DC School Lunch blog

[egoldber]

A group in DC is blogging about the DCPS lunches.

http://betterdcschoolfood.blogspot.com/

And the sad thing? I think those look better than what I have seen in our school's cafeteria.

I think the blogging about what kids are actually being served for lunch is a very interesting movement. I think a lot of parents would be shocked to see what their kids are actually getting for lunch.

[TwinFoxes]

I have to say, after seeing Jaime Oliver's show, that looks a lot better than I what was expecting. The complaint that there's breading on the baked chicken just sounds nit-picky when they're eating pizza for breakfast in WV!

It will be interesting to see if Congress passes the school lunch bill that's being discussed.

[egoldber]

I completely agree it is not as bad as many places. Not great, but not as bad.

But in general I think the little window into their day is fascinating. Elementary school is much more of a "black box" than preschool. You send them off, in they go, and then they come home hours later. As parents we get relatively little feedback on what actually happens during that time. Even though our school encourages parents to come in and have lunch with their kids or volunteer in the classroom, many parents are not able to do that for various reasons. And even then, it's just a little snapshot of what happens during the hours that they are away.

[JTsMom]

I haven't really been staying on top of the school food topic, but you guys are saying that trash is BETTER than average?! Holy crap! DS would be bringing his lunch every. single. day. I very rarely ever bought lunch as a kid. Now I remember why. Gross.

[egoldber]

Lori, you'd probably find this one interesting. A teacher is eating the school lunch every day and blogging about it.

http://fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com/

[JTsMom]

Lori, you'd probably find this one interesting. A teacher is eating the school lunch every day and blogging about it.

http://fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com/

:shake: We might as well have 7/11 cater. Seriously, I am far from the healthiest eater in the world, and just looking at those pics turns my stomach. It's not like it's just a tad heavy on the sodium, fat, etc., but tasty. It's actually really disgusting looking! I don't think Jason would eat one bite of 90% of that stuff. He'd probably live on the applesauce.

Did you catch the post about what they serve in France for lunch? The difference is amazing!

So what is driving the serving of crap here? Is it cheaper? I can't imagine there's not a cost to buying everything pre-made, but of course, they'd end up paying more in labor to prep and cook. Are they thinking the kids wouldn't eat anything that resembles real food? Is it just force of habit?

[lfp2n]

That's so gross- I'm pretty sure its what DD eats every day though :(
Somehow pack lunch preparation is just the one extra thing in the morning I can't seem to get to. Feeling bad....especially after watching Food Inc last night.

[Tondi G]

It's frustrating cause I KNOW they could do better in my DS's school if they would get back to actually cooking lunch for the kids rather than buying the prepackaged crap in all kinds of plastic that they then heat up! Sure... keep with the packaged bean and cheese burritos or the peanut butter and jelly pockets to make it a little easier on the lunch lady (there is only one or 2 people who work in the cafeteria... I suppose they would have to pay more people if they actually had to cook. I am sure they could make better spaghetti and sauce than what comes in the prepackaged lunches. How hard is it to grill up a bunch of hamburger patties and put them on a bun? They have ovens... oven baked potato wedges wouldn't be that hard. again chicken strips or nuggets... put them in the oven on a pan and portion them out into the little paper trays. There is SO much waste in the prepackaged stuff plastic and paper. UUGH

[sste]

I think the bad food probably is cheaper, esp. with respect to storage and prep. time. I also wonder how their contracting works - - maybe these schools contract with 1 or 2 major food suppliers very long-term or even on an exclusive basis??

[graciebellesmomma]

Where did you see what they serve for lunch in France?
Linkie please :)

[Sillygirl]

But WHY is bad food cheaper? Because we subsidize corn. Because we can't tolerate variability, so we have to buy from agribusiness instead of the local farmer. Because we insist on spending a far smaller fraction of our budget on food than in decades past, and it becomes unthinkable to spend more.

