Public schools get poor marks for lunch

There’s a revolution of chow. It started in some big city restaurants and spread to entire cities. Now the whole fast food industry is scrambling to remove hydrogenated oil from fries and baked goods. Supermarkets carry alternatives that take the junk out of junk food. Oreos are now not only trans fat free, but vegan.

Americans are buying fresher. People are spending more time in the produce department and less time fogging up the freezer case windows. Have you noticed the jump in fruit and vegetable prices? That’ll subside. But with growing interest in ethnic foods and raw vegetables fresh may also mean fast, thus eliminating “I don’t have time to cook” from the American vernacular.

With all this change afoot, why are public schools calling in sick when it comes to shaping up their menus? French fries are not a vegetable. While pears in heavy syrup we’re once fruit, the nutritional value is canceled out by added sugar. Soda and candy machines serve lunch to millions of hungry high school pupils. No wonder their stomachs don’t stay full for long on empty calories. If eating habits have changed in the home, why are we still poisoning kids at school? Yeah, you guessed it, money.

Students spend a third of their day at school. That may mean a trip to the vending machines in the morning (kids like a caffeine kick, too), during lunch and after the school bell rings, before boarding the bus or cruising the Mustang home. I won’t even get into schools allowing Starbucks to set up camp in cafeterias.

Yum food brands (home of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC to name a few), Little Caesars and Chick-fil-A (God’s official chicken shack—schools aren’t open on the Sabbath—so it’s ok) offer investment incentives to schools willing to stoop and scoop up greasy money. Shouldn’t parents be outraged? Has the fast food business no dignity? What kind of lessons are the children learning from this?

Some may argue that parents and students make the decision to buy school lunch or bag it, but shouldn’t health conscious kids have a choice, too? Cookies and fries for lunch alienate much of the studentry. As diversity in institutions grows shouldn’t menus reflect that? Perhaps the accountants should crunch some numbers and maybe public schools will serve up some variety and still make a pretty penny from school lunch. Grocery stores and restaurants have adapted, schools should be next.