In a school with a lot of ethnic diversity there is likely also a lot of variation in what kids are used to eating, even among those who eat balanced diets at home.
I also have one kid who was always picky and one who would try almost anything so I agree kids are definitely different.
A lot of the comments on here are interesting, in that they parrot the statist line that if the government simply limits the food choices that children have that they will grow to love all the foods society says they should like. To facilitate this, potatoes were banned from school lunches more than once a week because they knew kids like potatoes.
A lot of children are super-tasters. I was as a kid. This causes many vegetables to have an extremely bitter taste. I grew out of it, as most kids do, and by high school was starting to eat vegetables. But trying to force-feed kids things like Brussels sprouts is not going to change a lot of eating habits.
A couple of students have posted about how disgusting school pizza is these days. That’s because the dough can’t cook properly without salt. Salt is an absolute requirement for cooking, and current levels are so low that food will often come out an inedible mess. A lot of people are posting school lunch menus and declaring “that sounds delicious” without ever talking to kids who have actually eaten the food. Some of these foods that sound delicious on the menu look terrible on the plate and taste bad to boot.
All of these comments miss my original point, which is that in many schools virtually all of the more affluent kids are bringing a packed lunch to school, so that the overwhelming majority of kids going through the lunch line are on the free lunch program. At my children’s school it has become a racial divide, with very few white kids eating the official school lunch. My guess is that there are a few poor whites eligible for the free lunch who aren’t getting it because they don’t want to be the only white kid going through the lunch line.
It’s created a system where blacks are force-fed crappy food while white students get to eat tasty fare. And the solution isn’t to ban packed lunches, but rather to get the federal government out of the micromanagement of school lunches. I think it’s better to have a school lunch with some less healthy options that everyone will participate in than an extreme-health-nut lunch that is only served to those too poor to bring their own lunch from home.
If a kid is fat then by all means get the school involved in putting that child on a restricted diet and giving the child an hour on a treadmill each day. But don’t fight obesity by micromanaging the food everyone eats!
So Earl you do not think the first lady is wrong to bring attention to the issue of smarter food selection you just think it is wrong for the federal government to mandate what food schools make available?
I would say this is correct.
For the record, I’m all for healthy eating, but the federal government has instituted rules that are just extreme, and in some cases it is forcing school districts to comply with standards for which there is very little scientific support, such as having ultra-low-sodium food. Low sodium diets have now been linked with early death. It’s sort of like how the government used to urge people to eat stick margarine rather than butter, when it turns out that butter is far healthier than margarine.
I’ve read, for example, of school districts abandoning their “grab-n-go” breakfasts because it was impossible for them to make the bagged breakfasts that would comply with the new federal rules. I happen to think it is better for kids to eat a breakfast that is slightly high in sugar, fat, or sodium than to not eat at all.
My wife was principal at a school with lots of poor kids. Many of the kids would arrive at school on Monday ravenous, despite the fact that their parents should have had adequate food stamps to feed them. She instructed the cafeteria staff to give free seconds and larger portions on Mondays. Under Michelle Obama’s rules, this would be breaking the law.
High school athletes need as much as 6,000 calories a day. Everyone says they should just bring their own snacks and protein bars, ignoring the fact that the free lunch program is designed to meet the needs of students too poor to bring snacks and protein bars. And now it’s not doing it.
I agree with you although I have no problem with steps like banning soda
I completely disagree. The National School Lunch Program provides lunches to over 31 million children each day and are in over 100,000 public and private schools. If the government is paying for this program they should have every right to intervene with some minimum standards. Though it may cause some level of segregation, but that will happen regardless. My kids were segregated to the nut free table since first grade until the school established a nut free policy a decade later. So be it.
Pure guess but I’d think Broccoli is probably the most agreeable green vegetable. Something that might work is grilled chicken breast, mac&cheese, broccoli. Though I’m not sure if that would be cheap enough for a school lunch (shouldn’t be outrageously priced but might be a buck above the budget).
Though I’m sure healthy meals can be done cheap enough that shouldn’t be too objectionable to most kid. When I was a kid my favorite meal was franks & beans. My mom used to put some chopped onion, tomato, and peppers in it too. That could be cheaply served in a school, easily made, is nutritious, and fairly well accepted.
I don’t necessarily think that kids will eat what they’re given at a young age. We used to have mushrooms in our home, I think what happened one day was when I was 5 or 6 my parents told me it was a fungus, and I refused to ever eat them again until college. We had green beans, which I never liked and still don’t like. I used to not like zucchini until trying them again in college. My dad’s sister at many times came and lived with us for a few months at a time when I was younger, and would commonly make goat which I never liked, and I still don’t like. Those are all things I had around me from a young age that I just wouldn’t have eaten.
My kids were also big into eating veggies they grew themselves. Perhaps more elementary schools should have student vegetable gardens?
The kids at our elementary really like the radishes and lettuce grown in the school garden. Radishes are pretty quick to grow, also.
Radishes seem like they would be a very offensive vegetable. I can’t tolerate that kind of nasally spice (like in radishes, horseradish, mustard, wasabi).