there last week I saw plenty of fresh food.
Fat kids should not be a political issue.
" my kids used to rave about how good the school food was." And my kid thought the school food was gross, as well as unhealthy–this was 8 years ago. She always brought lunches. Also said a large portion of the lunches were going in the trash (along with all the required fruit), and the kids would just load up on the sugary stuff. On school outings, I saw kids spending their entire lunch budgets on 100% sugar, and yes, they liked that. Perhaps you should look more locally for the source of the problems. Too many kids will only eat chicken nuggets, fries or pizza, or sugar. I just asked my kids whether they changed the school food over the past years and neither one had heard anything about any changes. If the food kids supposedly loved suddenly got terrible I am sure they would have heard.
If most white kids are bringing lunch to school, shouldn’t the cafeteria line be shorter? So why 20 min wait now? I highly doubt it the school was making quite a profit by selling hamburgers.
I have never heard of any kid rave about school food, even my kids at their private school where they had “home made food.” Their food was served at their table and my kids still complained.
We still have adequate lunch food at my high school and it’s considered healthy. Your kid’s school probably just doesn’t know how to cook good-tasting healthy food. But a lot of kids at my school bring lunch from home and it’s always been that way.
When I first started teaching…in the Dark Ages…there was a cook in each school who made meals from scratch. The schools were much smaller. Everyday, the cook got there very early, and baked homemade bread, and whatever the dessert was going to be…cookies, brownies, cakes, apple crisp, etc. She made homemade soups and stews, really good casseroles, pizza every Friday. Honestly it was delicious.
I think I gained more weight that year than my freshman year in college!
My kids have noticed a huge decline in the quality of the standard lunch that is offered. Kids who can afford to go through the ala carte line (chick fil a, etc.) or bring their lunch. The only kids who eat the standard meal are those on the reduced/free lunch program. Yes, those lines are longer now because staff has been reallocated to ala carte areas or cut. The free/reduced cost lunch kids often ask their friends to buy from the ala carte line for them on particularly gross days.