Ugh, school lunch timing

[belovedgandp]

OK, we are Catholic attending public schools. No I do not expect the district food service to cater to us during lent, but I think the food planner was intentionally working against us with the meat meal choices.

There are two "hot" meal choices each day. We are only in school 15 days in March. Four of these would be no-meat days. Only one of the four days has one of the two meals choices being a non-meat one. Now on the 11 other days in the month there are two days with BOTH entrees being non-meat and three others with one of the two choices.

I'd conservatively put our school population at 25% Catholic. The lunches are typically decent nutrition wise and my 10YO gets my money worth's out of the fruit/veggie bar for volume and variety each day. He gets hot lunch 99% of the time, but now we're doing home lunches more in the next three weeks than the school year to date.

Totally minor in the grand scheme of things, but still annoying.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Our school has a meat and vegetarian option daily. I get spoiled!

[AshleyAnn]

Argh I'd complain maybe they can add an extra non meat option during those days. If the person in charge of selection isn't Catholic they probably don't realize the error

[pastrygirl]

FWIW, the no-meat requirement is for kids age 14+...

[ahisma]

Ugh. We're not Catholic, but we're vegetarian. We have the same thing - some days have both options as no-meat, some have both with meat. Rarely is there one meat, one no-meat.

To confound things our program often changes at the last minute. DS refuses to ever get hot lunch, it's too wonky.

[123LuckyMom]

It's true that children under 14 aren't expected to follow no meat obligations, but if your children do, that's fine. I would mention it to the principal or someone. It's probably just ignorance of the tradition since they do have vegetarian options on other days. Our district ALWAYS has a vegetarian option. Lots of families in our neck of the woods are vegetarian and vegan. Our school also suspends nutritional rules for Muslims who fast in Ramadan and teens who fast on Fridays in Lent (which I do in our house, though my husband doesn't, and he's the Roman Catholic! I'm an Episcopalian.) I'm sure if you call the school they'll find a way to accommodate your kids, though it may only be through your packing them a lunch.

[zukeypur]

Our old school system was really bad about doing the same thing. Luckily our new system seems to be much better. None of that matters, however, because I completely forgot about it and defrosted chicken in Monday night to cook yesterday. We got busy and I didn't cook, so we are having chicken tonight.

[belovedgandp]

There is technically a third option every day of yogurt - so no, I'm not going to raise a fuss beyond some moaning here and making several sack lunches that I normally would not. While I like the hot food choices, I refuse to pay for yogurt when I can send that in from home.

I do wonder if anyone else has hollered. I know of at least two Catholic elementary schools that get their food from our district food service. The Catholic schools don't have their own prep kitchens (neither do our elementary schools) the food is prepared centrally each day and distributed to all the elementary schools in the district plus several of these smaller private schools in the area.

[TwinFoxes]

Every Friday at our school it's the same hot menu: Cheese Pizza, Pepperoni Pizza, Baked Fish Filet on a Bun. I asked my DDs if they've ever seen any kids pick the fish, they said no.

We always have a vegetarian option, because every day peanut butter and jelly Biteables, and hummus something or another are available. I think enough kids are vegetarian that it makes sense.

[gatorsmom]

If it makes you feel any better, I completely forgot the "no meat" rule yesterday and brought my kids McDonalds hamburgers to our strict Catholic school yesterday. I carried them into the lunch room wearing the ashes on my forehead and could not figure out why the other parents were looking at me funny. Ftr, our school observes no-meat Fridays year round so this was probably not the smartest move I've ever made. We also had sausages for dinner yesterday. I didn't realize what I'd done until 10pm last night.

[SAHMIL]

I would write a nice email to the Principal or bring it up at a PTO meeting. Whether it's for religious reasons or not, in this day and age of diversity, it would be good to have a meat and a meatless option for students.

[Corie]

If the person in charge of selection isn't Catholic they probably don't realize the error

I'm not Catholic. If I was in charge of the meal selection, I could have easily have made the same mistake.


In our school district, there is a specific department for Food Services. I have called them before to ask about my son's dairy allergy
and nut allergy. I would ask the school secretary who to speak to regarding the meal selection. The school secretary should know
who you need to contact.