Why are the schools even in the lunch business? Surely private caterers and local restaurants could do better for less?

Huh why is this even a school issue? Growing up we were poor but my mom ALWAYS made me lunch and restricted any and all outside food-like hot cheetohs. Sorry parents but make your kids lunch!

Oh Amy, stop being silly. I feed my dog a *much* higher quality food than they serve at schools. (Grain free - dogs need that shit less than we do).

Amy: Don't take this the wrong way but I have a question. What was your body type before you went on the carb free diet? Are you naturally skinny or did you become that way by strictly regulating what you eat?

About the only cafeteria food that doesn't suck are the for profit buffet restaurants.

Taking the burgers and hot dogs off the menu with kids is a recipe for disaster. No matter how much you want the food to be healthy and tasty, they are not going to eat the healthy stuff every day.

They'll eat healthy stuff if that's all that's offered, but sadly, too many parents are raising their kids on junk. But I still don't think that justifies the schools serving junk. This "we serve crap because that's all they'll eat" is absurd, expecially since so many are obese.

If they can make a little bit of a difference in these kids' diets, they should. When I went to school, you either brought your lunch or you grabbed a tray and ate exactly what the lunchlady with the hairnet served you. She cooked it too. Now, it all comes boxed. School lunches are big business.

"They'll eat healthy stuff if that's all that's offered, "

Actually they won't eat it they'll throw it away.

"If they can make a little bit of a difference in these kids' diets, they should"

And if the difference is all negative despite the good intentions, what then? I'm not religious, but God save us from the Nanny State before it paves our way to hell.

Am I reading this right? Are they really only serving vegetarian meals?

I think this was Jay Leno:

"I was standing in line at the supermarket reading ingredients. On my people food: BHA, BHT, this and that for freshness. On the can of dog food: 100% pure beef."

And Ford Prefect can tell you - if you're hitchhicking the Galaxy, junk food is your friend.

Nobody ever gets sick - well, immediately - from junk food.

Bet I could get better results at school handing out canned Spam and Wasabi string beans.

exercise doesn't seem to make you thinner

All exercise does is make you hungry. They only way to lose weight when on an exercise regimen is to intake fewer calories than is expended during exercise.

Hmmm, gee, that sounds like most weight loss plans.

The charter school we attend contracted with The Studio Kitchen to provide real food. The first month, there were issues with non-eating. They listened, and hamburgers and nuggets made it back onto the menu while squash chili and the like went away. They are just real-made instead of bought frozen. The kids really like the food now. I've worked the lunchroom, and I would eat it. They also offer loaded baked potatoes as an alternative every day. I am all for increasing the quality of the food. Fake-food, though, like "black bean burgers"? Hell no.

A snickers and a bottle of sunny delight was my lunch a LOT of days in high school. The sweet and sour were a great combo. Sometimes the food service class made and sold huge chocolate chip cookies that I'd have instead of candy. I was thin and healthy. And I'm still slim and healthy-although juice and cookies are extremely rare now thanks to Eades.

An hour a day sweating at the gym is my sanity-weight be damned. I also like being strong and having no issue hiking etc when I want. it doesn't seem to make me hungrier. In fact, it suppresses my appetite for a few hours. Muscle does make you burn more cals even sleeping, though.

"And if the difference is all negative despite the good intentions, what then? I'm not religious, but God save us from the Nanny State before it paves our way to hell."

I'm certainly not proposing a nanny state. I'm just saying schools should not serve junk food. Kids have ample opportunities to buy their own junk food, or pack it for lunch if that's what their parents will let them get away with.

I don't. I started my kids eating healthy foods from the beginning, and my kids eat healthy now and aren't overweight. But I heard the same kind of reasoning from other parents -"little Johnny won't eat anything but mac and cheese or french fries", so that's all they'd TRY to feed the kid. Never a vegetable. And, frankly, that's a cop out and really poor parenting, which is bad enough for kids to have at home, but they should be able to go to school and be fed something besides pizza, hot dogs, chips, and soda.

