Poor nutrition and pretty awful tastes has been a central theme of school lunches since the beginning of the public school cafeteria but seemingly out of nowhere has arisen a new push to get more funding for schools so that healthier meals can be served to our nation’s children. This topic has been covered at great length by the great local food blog Simple Good and Tasty, Jamie Oliver during his “Food Revolution” show (sad clip at the top), and more importantly First Lady Michelle Obama.
Well, no one can deny it–school cafeterias are crap and the only real way to get anything good into your kids’ stomachs is by having them brown bag their lunch. Well with so many kids being picky eaters or just changing their likes minute to minute, Parents magazine, which began arriving at our house just prior to the arrival of The Rooster, has come to the rescue by providing eleven “super-healthy lunch-box recipes that are so tasty you’ll probably want to pack a second lunch for yourself!” These recipes were created by eleven different celebrity chefs including Sam Kass, the assistant White House Chef and the First Lady’s “food initiative coordinator”.
While you should never judge a book by its cover I have to say that these recipes are an absolute and utter joke and a half. No “chef” should ever even think about serving the majority this crap to adults, let alone children. Here’s the list:
Whole-Grain Hummus Sandwich With Veggies
Trail-Mix Popcorn
Tropical Turkey Spring Rolls
Aloha Chicken With Pineapple Dip
Crunchy Baked Mozzarella Sticks
Grilled Chicken Salad With Herb-Sherry Vinaigrette
Ham and Cucumber Sarnie
Vanilla Almond Butter and Banana Sandwich
Krispy Kale Chips
Black-Bean Salsa and Tortillas
Now, aside from the Vanilla Almond Butter and Banana Sandwiches, I am unimpressed with the list. Kale chips? Mozzarella sticks? In a brown-bag lunch? Seriously? Come on people. While the Whole-Grain Hummus Sandwich sounds fine to me I know that when I was 8 years old (and a lover of chickpeas at the time) I would not want to be toting around a salad on a sandwich. The mozzarella sticks sound great right out of the oven but in my kid’s lunch more than 18 hours later? Hardly. A grilled chicken salad for a kid at lunch? Really, seriously, from one of the chefs at the White House? You couldn’t do any better and you’re the one helping the First Lady revamp the school lunch system? Ugh.
So what do you think about the list? Would you make any of those to serve to your kids? If you did which ones would they be most likely to actually eat? Are these really lunches that required a chef to create? What do your kids love in their lunches? How about the video clip above… Do your kids know what vegetables look like and where their food comes from? Whatever you have to say about the brown bag lunch recipes which appeared recently in Parents go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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August 13th, 2010 at 8:15 am
School cafeteria’s haven’t always been a joke. When my mom was a young’un, their cafeteria had cooks on site who actually cooked and created recipes from scratch, not mass-processed food.
That said, I wouldn’t eat most of the things on that list, much less bring them to school for a child.
August 13th, 2010 at 8:36 am
I ended up disliking shrimp after one school lunch in Robinsdale, MN (3rd grade?). They had all you can eat shrimp for lunch. I loved them, so I ate more, and then more, and then I got sick and can’t stand the taste of them since then.
That said, I’m not sure what is wrong with the school meals. My understanding is they are setup to meet the federal requirements for nutrition. So what’s the problem?
August 13th, 2010 at 8:40 am
From: http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/aboutlunch/NSLPFactSheet.pdf
Based on what I’ve seen and read about the issue over the last 6 months or so, they make a lot of pizzas with whole grains in the crust, offer a salad bar and other options which the kids don’t eat.
Give kids a choice and they’re going to pick what isn’t good for them.
August 13th, 2010 at 9:15 am
Jamie Oliver’s show on ABC was downright scary, both in terms of the lunch ladies and the crap they server with no remorse, and the kids not knowing anything about food like vegetables, and the fact that they repeatedly chose the crap food over the scratch-made, nutritious meals.
August 13th, 2010 at 9:28 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by garciasn, LazyLightning.org. LazyLightning.org said: Poor Parents Magazine Brown Bag Lunch Ideas: http://tinyurl.com/29u3txh [...]
August 13th, 2010 at 10:21 am
Sorry, but this whole discussion is a colossal waste of time.
