Last week a big theme on the blogs was school lunch.
Buy or bring? What to bring? What can they buy?
Some students are boycotting the school lunch because the government has issued new guidelines on what can be sold for lunch.
My question is: when did lunch become so damn special that it requires treats and sparkles and rainbows? It's lunch, not a five course meal at a four star.
Today my fourth grader took turkey on whole wheat (dry), apple slices and a Capri Sun Roaring Waters. She also takes a water bottle to leave on her desk. (Can I tell you how much I love that the teacher lets them do this?)
Let's see... ok, the Capri Sun probably isn't the best option. The sandwich is her sandwich of choice. Chunks of turkey, no cheese, no mayo, no mustard, nothing, just dry on some wheat bread. How weird is that? Her second choice sandwich is peanut butter. No jelly just peanut butter. She was ecstatic that she got to bring apple today. Last week she had banana three days in a row. Hey, we didn't want to waste them.
That's it. No bag of chips, no cookies, no candy. I'm not saying she never gets a "treat" in her lunch. I am saying they are few and far between. She needs good, healthy food to get her through an afternoon of learning. She needs food that will help her perform at peak levels, not sugary crap that will have her crashing 40 minutes later.
Think of how crappy the crap foods make you feel. Why would you want to do that to your kid?
Imagine being the teacher in a classroom of twenty-eight kids who just ingested sugary shit at lunch. Would you want to be that teacher? Hell no!
Sometimes we make this stuff way harder than it needs to be.
After I realized that the school let me kid get 2nd helpings (and I'm talking main entree 2nd helpings), I started making her take her lunch (except for pizza day - I get it, I loved that pizza, too.)
ReplyDeleteOther than not wanting my kid to have 2 helpings of cheese sticks, and obviously the hit on my wallet is less, I was offended at the amount of crap my daughter eats without me knowing it. Do you know how many birthday treats she gets in a year? Or that her after-school care program gives them "snacks" (which sometimes are a piece of pizza?!)... it just amazed me.
Okay, off my rant. :)
My oldest just started junior kindergarten last week, and I've already noticed some interesting items in other kids' lunches. Can somebody tell me why a four year old needs Gatorade in the middle of a school day?!
ReplyDeleteI remember Emma telling me that last year in 4th grade, she and her friend were the only two kids who brought fruit, vegetables, etc. for snack -- that the other 20 kids had some variant of cookies, "fruit" roll-ups, candy, chips, pop tarts, that sort of thing. The caf food at the elementary school was pretty gross, as to be expected, so when my kids were there they mostly brought their lunches from home, other than Fridays when the school brought in pizza from a local bakery. At the charter (middle) school they're at now, there is no cafeteria. They can order lunches a week in advance from a local deli that delivers to the school every day (either hot stuff like pasta or roast chicken, or cold stuff like salads and sandwiches) or bring. They opt to buy about half the time. They asked for these "pack it" lunch bags they saw on TV that keep cold food cold so they can bring salads from home, yogurt, cheese sticks, etc. and they love them. Snacks today were a huge red delicious apple for Veronica and a container of baby carrots for Emma. School cafeterias, unfortunately, have to do the best they can with what they have, and that isn't saying much.
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