One of the early things a parent should learn is that a toddler won't starve. If he won't eat the healthy food you provide at mealtime, you let him go hungry for a few hours. Believe me, kids will eat it when they're hungry enough, and eventually, they develop a taste for healthy food over sugary or artifically flavored crap. But you don't cave in and say, "Oh, you didn't eat your green beans, so here's some cheetos!" and schools shouldn't cave in like that either.

I agree with LS. One other thing I think is important is the food wars created when driving home the point to the kids healthy vs. junk. Sometimes we all want a snack and there's nothing wrong with that. But when we make foods forbidden, we sometimes raise the allure. Although, sometimes there's more going on in that house than whether the breakfast is cereal or an egg.

Oh geez. You should see what my boy is eating. It is wrestling season and he needs good fuel to make and keep him lean and strong. I pack his lunch and snacks for him and make his breakfast and dinner, too. Nary a cheetoh in sight.

Here's a quaint notion: parents feeding their children. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. As soon as they're old enough, teach em how to cook. How hard is it to fix cold cereal and make a sandwich?

What many of you seem to be missing is that thanks to the Welfare State, many parents are off the hook for feeding their own children. 30% of the kids at my son's school receive free lunch AND free breakfast. The Nanny State has absolved these parents of any financial or physical obligations to their own children.
So, yeah...try telling these people who won't even go get a job to support their child to pack that child a lunch.

> One of the early things a parent should learn is
> that a toddler won't starve. If he won't eat the
> healthy food you provide at mealtime, you let him
> go hungry for a few hours. Believe me, kids will
> eat it when they're hungry enough

Depends on the toddler. My son, when he was age 3, refused to eat his vegetables at dinner. He wasn't allowed to eat anything else until he ate those vegetables. He went 28 hours without food, until finally his mom and I caved as we were worried about him not eating for so long.

My kid will eat almost anything that doesn't run away fast. I never made an issue out of any food. I would just put small servings on my plate and let him snitch them. Later, I put very small servings of lots of different foods on his plate and ignored him. No praise and no punishment for food. Unless it was an art deco kind of mess... that got him stink eye. He'll try anything, including foods most kids won't eat. Lots of variety and no drama. Yep. Works a treat.

I'm with Iraides and Mayra. Black bean burgers and tostada salads do sound really nasty. And fresh pears? Oh. My. God. How much more disgusting can you get than fresh fruit? Now cheetos and soda...mmmmmm...that's good eatin'!

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."

Or as we said back in AD 1175:
"Hwa is thet mei thet hors wettrien the him self nule drinken" [who can give water to the horse that will not drink of its own accord?]

Hey Los Angelas schools, the gods of the copybook headings are on line two.

Omg, I remember paying 25 cents for a lunch at school, and on taxi day having to pay 5 cents for taco sauce. It is not what the little bastards are eating, it is the fact that the left has eliminated pe from the curriculam

"Like Dog Food"

I think all restaurant/food critics should be replaced by high-school students.

Charred Tomato Risotto with Pesto Drizzle

"Barf!" - Zoe Marten

Green Beans Sautéed with Pancetta

"Green Fucking Beans? Are you kidding?" - Zac Baidos

Apple Daikon Salad

"Gross. I'd rather eat diapers." - Jeremy Vigante

it is the fact that the left has eliminated pe from the curriculam

That's because it never should have been there. The left just put it back in the bladder where it belongs.

What the hell is wrong with Jelly sandwiches, carrots sticks, an apple and some animal crackers?When did cafeteria food become such an issue? Oh yes, when they banned the peanut! And eggs! Strawberries? Whoopsie, can't have those either! Tuna? Heaven Forfend!! Even in Canada, the Nanny State has gone so frackin crazy that it's physically impossible to feed your child healthy food at school! If government officials want to overstep their bounds and make sure our children have healthy diets for us, the least they can do is make two cafeteria's. One for children with allergies, one without. Some critics of this idea might say "well what if it's only one kid?"; if you look at today's generation, it's a sure bet there's gonna be at least a dozen in any given school!

