new school lunch rules

[DrPizza]

Making food tasty and healthy is not difficult, it's when you try to make it cheap as well that it becomes challenging.

This is true not only in a school catering setting, and also on an individual level. It's not difficult to make your own food that's tasty and healthy, but it's costly to do so. Not because ingredients are expensive, but because of the time commitment. The last thing I want at the end of a long day at work is to prepare a meal and then also have to clean up afterwards. If you eat out, tasty and healthy usually means it's more expensive.

I think that making it cheap has also contributed to people not liking healthier foods. Cheap bland food is made to taste better by adding copious amounts of salt. The net effect of all the salt is that food without salt no longer tastes as good as it did (before you got used to the excess sodium.) Want to sell otherwise bland food? Add HFCS and sugar.

 

[Xellos2099]

And don't fall into traps like "SUBWAY" being healthy. It is a healthier option, but not the definition of healthy. (FYI their 9-grain wheat bread, is only 1/9 wheat. the other 8 grains are white bread grains.)

(All taken from the book I like to read EAT THIS NOT ---> THAT)

Sure the meats and the veggies... but if you get a foot long and the sauces you put on at the end. With cheese? Easily 1000+ calorie sandwich.

Well, it is more of a feel good move.... a 100% wheat bread is pretty darn gross.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Well, it is more of a feel good move.... a 100% wheat bread is pretty darn gross.

Says you.

I think it's pretty tasty myself.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Well, it is more of a feel good move.... a 100% wheat bread is pretty darn gross.

I hated wheat as a kid, and now in general I hate plain white bread. It's fake, tasteless shit.

 

[OutHouse]

And don't fall into traps like "SUBWAY" being healthy. It is a healthier option, but not the definition of healthy. (FYI their 9-grain wheat bread, is only 1/9 wheat. the other 8 grains are white bread grains.)

(All taken from the book I like to read EAT THIS NOT ---> THAT)

Sure the meats and the veggies... but if you get a foot long and the sauces you put on at the end. With cheese? Easily 1000+ calorie sandwich.

lol. dude wtf are white bread grains. all grains used to make bread are WHEAT!!!

wheat bread is made from flour you get the color by adding sugar like molasses. "wheat" bread is worse for you than plain old white bread because of the added sugar.

what you need to look for is whole grain bread not whole wheat. big difference when it comes to nutrition and whole grain bread comes in both light and dark colors.

Listed Ingredients

Excluding the chemicals included to preserve the freshness of the product, each slice of Wonder Made With Whole Grain Wheat bread contains the following ingredients: whole wheat flour, wheat gluten, water, salt, high fructose corn syrup, soybean oil, molasses and yeast.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/319796-wonder-bread-whole-grain-wheat-ingredients/#ixzz27nRDTuam

 

[OverVolt]

Why is society so interested in what kids eat for lunch at school anyway?

No types of agendas should be pushed through food menus.

It should just be a regular ole school lunch. If they wanted to add like a side of fruits for 25-50cents then thats cool.

Its funny they made some type of nationwide mandate to control the school lunches. They probably cut the calories substantially because "calories are bad" but of course, if you don't have much money you need as much calories for the money as possible. This is the kind of problem solving society does, its usually pretty stupid. "Calories are bad" "school food is unhealthy" yadda yadda. The same people who were serving pink slime now suddenly had a change of heart and want to serve apples, sure, whatever.

 

[Murloc]

so retarded, you can't survive with just fruits and veggies unless you're a monkey or something.
No cereals means going hungry after 2 hours.

This dietary extremism shows retardness and nothing else.
They should provide a menu fit for everyone, including hyperactive thin kids. Kill all the sweet and/or fried stuff, okay, but provide the necessary cereals in decent quantity.
Something that doesn't make kids get fat, but doesn't make them lose weight either, that's the parents' task.
Same for food they bring in themselves: it's the parents' responsibility, let them deal with it.

Then do something to change the culture:
do elementary school classes about food too.
Like: today we talk about snacks.
Everybody put their snacks on the table.
And then you spend like 1 hour laughing at fat kids who brought chocolate bars.
This will make it change.

EDIT: I thought school lunches were fixed-price?
if they change them basing on what's served, that's completely wrong.
Set a political price that everyone can afford. This way kids who can get home at lunch will still eat at home instead of staying because not staying means wasting the option of free food.

 

[SaDiZTiKStyLeZ]

I like the idea of forcing a healthy meal upon our future generations.
Better they learn healthy eating habits sooner rather than later.
Sure, they may not understand now, but their bodies will thank them later.
I've always been surrounded by people with poor eating habits & I feel to be the only one who gives any kinds of shits about eating healthy.

