School lunches

I wrote recently about how I was pretty appalled seeing what the kids were eating out of their brown bags at a visit to the zoo. This blog shows what they might be eating on a school day and is a fascinating read. Scroll down to the peanut butter "sandwich" lunch. Unbelievable.

Somehow, I remember school lunches as being good. Perhaps it was because I usually wasn’t allowed to buy them and because the lunches my mom packed were both healthy and not sufficiently filling. The school lunch was like a smorgasboard, a big treat to me. I remember greasy tacos with crunchy corn shells, apple cobbler – yes, perhaps it was the unhealthiness that appealed to me.

I remember in high school, where we were given the option of an a la carte snack line, myself and many other teens fed themselves the most nutritious lunch of a salted soft pretzel and soft serve ice cream/yogurt (not sure what it was). Thank goodness I was really active in high school, because between that and my incessant candy bar sales (which I snacked on constantly), I really could have packed on the pounds.

I don’t know what lunches are like at our local schools. We’re still several years off from experiencing them. Part of me thinks there is enough of a health and eco-conscious community that they might not be so bad. I’ve definitely seen signs of activism among parents of local schoolchildren. However, at church, where the congregation is also very eco-conscious and supportive of people’s nutritional choices, River regularly gets goldfish and juice boxes as a snack. I don’t really mind since it’s only once a week. But boy do I hope his school lunches don’t look like the ones on this blog. I’m already dreading packing a preschool lunch one day a week. I really don’t want to have to do it daily.