First of all, Bill, the choice of brown bags over school cafeteria is a privilege of the well-to-do. Quite a few families can’t afford brown bagging and rely on free and reduced breakfasts and lunches to feed their kids AT ALL. For those that go to churches or are affiliated with food shelves, you’ve heard the desperate appeal for more food when summer starts and these kids’ access to free school lunches disappears.
Beyond that, the people reading Parenting magazine are, by nature, already probably in the top 5% of skill and ability to teach their kids about food, health, and prepare decent balanced meals at home. Their kids could eat a heap of styrofoam covered in dog crap and their breakfasts and dinners at home would adequately balance it out.
Further, these chefs, the Obamas, and everyone else are completely missing the elephant in the room. How many parents of kids on free-and-reduced-lunch are buying kale, cucumbers, whole mozzarella cheese (vs. shredded), hummus/chickpeas, pineapples, and the components of vanilla almond butter?
Through volunteering, I’ve been in enough homes that had no working stoves, piss poor refridgeration, and no transportation/means to GET TO a grocery store. The Crave Case of White Castles or dining from the 2 for $10 pizzas at Holiday or Kwik Trip become your only option.
If anyone really cared about the health and nutrition of low/no income families, they would work to instill and increase access to BASIC food knowledge (much less how to turn kale into chips). They would focus on propping up partnerships between farms and food shelves so these families have more than just processed/canned/packaged crap and mac and cheese to take when they use the resource. And they would continue to expand programs where low/no income families could supplement their meager purchases with fresh foods they’ve grown themselves. If nothing else, they would subsidize Coborn’s Delivers for people on food stamps or whatever.
Having marketing and media communications on my resume, I can see the conversations that led to this fluff piece — “let’s get a bunch of celeb chefs to doctor up brown bags…that’ll really sell magazines!” It would be much more difficult to write an article that inspired the Yuppies that read Parenting to slip out of their BMW SUVs and get their hands dirty helping people in need build their skills.
I know it’s not as simple, but I get a little flustered when all of the attention on childrens’ nutrition is turned towards a glossy magazine for already well-to-do parents and “celebrity chefs” spending their energy creating boutique meals for priviliged kids.
Oh and, yeah, that list of stuff sounds pretty fricking lame. I agree with that Bill.
“Hey Rooster, what’s that?”
“It’s a ham and cucumber ‘sarnie’.”
Commence ass kicking.
(WTF is a ‘sarnie’??? It’s a fucking sandwich. Call it a sandwich.)
August 13th, 2010 at 11:07 am
As Greg noted, the Jamie Oliver thing was very scary, and I thought pretty enlightening. I know they were trying to produce a TV show, and had to show things that would cause conflict and people would watch, but the guy really seemed to have his heart in the right place, and the things they showed were incredible sad, while also perfectly logical.
Its worth watching if you want some more insight into the issues with school lunches. Or, a shortcut would be to do what Mr Oliver did and stand outside the lunch room and what which portions were being thrown away.
August 13th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
whole heartedly disagree. this “crap” is far better than the “crap” the school system feeds our kids now. we paper bag it. that way, i know what my kids are eating.
August 13th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
What do you generally send your kids off to school with?
August 13th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Bill, you asking me?
If so…our kids eat the cafeteria food. I don’t find it all that bad.
August 13th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
“Beyond that, the people reading Parenting magazine are, by nature, already probably in the top 5% of skill and ability to teach their kids about food, health, and prepare decent balanced meals at home.”
I think the range of incomes reading Parenting magazine is broader than you think. Both Parenting and Parents magazine send out free year long subscriptions to new parents and various toys that we have received had prepaid postcards where all you had to do was send in the card to get the magazine. They make their money on advertising not subscriptions and those cards are how they get to number you as a requester to drive up their circulation numbers and earn a cheaper postal rate.
My problem with the article is that it seemed like the chefs were completely out of touch regarding what would appeal to a child. Seriously a hummus sandwich and kale chips?? Chicken salad with herb-sherry vinaigrette? What planet are they on?
August 13th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
I love kale chips. I know a lot of kids who like kale chips. I would have loved them as a kid too. Mmmmm, kale chips.
