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I am not sure what the school lunches are like where you are, but ours have a lot to be desired! Stella has tried school lunch a couple of times, pizza and mac and cheese and decided she never wanted to buy lunch again. We pack her lunch and put thought into what goes into it. The school has a policy that what is packed in a lunch needs to be nutritious and no junk food or sugary foods – but I think they should really look at what they serve the students. I make a lot of what we eat and one time I made fruit bars and it was sent home because it was considered a sugary snack – I could not believe it!
This year Stella starts school at 7:30 which means that we eat breakfast at 7am. There are 3 grades in her school and school let’s out at 2:10, so they have to have 3 lunch periods, since Stella is in the youngest grade they eat lunch first- at 10am!!!! At 10am people are having brunch not lunch – I think it is really ridiculous. If they are lucky they get to have a working snack around 1pm, but depending on the day that does not always happen. By the time Stella gets home or to after school she is STARVING and we do not eat dinner until about 6pm.
Each night Stella packs her lunch, which includes her water bottle, spoon, yogurt, cheese stick, 2 fruits (usually an apple (from our tree) and either apple sauce or cranberry sauce) , chips (usually pirate booty) and a snack – this week it is dried strawberries.
Stella came home from school yesterday telling me that she needed a $1, of course I asked why. She told me that she had forgotten her lunch in her classroom and the teacher that had cafeteria duty would not let her go back to her classroom to get her lunch, but made her go to the office and borrow a dollar so she could buy lunch. I was none too happy. Stella’s classroom is 2 doors from the office, so that did not make any sense or the fact that she was not allowed to go and get her lunch, but had to buy lunch. They are given 45 minutes to eat lunch and have recess, so by the time she had gone to the office, stood in line to buy lunch she had very little time to eat her lunch before she was shooed outside to recess. I asked her what she had for lunch, since most every meal served is meat based, she told me a PB&J sandwich, banana and milk. The milk is not organic, the banana was fine, but the sandwich is served on white bread and who knows what kind of jelly and peanut butter they use – I am sure they have sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup in their ingredients. I was really upset and emailed her teacher, who was at a meeting so was not at school, but she said she would take it up with the office and that she could not understand why she was not allowed to go and get her own lunch, since she is well aware of my thoughts on food and nutrition.
Another thing that I have noticed this year is that many days Stella brings about half of her lunch home with her. When asked why I am told that there was not enough time for her to eat her lunch before they were told to go outside for recess. Now I believe in recess, but I also believe that children need to have proper nutrition and food in order to be at their best to learn. Stella told me that they are told they have to go outside at a certain time, well I of course contacted the school on that policy and now I am told that the children can choose to finish their lunch before going out to recess and that they are not forced to go outside at a certain time.
We all want to believe that education and our children are important to our government and society, but it seems,yet again, it comes down to money. If our children are the next generation, shouldn’t we be nourishing both their minds and their bodies? Shouldn’t we be teaching them about supporting their local communities, that money and cost is not the only reason to choose to buy or not to buy something. We have our schools failing, test scores decreasing, an abundance of overweight children and childhood diseases that are increasing at an alarming rate – it has to stop and we need to start supporting our children and the next generation every way we can – food being a top priority. Check out this video http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/5429.html and also go to www.slowfoodusa.org.
And to end on a cheerier note – Stella’s artwork was chosen to be featured at the local library and there was a reception this weekend for all the artists.
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You go Stella. We have artists in this family and it looks like you are joining the ranks. You go too Pamela…. more parents should stand up for better nutrition in the schools!!