Eh LS, some kids will starve. Preemies, ones with developmental delays, and some that are just goddamn stubborn. But in general, yes. One tip I heard when my first were little was "1 thing they will eat, one thing they might eat, one thing new" per meal.

I also like the "kids are rubber bands, not modeling clay" notion, which research seems to be backing up. You might can stretch a kid, but you aren't changing who they fundamentally are. I have 2 really picky eaters and 2 who will eat what they have. The picky ones don't eat junk food, just a limited menu of foods. I've come to realize this isn't my fault, or even a fault. It's who they are. So I pack their lunch, and it's not Cheetos. Or at least not very often.

Tostada salads are good, at least at decent mexican places.

Tostada salads are good, at least at decent mexican places. -- momof4 at December 18, 2011 7:43 PM

The problem is that it isn't a decent Mexican place. The cafeteria workers are members of the SEIU. That means, in general, they are overpaid and not responsible.

So they can have all these great taste tests with the top rated "chefs" in the school district. The kids may like it then. Translating that to the work-a-day slop that the average cafeteria worker puts out is a different thing.

Would you compare the tostado salad you get at Taco Hell to the one at your favorite Mexican restaurant?

How about comparing a Big Boy hamburger to a Big Mac? Once I had a Big Boy, I've never been able stomach the Big Mac's.

Black bean burgers, urgh ... the worst part is these kids will walk away with the incorrect message that healthy food needs to taste bad. That 'lesson' alone will have half these kids deciding to eat junk for the rest of their lives, and avoiding anything "healthy". Healthy food can actually taste good.

You guys obviously haven't had a decent black bean burger. They're delicious! And tostada salads too.

The funny thing is that if it came from Taco Bell, you'd probably try it and learn to like a tostada salad (did you really have burritos growing up?). So much of the foods we enjoy as adults are aquired tastes gained from just trying new things. It's best if you get to do this when young. Like Momof4 does, just introduce small bites of new types of food. They may not like it at first, but many foods that my kids hated as toddlers, they now love.

Same with me, actually. I never cared for beets as a kid, but I just had a beet and goat cheese salad the other day that was to die for!

So, a lot of it is finding the proper preparation, mixture, or condiments that make the food taste really good. The problem with vegetables - and why so many people grew up hating them - is that they were served boiled to death, with no spices or sauces, so they were bland. Cooks who wouldn't dream of not marinading and spicing up a steak before grilling it will serve boiled, bland vegetables. It doesn't have to be that way.

Taste is so subjective. And black bean burgers don't have to be made with soy, though most of the low quality ones found in supermarkets are.

You know how I've been strugging with these 5-10 pds? Well, I've finally begun to conquer it, and what I did was cut way down on protein. I know that sounds strange and contradicts almost all advice for weight loss, but it's working.

All I can figure is that in these 5+ years of following a high protein/low carb diet, I began storing excess protein as fat.

>>The problem is that it isn't a decent Mexican place. The cafeteria workers are members of the SEIU. That means, in general, they are overpaid and not responsible.

>>So they can have all these great taste tests with the top rated "chefs" in the school district. The kids may like it then. Translating that to the work-a-day slop that the average cafeteria worker puts out is a different thing.JimP

Awww. Give some credit. *Any* food that needs to be institutionalized in prep and serving is not going to be as good as a decent restaurant or home prepared.

You try organizing and serving up 500 kids in two batches 35 minutes apart.

I must've been getting too much protein, which, as you say, is easy to do on LC because it's in almost everything you're eating. But, I'm small framed and not that active or muscular, so I can only surmise that my protein needs are much lower than what I was consuming.