[JTsMom]

Where did you see what they serve for lunch in France?
Linkie please :)


Here ya go. :)
http://fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com/2010/04/guest-blogger-french-school-lunches.html

[spanannie]

We are very fortunate to have an amazing school lunch provider. It is pricey, but so worth it. $6/day if you pay as you go; there is a break if you sign up for a whole semester.

http://patriciaslunchbox.com/

Nothing processed or pre-made. They even make their own mayo.

[sste]

I wonder if the cheap/bad food is also tied to the free/reduced lunch program. Not that I am saying it is right! I would personally pay $6 happily per meal for my child to eat something like what the pp linked to. But, wouldn't that change the government funding required for free/reduced lunch or leave schools with a shortfall?

Again, in no way defending. I am just assuming that there are some structural impediments to change that need to be addressed before we can get rid of the cr*ppy school food.

[SnuggleBuggles]

We have excellent food at ds1's school. They lose money on every lunch though. They keep the prices as low as they can and suck up the loss because good food is a priority. We are going to start some fundraisers that can help this situation. They don't lose much (like $.13/ lunch) but it adds up. The gov't reimburses like $2/ lunch where I live. Not easy to feed kids really great for that kind of money.

Beth

[MamaKath]

Makes me grateful for our school's program. Still has processed food, but an awesome salad bar and daily home made soups are available as well. Not cheap (parochial school so no subsidizing) but way better than the stuff in those blogs.

[boolady]

We are very fortunate to have an amazing school lunch provider. It is pricey, but so worth it. $6/day if you pay as you go; there is a break if you sign up for a whole semester.

http://patriciaslunchbox.com/

Nothing processed or pre-made. They even make their own mayo.

This is awesome. What a great idea for a business, for someone who likes to cook and would love to be doing some good at the same time. ;)

[american_mama]

This is timely because my school just had a meeting this week with the two managers of the school lunch program. I am guessing that maybe school lunch has become a sudden hot topic, if all these people are blogging about it? I knew nothing about Jamie Oliver Food Revolution - a book? a reality show? - but I have seen threads mentioning it here and it came up at the PTO meeting, but if he focusses a lot on school lunch, maybe that is adding to the current interest.

Anyway, this is what I learned at our meeting about school lunch and breakfast at our city schools, in no particular order, but stuff that might explain some of their challenges that our probably common to other schools. This is for a small district in a small "city" with a total of 8 schools, preK to grade 12. At our elementary school cafeteria, children can choose one of two meals every day, can choose white/choc or strawberry milk, and that's it. There are no additional choices, like ice cream for sale, for instance. School lunch costs about $2.25 for an adult and about $1.75 for a student (because I think a subsidy goes to every child meal regardless of child's income).

1. Our school lunch department has to pay for itself through federal government money and food sales. They get no money from the local school budget. I was impressed with the pressure this puts on them, to dance to many masters and foot their own bill. Others in the audience felt this created a "make money/break even" mentality where they offer lesser quality food (i.e. chocolate or strawberry milk) because it sells.

2. The school lunch managers had many restrictions and pressures on them, were not unaware of the issues being talked about, and were trying to meet requirements while even being creative on occasion. For instance, she said they offer 5 parts at every lunch, some of which have alternatives that the kids can pick or decline (peas or pears, for instnace) but they have an internal rule that every lunch must have at least 3 parts on the tray. So a child can't just get a hot dog or just get pears. This is good in terms of allowing some individual choice while also ensuring some variety in front of the child, but it also increases food waste. The school staff also made an internal decision to serve only canned fruit in low sugar juice (not sure if that means 100% juice or just lower sugar juice). I believe the dietitian said canned fruit in syrup is cheaper, but they decided to turn it down... obviously, a hard choice.

3. They passed out the guidelines for the "enhanced" USDA nutritional guidelines that they choose to follow (they did not explain what the "enhanced" thing was) and nutritional requirements are hard to fault: calories and everything else vary by grade level, 30% or less of the calories in every meal, I believe, need to come from fat and 10% or less can be saturdated fat, guidelines for sodium, protein and other elements. The dietitian mentioned something I didn't get, about needing to have a certain number of grains in the week so sometimes she adds a roll into a meal that doesn't need it because she needs it to meet her weekly requirements. She said that bothers her as a dietition, but it's what she has to do for some requirement. Again, I didn't quite get that.

