Twenty years ago, the idea of buying school lunch was not an everyday occurrence as it is for many today. More often then not, young children went to school with their lunch boxes and eventually when they passed the fourth grade, their brown bags. Inside they often could find a sandwich of some sort, perhaps a piece of fruit, a juice box and maybe a cookie or a small snack sized pack of chips. Perhaps the leftovers from dinner the evening before made their way to the next day’s lunch. Either way, buying school lunch was a real treat, especially when Fridays only were pizza day and everyone looked forward to the weekly treat that kicked off the weekends. In today’s school lunch programs, that has changed. Child Nutrition Day, which was on October 16, just passed and perhaps a glimpse into what kids are offered at schools should seen.
What appears on the lunch trays of school children can not be overlooked. “Chicken” patties that are 80% corn, 12% chicken and 8% filler have been served at an all girls, Jersey City, NJ Catholic school. These percentages were arrived at when a groups of students along with their advanced biology teacher decided to test several of the foods that were being traipsed across their lunch trays, to find out what’s really in the gastronomic offerings they are consuming.
At a local Poughkeepsie, NY grammar school, children are given an “either-or” option of what they would like for lunch that day. A typical lunch of last week went something like this: Kindergarteners eagerly waited their turn in the lunch line after having had a snack of pretzel sticks and hummus in the morning, and a half hour recess time right before their second meal of the day. Snack time has come a long way to say the least; 20 years ago, many five year olds had no idea what hummus was. (Snacks are provided by the parents, not government subsidized lunch programs.) As the kindergarteners decided whether they wanted a “chicken patty or French toast sticks,” they then had to also decide if they wanted “hash browns or sausage” as well. After making their selection, they chose a drink, apple juice, milk or chocolate milk, and then opted for a fruit. The last of the lunch line selection does not sound so bad; fruit. But when the offering is prepackaged pear slices in syrup, the healthy side of fruit quickly diminishes. So the question needs to be asked, “How nutritious is that lunch?”
Breaking down the lunch options into their basic nutritional tallies of calories, fat, sodium, sugar and fiber, a student who opted for French toast sticks with the quarter cup of syrup that was drizzled over it, along with a hash brown, sausage patty, apple juice and milk, would consume 1117 calories, 72.2 grams of sugar, 50 grams of fat, 1203 milligrams of sodium and only five grams of dietary fiber. This could hardly be called a healthy meal, especially when there are enough calories to total half the recommended value of daily intake as well as 40% of them coming from fat alone. The other option of the chicken patty was a little better.
Students who chose the chicken patty, hash brown, apple juice, pears and milk, would consume 631 calories, 58.2 g of sugar, 22.5 g of fat, 888 mg of sodium, and 4.5 g of dietary fiber. While the numbers are lower than the previous choice of lunch, there is still an astronomical amount of unnatural sugar in this menu as well as the fact that 32% of the calories from this meal are from fat. Another point to note is what is in the apple juice. Fruitibud in Danbury, CT, is one of the suppliers of local grammar schools. Applause should be given to the push to support local industry, though one might question how local this industry really is, especially when the front label reads, “May contain products of USA, China, Chile, Argentina, Canada and Hungary.” A simple blend of water, apple juice concentrate and ascorbic acid, somehow has the potential of more air mileage than the US Air Force. How is it that something so simple as the juice of an apple has fallen victim to the web of globalization, especially when the Hudson Valley area is bountiful with apples this time of year?
So the question remains, how is this problem fixed? How can school lunches be improved so that they are more nutritionally sound? Perhaps first and foremost parents and children, when they are old enough, could pack their own lunches therefore controlling what goes into those lunch boxes and brown bags. For those who continue to buy lunch, a voice on the PTA might be in order. Enough parents pushing for change willbe heard. Better organization with local growers would help keep the food that is grown in the valley, in the valley feeding local children. No student on free lunch should be told that all they can have is a cheese sandwich made from white bread and processed cheese product, when there are mounds of fresh fruits and vegetables literally in some of their back yards.
In honor of Child Nutrition Day perhaps it’s a good time for all to reexamine their lunches. Rooted in the basic principals of the food pyramid, better lunches mean better nutrition and better nutrition means healthier people.
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