There's a lot of unhealthy foods I like to eat. Sure. But I generally feel like crap one way or another afterword.
Not only do I have to watch out on eating any dry foods, baked goods - cookies/cake ice cream, dairy products. If I eat any kinds of those junk foods, I get terribly constipated. I like having normal healthy bowel movements more than I like junk foods.
I also have high blood pressure & am supposed to watch my sodium intake. High sodium foods are noticeable nearly immediately.
A lot of our foods also comes with TONS of sodium. But we are ignorant & unaware to this at younger age, especially when we aren't learning healthy eating habits from our parents.
Seen some meals I used to eat & they can have 2 or 3 times as much sodium than I'm supposed to consume in a 24/hr period!

So am glad to hear they are enforcing this. The only thing they need to aim for is actually getting the children to figure out what they do like to eat. "EW VEGGIES! GROSS!"

Oh, and I have a friend who recently ran into the issue where she was paying the school to provide her child lunches, but her child has several allergens. The nurse told her she should send lunches with her kid to school. SHE WAS ALREADY PAYING THE SCHOOL TO FEED HER CHILD! Shit is bogus these days.

 

[Pulsar]

lol. dude wtf are white bread grains. all grains used to make bread are WHEAT!!!

wheat bread is made from flour you get the color by adding sugar like molasses. "wheat" bread is worse for you than plain old white bread because of the added sugar.

what you need to look for is whole grain bread not whole wheat. big difference when it comes to nutrition and whole grain bread comes in both light and dark colors.

Please educate yourself before embarrassing yourself.

http://www.vegetariantimes.com/article/white-bread-vs-wheat-bread/

 

[OutHouse]

"EW VEGGIES! GROSS!"

carrot and peas that are mushy because they have been sitting in hot water for too long are absolutely gross.

 

[HeXen]

Why is society so interested in what kids eat for lunch at school anyway?

likely because too many kids are fat and parents can't always afford to buy them healthier meals to eat at home.

I'd love to eat healthy myself, but is way too expensive to do so. You get so little for the price and worse yet it seems so many foods and snacks advertise as "healthier" in some form or fashion but really they are not so much to be worth it.

Like why can't all bread makers just produce whole grain breads instead of white and wheat? Why can't salt be used less and instead use some damn salt free seasonings

 

[OutHouse]

Please educate yourself before embarrassing yourself.

http://www.vegetariantimes.com/article/white-bread-vs-wheat-bread/

lol really? the author is a moron and so are you. i guess you didn't see HFCS and Molasses listed in the link i posted for "wheat" bread did you.

here let me make it easy for you.

plain ole white bread
http://www.mrsbairds.com/products/nutrition_detail.php?id=6

whole wheat
http://www.mrsbairds.com/products/nutrition_detail.php?id=42

humm just by that the plain ole white has less sugar, less carbs, less salt, less fat. yes i noticed that the nutritional fats for white is for one slice compared to the 2 slices listed for the wheat. even when you do the math to add another slice of white bread to compare, white bread is better for you.

like i said in my post where you said i was stupid. if you want healthy bread look for WHOLE GRAIN and make sure the Dark wheat bread you are buying isnt loaded with added sugar like HFCS and molasses.

 

[HeXen]

some good reads. basically, stay away from enriched.

http://blogs.cbn.com/healthyliving/archive/2010/06/21/whole-wheat-vs.-white.aspx

http://fatfightertv.com/2008/03/whole-wheat-versus-whole-grain-which-is-better/

Whole wheat means that the bread is made from the entire wheat kernel.

Whole grain means that the bread can be made of any whole-grain kernel. That grain may be wheat or it could be another grain like spelt or barley. The bread might even be made using a mixture of different whole grains.
Lots of breads are labeled "wheat" or "multigrain," but these words alone (without the word "whole" attached) can be misleading. If you don't see the word "whole" on the package, it means the bread might not be made from the entire kernel.

 

[Newbian]

yeah but when you throw in student athletes/active kids that number goes out the window. a child athlete needs 4-6k calaries a day.

My daughter is a great example. she gets about 5k a day and still has trouble gaining weight. as it is she eats her lunch and has snacks in her locker (yes the school knows and allows it).

I think the problem is how do you make restrictions for some and none for others.

Especially when your kids do so much extra after school as that's not their responsibility and they shouldn't have to pay more because of it.

If they have such restrictions on school lunches fine but not allowing kids to bring their own is a mistake to help them if they do need more to eat and glad none of that crap was around when I was a kid but being in a small school helped as the meals actually were not that bad and you could get seconds or more on anything usually.