2. At our elementary school, about 75% of kids qualify for free or reduced school lunch. At perhaps two local elementary schools, it is higher.

3. There are TWO cafeteria workers to serve breakfast and lunch to the entire school (about 300-350 students plus staff), plus daily food prep for a new, special Fresh Fruits and Vegetable snack program funded by a USDA grant. Last year, they had 3 staff people but someone left or retired and they do not have the budget to add another person. This limited staff has led them to use more processed foods to decrease food prep time and/or increase food safety and consistency.

4. Food manufacturers make special products for the school lunch market, some of which are not available commercially and may (I stress MAY) be more healthful than they seem. For instance, apparently our district is serving a low sugar Trix cereal that is not otherwise available and a new breakfast bar/danish thing called Fruitables or something that is a whole grain product, somewhat lower sugar than you'd think, and they deemed worth trying. The dietitian said to get enough protein for USDA guidelines, PBJ sandwiches need 4 Tb. of peanut butter and grilled cheese needs 4 slices of cheese, both of which are unpalatable. So, they switched to Smuckers Uncrustables which take no prep (back to the staff cost issue) and are familiar to students (back to the sales issue). Note: I did not realize until later the obvious question, which is 1) Is Smucker's meeting the nutritional guidelines and if so, why can't the school do it in a palatable way? If Smuckers is not meeting the guidelines, why are the sandwiches being served?

5. She said they have attempted to buy local food for the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snack program, but it has not worked super well so far. She said sometimes the local food costs more - she said local spinach cost 4 times as much, as an example. And sometimes the local food quality has been poor (rotten apples, for instance). Not sure if this is because the local food distribution center is new and perhaps in growing pains.

6. A very meaty question that engendered a lot of debate with me and my friends. At one school with a very high percentage of poor students, in December, the school lunch program switched to a low/no sugar breakfast and sales have plummeted. They only offer Cheerios as cereal.... and students aren't buying the boxes, are throwing them out, or leaving them on the table. They only allow chocolate milk on one day of the week... and milk sales are way down. They said this is a school population that isn't getting breakfast at home and the school lunch staff are having a big internal debate whether to stick with it, hope that the kids adjust and sales come back up, or offer some of the old, sweeter products so that the kids are eating something. I was very sympathetic to the staff, but some of my friends were infuriarated at 1) the thought that you had to give kids sugar or they woudln't eat and 2) pereceived disingenuousness from the lunch staff, who my friends felt were really just concerned about reduced sales hurting their bottom line.

7. A couple general observations... I ask myself a fundamental question. If a child is hungry enough, will they eat anything... the white milk and Cheerios, the burrito with American cheese and turkey ham? And if they are that hungry, isn't this food a good thing for them, processed and salted and all? Or do you have to be literally starving before you'll eat food you don't care for? I think of the one pet I've owned, a cat, and she'd walk away from food she didn't like and wait for tomorrow. My kids will do the same thing at dinner. If kids won't eat the Cheerios or the fresh vegetables without ranch dressing (an issue with our snack program).... then is there value in still serving it? Again, some of my friends believe you need to uphold standards, model/expect it, and re-train the palate and give it time, which brings me to....

8. How much can school lunch accomplish? What is its role and does that differ for a child getting more of their meals there vs. the occasional eater? DD1 buys a lot of school lunch, but it's only 1/3 of her meals for the day and less than 1/3 of her food when you include snacks. Therefore, I am not looking for the dietitians' buzz words of "balance variety and moderation" from school lunch. I want every meal at school to be UNBALANCED in a healthy way, or at least let's address the low hanging fruit. Get rid of 100% juice served as a fruit and strawberry milk on sale. I can see from the dietitians' perspective, when she makes a monthly menu, she is striving for balance across the week and month. But my child might only buy the one meal that week that is the un-healthiest, and therefore, I'd prefer that never be an option.

