So it was Grandparents Day at the Middle School Cafeteria

[Coyote_Bandit]

My niece invited dad and I took him. Public school. Considered one of the best school districts in this state.

I was completely appalled. The menu choices were: (1) pizza slice, (2) corn dog, (3) mac and cheese, (4) sandwich and (5) salad that was smaller than the side salads served by most restaurants. I noticed that most of the kids drank either a bottled sugared fruit drink or a pint carton of chocolate milk. Most of the kids also got a small fruit cup - smaller than those commercially available at the grocery stores. WTF? I only saw one kid in the cafeteria eating a vegetable and that little girl had smothered her small salad in at least 3 packets of ranch salad dressing. Sooooo.......I got online and checked the published school menus. OMG. I was even more appalled. Seems these choices are fairly frequent and routinely incorporated into the menu.

I came away with a few observations and conclusions:

(1) The school personnel actually defended the nutritional quality of this meal which suggests they are in need of remedial education on basic nutrition;

(2) About 5 years ago I was enrolled in an adult education program offered through a vo-tech where well over 90% of the student body consisted of public high school students. Their cafeteria offered inexpensive tasty nutritional food. Their food was as good as that offered in many restaurants. They didn't have fast food but they did have vending machines. The only time I ever saw anybody patronize a machine was when the cafeteria was closed. Why the huge disparity in quality? Aren't school meals largely subject to the same nutritional requirements regarding composition (i.e. ration of fat, protein and carbs)?

(3) Dad has been going to a Senior Citizens Center and eating a hot lunch there on most days. Their menu seems to be far more varied and nutritionally balanced than that offered by this middle school. I understand the need to adjust serving size (and calories) to be appropriate to those being served. I do not understand the limited variety and minimal nutrition offered to these school children.

(4) Many fast food places offer meals with better nutrition than those offered at this particular middle school today at lunch. Perhaps they should have the opportunity to offer meals for sale that meet minimum nutritional requirements. Surely those alternatives cannot be worse than what I witnessed being offered in a school cafeteria today.

(5) Finally, I offer an apology to the school lunch ladies that served me so many years ago. They were proud to serve a wide variety of nutritional food. Apparently I learned a little bit about nutrition from them. I pity those middle school students I saw eating all that junk today.


So.............I say all this to ask if what I observed and experienced today was unusual. I am admittedly out of touch with the daily operations of public schools.

[femmocrat]

1. That is pretty much standard lunch room fare.

It's disgraceful. Even with the new nutritional guidelines, the lunches (and breakfasts) have changed very little. I have lunch and/or breakfast duty every day (when I am working.) The food is just plain inedible. And for a lot of kids, this is 2/3 of their daily nutritional intake!

You are right. When the schools prepared meals in-house, the food was much better. Now it is all frozen, processed, reheated junk food.

[Ilsa]

2. There is probably plenty to complain

about, but it is also possible that some of these foods are not as bad as they were 20 years ago. If the corndogs are made of good wieners and baked, not fried, they might be okay, for example. I've had a school burrito that was low-fat, low-fiber, high-protein, and low-cal. The school might be using decent alternatives.

Keep in mind that they are trying to balance costs in this, appeal to a wide range of tastes, and meet nutrition requirements.

It looks like further investigation is warranted. Good luck!