April 12, 2010
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Lunch at School
I wrote recently about Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution and his interest in revamping the school lunch program in this country. Today I volunteered in the cafeteria at Bubble Elementary for two hours and got an up close and personal look at school lunch. And unlike Jamie, I’m not just talking about the lunch provided by the school — I was a bit nosy and strolled around looking at what parents were packing for their kids from home, too.
I pack lunch for our kids nearly every day — they like to buy pizza on Fridays and occasionally they buy on “breakfast for lunch” day. I have had conversations with a friend of mine (whose kids go to a different school) about how much work it is to pack lunch. And we don’t mean the physical act of slapping it together, but the shopping, the planning, the “big picturing” that goes into taking responsibility for your children’s three squares a day.
We both try to include as much fruit and veggies as possible, with some protein and lots of whole grains. Her kids tend to like repetitive lunches, while our kids crave variety. It is hard work to come up with fresh, unprocessed, packable lunch ideas day after day! Which is why it was interesting to see what other people are packing.
Because of our daughter’s peanut allergy – many of the packaged “power bars” are off limits, as are PB&J sandwiches. Many of the healthy lunches I saw included these. (We use a soy-nut butter substitute, but offering those sandwiches more than once a week seems to be offensive to our little gourmets.
) I saw some tasty looking pinwheel sandwiches on tortillas and some homemade leftovers (spaghetti and meatballs, mac&cheese….not the boxed stuff). But mostly, I saw processed foods galore. And sugar. Holy sugar, batman.Lunchables. I shudder at the thought. I saw some kid “making pizza” out of some tubes of cold sauce-like goo, preservative-laden crusts and cheese crumbles. Ick. There were several varieties of Lunchables throughout the room and some even include blue Kool-Aid mix to “enhance” your child’s bottled water.
Ironically, the school was serving some sort of Lunchable-esque option today, too. It was a different brand, and had healthier components, but still…..the whole concept of pre-wrapped food not requiring refrigeration and served in a box? Really?
Our cafeteria manager is really wonderful and does use whole grains often. Kids are forced to take 3 sides of veggies and/or fruits – and french fries are rarely offered. She can’t make the kids eat, though, which is a shame because there is SO. MUCH. WASTE. Except for chips, desserts and candy (from home or school) — those get eaten early and often.
I’ve been looking for new ideas to pack the kids for lunch. Here are a few:
*Cold pasta salad made with tortellini, chopped celery and tomatoes
*Refried bean burritos on whole wheat tortillas
*Cream cheese, cucumber and shredded carrot wrapsAny other good ideas?
Comments (8)
My husband does grilled turkey burger patties on toasted buns. The kids don’t seem to mind that they get cold. I do “snack plate” day, which is a container of whole grain crackers, some cheese cubes, some mixed berries, some olives and if I’m feeling kindhearted, some salami or prosciutto. We also do gluten-free chicken nugget days, which is NOT health food.
It’s hard to make lunch for myself, much less for someone just learning about what kinds of food they like and don’t like. I like the wrap idea you mentioned, might give that a try!
Lunches. Sigh. My Little Bit will not eat cold food. I give her hot food in a thermos to take to school. Sometimes this is something homemade, if there are thermos-friendly dinner leftovers. Often, though, it is a Lean Cuisine, microwaved in the morning and scraped into the thermos. It’s something I know she will eat, and I just cannot cook lunch every day. To her credit, she won’t even consider eating the school’s hot lunch.
@ordinarybutloud - Ah, “snacky lunch” — a favorite around here, and pretty much all we eat at the pool in the summer.
@transvestite_rabbit - Today was a thermos day here. I boiled up some frozen Chinese chicken dumplings. They were excited, but it was a lot of work before 7am and I have the burned finger to prove it! I like to make the lunches the night before for a smoother morning….which is why I try to steer clear of thermos lunches, but they are nice once in awhile.
@draco1531 - Try adding avocado and scallions, salt/pepper/garlic powder. YUM. (The kids don’t care for the extra flavor or the avocado, but the adults do!)
I make lunches every day but it is very very simple. Well, first of all, my son wants a PBJ sandwich every single day, bless his heart
But that won’t work for you – nor does it work for my daughter! So other options include:
- turkey & cheese on wheat
- turkey & cream cheese (& maybe sneak some spinach leaves) tortilla wrap
- Annie’s pasta in the thermos
- sushi from the deli (ok, but that’s like a $5 lunch, so not happening too often
Really, it’s very simple – throw in some carrot sticks, or an orange, a little treat like a granola bar or organic crispy rice bar, a pickle, a yogurt & spoon, whatever they like. Stock up! I ,also buy “healthy” chips for them (Kettle chips, tortilla chips, etc.)
So true, though, that the junk food battle is not just with the schools, but with parents as well. I can’t believe the crap people feed their kids. I used to have a friend whose kids called the cartoon-character-shaped gummy fruit blobs their “fruit” – and she let them. Never gave them real fruit in their lunch because she said they “wouldn’t eat it.” Well of course they wouldn’t if they’ve been raised to think artificially colored gummy blobs are “fruit”!!
Our favorite growing up was having a “make it yourself lunch” when my mom would put slices of cheddar, crackers and summer sausage out and we could combine as we pleased. Ah, the good ole days!
Lunchables make me want to hurl. My husband eats them sometimes. (My husband the food snob eats Lunchables. Why? How?)
Like TR I was cursed with a child (PZ) who wouldn’t eat cold food. So she ended up buying school lunches, which were horrible. Fortunately, eventually, she started attending a school where she had access to a microwave, and she could start taking leftovers. And fortunately, now that she’s in middle school, she still has access to a microwave (by strange quirk of fate not worth getting into) and thus is still able to take leftovers, so she does eat much better for lunch than she used to. Unfortunately, MB has taken to buying school lunch, too. Too many pizza and chicken nuggets days for him to resist, and since I hate packing lunches, it is too hard for me to resist, too. I keep hoping that if I feed them well at home, that’ll make up for it.