I frankly felt sorry for the school lunch staff. There were so many demands at just our one little meeting - too much starch, too much sugar, need local foods, more fresh stuff, too much food waste, need pork products labeled for Muslim students, need hot breakfast (which they started offering but oh no, it had pork sausage so back to the previous concern), down with corporate food, USDA guidelines are wrong, school lunch is under-funded, schools need to teach good nutrition, parents need to teach good nutrition - and on and on. Literally, those were all issues brought up and there are dozens more that could have been.

[egoldber]

Thanks for typing all that out! Our district is a lot bigger than yours and there is a wider variety of schools (over 130 elementary schools, some have almost zero kids on free/reduced lunch and some have almost all). But personally I think this is the big one:


1. Our school lunch department has to pay for itself through federal government money and food sales. They get no money from the local school budget. I was impressed with the pressure this puts on them, to dance to many masters and foot their own bill. Others in the audience felt this created a "make money/break even" mentality where they offer lesser quality food (i.e. chocolate or strawberry milk) because it sells.

Our lunch program also has to be self sufficient. Given the federal subsidy for school lunch is only about $2, that does not give them a lot of wiggle room. Our district charges about $2.40 for lunch and that includes the milk. I do think that they have a really hard job. But the fact that they have to be self sufficient with no money from the school budget going to lunch makes it much harder. My younger DD has a hot lunch option at her preschool where they make it on site and the food is actually healthy, but they charge $5 per meal. A lot of people can't afford $25 a week for lunches.


8. How much can school lunch accomplish? What is its role and does that differ for a child getting more of their meals there vs. the occasional eater?

I think about this too. I think that school lunch and the state it's in is symptomatic of how messed up food is in this country. How many people, and I mean adults not college kids, don't really know how to cook? By "cooking" I mean being able to make a lot of basic foods (soups, vegetables, meat and other basic dishes) from scratch without consulting a recipe? It used to be that everyone knew how to cook, because if you didn't cook, you didn't eat. Along the way, we have lost a lot of these basic skills. We've gotten used to substituting prepared, semi-prepared and processed food for the basic foods we used to eat.

I'm not diatribing, because I struggle with this myself every single day. I get home from work exhausted with needy kids amnd the prospect of preparing dinner and then prepping lunches for the next day is really daunting. And I have more financial resources than most and help from a supportive partner, which is more than many women have.

[maestramommy]

Okay, the pic of the teacher and girl in the garden, had me fooled for a second:p

You know, I'm not sure my HS hot lunches were any more nutritious. But they sure looked tastier! These lunches look kinda yucky, to be honest.

[maestramommy]

I think about this too. I think that school lunch and the state it's in is symptomatic of how messed up food is in this country. How many people, and I mean adults not college kids, don't really know how to cook? By "cooking" I mean being able to make a lot of basic foods (soups, vegetables, meat and other basic dishes) from scratch without consulting a recipe? It used to be that everyone knew how to cook, because if you didn't cook, you didn't eat. Along the way, we have lost a lot of these basic skills. We've gotten used to substituting prepared, semi-prepared and processed food for the basic foods we used to eat.


Tell you something funny. When I was in college, my dorm had a tiny kitchen with a stove, so if anyone wanted to actually cook they could. A friend's son is looking a colleges, and when he visited the dorms he asked where the kitchen was, because he loves to cook. The guide looked at him like he was nuts. There are NO kitchens in these dorms. And these are top rated schools with super nice looking dorms. But they assume (perhaps rightly) that most college students will not be cooking.

Even my lil bro, who's been living the bachelor life for years and has the most insane schedule, knows how to cook well enough to feed himself. And he's the baby of the family, who never had to cook growing up. Another thing I think is funny is the popularity of toddler or child cooking classes. I'm thinking why would I want to spend money and drag my kid to something like this when I could easily teach her stuff at home through osmosis? Seriously, they'd probably get a better feel for cooking just learning from me and Dh. Even if they do start with learning how to throw something in the microwave:p

[egoldber]

Funny you say that. When I was in my first year of grad school (there were no cooking facilities in dorms at my undergrad) I deliberately selected grad housing that had a kitchen and cooked meals. People thought I was nuts that I didn't eat out or eat in the student cafeteria everyday.

(But after that first year DH and I moved into an apartment and so cooking was more "normal" then.)