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mara williams
on Jun 18 2013 - 06:00 AM
Hey, manchild, mama says: clean your room, wash the dishes, don't drink and drive.
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Emily Parnell
on Jun 16 2013 - 06:00 AM
Eating fresh, local produce is good for body and soul
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Jim Cosgrove
on Jun 13 2013 - 06:00 AM
I just want to buy some pants. Please, turn down the music.
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- mr. stinky feet - Profile | Pictures | Blog
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For Halloween this year, I’ve outdone myself to come up with the scariest, freakiest, and most disgusting costume ever. I’ve decided to dress up like a school lunch! That should scare the bejeebers out of everybody.
Last week I had lunch with my daughter in her school cafeteria. It was an eye-opening and shocking experience. I’m grateful that I brought my own lunch, because what they were serving was flat-out nasty.
The entrée choices that day were a piece of cheese pizza with a side of “potato smilies” (basically French fries in the shape of a smiley faces) or “Bosco Sticks” (mozzarella stuffed bread sticks) with dipping sauce and a side of “potato smilies”, and Italian ice for desert – colored a very realistic aqua blue.
To break this down for you in rudimentary nutritional lingo, it was: Starchy carbs topped with a minimal amount of greasy protein, with a side of greasy carbs, topped off with flavored sugar (more carbs) in a cup.
Really, who serves fries with pizza? You can’t look at me with a straight face and claim that’s even close to nutritious.
On the up side, there were other choices. Fruit was apricots in syrup, pears in syrup, or real honest-to-goodness grapes. For veggies there were anemic celery sticks (that tasted awful) and a side salad made up mostly of iceberg lettuce (that is, lettuce with little nutrition).
This is our first year in public schools, so maybe I expected too much. Perhaps I was naïve to assume that after decades of discussions over the quality of school lunches, there would be some progress.
Maybe I caught them on a bad day, but looking at the rest of the month, it doesn’t get much better.
The menu lists nachos as an entrée, as well as corn dogs, chili Frito pie, waffle sticks, French toast sticks, and your basic chicken nuggets and burgers and tacos, etc. I’m thrilled to see that on a few days they actually offer broccoli and carrots.
As a society we scratch our heads trying to figure out why kids are obese, prone to early on-set diabetes, can’t focus in the classroom, and score poorly on standardized tests. How about we start with their diet? It’s really not that difficult.
If I were jacked up on a carb-heavy, sugar-loaded diet all the time, I’d be more of a mess than I am now.
Do a little research and you’ll find that school lunch sales don't decline when healthier meals are served and that more nutritious lunches don't necessarily cost districts more to produce. And students who eat less processed lunches with fresh protein, fruit, and vegetable choices tend to post higher test scores and have fewer discipline problems.
One of the many ironies is that the physical education teacher at our school does a great job of teaching kids about nutrition and making healthy choices, but they have few healthy choices in the cafeteria. Let’s give students an opportunity to apply the knowledge they’re learning in class. What’s the hold up? Let’s get on with serving our kids something they can grow on.
That sounds awful! I would assume they are trying to appeal to the audience. I recall being called to school because my kindergartner was inconsolable over peas. He didn't eat the processed fake meat patty but requested more peas. He was denied until he ate the "meat". He said we don't eat that at home but he loved peas. Things escalalated until I had to go calm him.....over peas! I agree kids will eat things if it is available, or be hungry anyway but a few less carbs onboard.My kids aren't in school yet, but Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution has been eye-opening. I don't understand the need for so much processed food in our country (especially in our schools.) Bleck! Maybe you can start something worth while at your daughter's school? http://abc.go.com/shows/jamie-olivers-food-revolution/take-actionBelieve it or not, this menu is better than school lunches used to be. But it's still time to start packing lunches from home.I have had similar experiences with my own son. Couldn't believe that a pop tart passes as breakfast! All they have to do is make the food from scratch, which usually ends up being less expensive. How hard can it be?It truly is scary! How in the world do we expect our kids to learn to eat healthy? It's no shock we have health issues in our country: weight, diabetes, ADD, etc. At our house, kids bring lunch 4 out of 5 days, and they can choose one day to buy (NOT french toast Monday, though!) They always choose chicken nugget day with chocolate high fructose corn syrup milk to wash down all the other carbs. Hard for this mom to stomach. They are not allowed to by the "extras"--ice cream sandwiches, chips, etc.
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