August 13th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
I read Parenting and similar magazines for awhile, then I found them to be a crock and a waste of time. We parented by instinct, by our own upbringings and by the seat of our pants and the kids turned out just fine. My kids ate either cafeteria food or brown bagged it. Each kid their own likes and dislikes. None are obese, eat crap now or died from eating peanut butter sandwiches.
August 13th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Barf, kale chips.
August 13th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Actually, I don’t think the food choices sound so bad. I especially like the chicken and pineapple. But I agree with MSPD on this issue. I’m a huge fan of Lidia Bastianich, who teaches Italian cooking on PBS. We were watching an old taped show last night, and she spoke about how in Rome, there is a government program that provides a plot of land for gardening to Roman families, so that everyone learns about growing good food. Rather than these large plots of grass around our government buildings here in Dakota County, I would prefer seeing something like this, on a sliding fee scale. Might even help balance that budget a bit – less government employees riding around on lawn mowers.
August 13th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
I probably would have eaten these as a kid or tried them at least once, but I wasn’t a picky eater and would eat just about anything. I agree that they don’t all seem conducive to packing in a lunch though.
August 13th, 2010 at 11:44 pm
When we were kids we got a: ham sandwich, chips, grapes and a Ding Dong.
August 14th, 2010 at 7:47 am
Holy s..t boy if we fed you a sandwich with cukes on it you would have killed us. WTF are you pushing now that you have a kid your like 180 out. The stuff you loved were meatloaf sandwichs and huge 4 in X 4in blueberry muffins and twizzlers LOL Get real…..dad
August 14th, 2010 at 11:40 am
I love Dad!
August 14th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
I don’t think many people give kids enough credit. Kids can like as much or more than adults – they have no preconceived notions about foods. It’s sad when adults assume that kids won’t like something, or worse, tell the kids that they won’t like something.
If you give kids more than pop tarts and chicken nuggets while they are young, they will develop more adventuresome tastbuds.
I agree that some of the items on the list seem a little precious, but they are still basically pretty good ideas that many people, including children, can enjoy. What are those poor chefs supposed to offer when approached by silly magazines to come up with ideas?
Our kid took his lunch about 90% of the time over his 13 years in school. The school lunches really were terrible. He usually had some variation of Great Harvest whole wheat bread with peanut butter, homemade cookies, and an apple. Not fancy, but decent quality.
He packed his own lunches this summer while at an internship downtown; they varied from leftovers to grain and veggie salads to trailmix, fruit, salads, sandwiches, etc.
He eats everything because he was exposed to a variety of things from early on and was never told that he wouldn’t like something. Not that we didn’t have setbacks; I remember taking him to a pretty nice restaurant when he was about two and all he wanted to eat was pickles dipped in BBQ sauce. He was wearing a white shirt and a tie and they were covered in sauce by the time he was done. Memories.
August 15th, 2010 at 7:56 am
[...] about McNuggets and blueberries. An odd combination to be certain but not as odd as the McNugget. As we discussed on Friday and as mentioned in the article, chicken nuggets have become a “runaway hit,” and now [...]
October 7th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
We love kale chips — our family has kids 3 to 10. But they don’t pack well — my experience is that they get kind of wilty once they are sealed up in a baggie or container.
Found your blog b/c I was looking up ingredients suggested for a ham & cuke sarnie — ha ha! Saw the Parenting magazine in a lobby & wanted to try it for me & my cuke-loving 3-yr-old. So I wouldn’t knock all of the suggestions. Of course, sandwiches that are packed for the next day or even 4 hrs later which have cukes or tomatoes or pickles on them are potentially SOGGY at lunch time!
I’m with the #20 commenter, if kids are exposed to a variety of healthy foods from early on, they are more likely to eat the wide-range of foods like this article pushes. My own kids are often happy to eat the less-than-nutritious school lunch, b/c it appeals to their lower-appetites: pizza, cheese-stuffed breadsticks, and sometimes “upside down day” which means breakfast for lunch (translate to french toast sticks and fake syrup). So… ha! Sometimes they gobble up those hot meals & other days they pack something healthier from home, adventurous like orzo-edamame salad or boring like a ham & cheese sandwich. :)