Yet, I can't find any scientific proof that excess protein can be stored as fat. Some "experts" say yes, and others no. I don't know what Taubes or Eades say. Maybe you could find out.

There's a guy who wrote a book called "Eat Fat, Get Thin", and that was the first I read that excess protein could be stored as fat. According to him, the only thing your body WON'T store as fat is fat.

I heard the same kind of reasoning from other parents -"little Johnny won't eat anything but mac and cheese or french fries", so that's all they'd TRY to feed the kid. Never a vegetable. And, frankly, that's a cop out and really poor parenting ...

Oh, THIS. You just quoted almost word-for-word what a co-worker of mine used to say. Except that I think her version included fish sticks. I understand there are some foods that certain kids will think are gross, and I don't think it's a good idea to try and force-feed a kid. When I was little, canned fruit seemed yucky to me, although I would eat fresh fruit. The canned stuff seemed mushy and the texture of it made me gag. And why does a kid NEED to eat canned peaches, anyway? Just skip 'em! They're only packed in sugar.

But then there is a line that is crossed where people let their tiny tyrants dictate everything, and like you said - they never introduce anything new, and get the kid used to being a brat in the process.

I liked the idea where you serve one thing you know the kid will eat, one thing he might eat, and one new thing. It's just silly for kids to grow up never learning to try anything new. What, are they going to just keep eating mac and cheese and fish sticks through their whole lives?

Seems to me like those parents are only trying to make things easier in the short term for themselves and don't care about teaching their kids anything about all the variety that exists. No, you aren't going to like EVERYTHING, but if you at least TRY everything and only like half of it, then you're still going to have a lot more things you like than three! Think how much more you'll enjoy life!

"Yet, I can't find any scientific proof that excess protein can be stored as fat. "

I've heard that both ways too. What I find with those ultra-high-protein diets is that they're energy sappers. When I eat that way, I find myself altering my behavior in a lot of subtle ways, like taking the elevator to go up one floor instead of using the stairs. I'm a pretty big guy, and I need a certain amount of physical activity to maintain my tone, and also to sleep at night. When I eat too much protein, it becomes a downward spiral because I feel sluggish, which makes me not want any physical activity, which makes me feel worse etc.

"Seems to me like those parents are only trying to make things easier in the short term for themselves and don't care about teaching their kids anything about all the variety that exists"

Not to mention significantly raising the risks that their own child will suffer from problems like diabetes, heart disease, obesity and more. I guess some people don't care if they kill their offspring.

Depends on the toddler. My son, when he was age 3, refused to eat his vegetables at dinner. He wasn't allowed to eat anything else until he ate those vegetables. He went 28 hours without food, until finally his mom and I caved as we were worried about him not eating for so long.

Posted by: Snoopy at December 18, 2011 1:14 PM

There's a very simple solution to that.

As Dr. Spock pointed out - quite reasonably, I think - "If you say, 'No dessert (or meat) until you've finished your vegetables,' you further take away his appetite for the vegetable or the main course and increase his desire for the dessert."

In other words, take the value judgment out of food. Unfortunately, he did NOT give anything like the following solution - IIRC. It took Dr. John Rosemond to do that - decades later.

From Rosemond's column - this is from 2005, when he was talking with a TV producer who, as you can guess, decided not to have him on her show. Note that he's smart enough to make the food portions TINY, so there can be no silly argument about the "dangers" of making kids clean their plates.

Excerpt:

......By putting a ridiculously small amount of each item being served on the child's plate -- i.e., one teaspoon of mashed potatoes, one bite of roast beef, and one-half of a dreaded green bean -- and informing the child he can have seconds of anything he wants when he has eaten everything on his plate.

"What if the child eats the mashed potatoes and the roast beef and leaves the green bean?" she (the producer) asked, to which I (Rosemond) replied that the parents should cover the bean and set it aside. If the child complained of being hungry later in the evening, he would be told that when he ate the dreaded bean, he could have pretty much anything he wanted.

"So the child might go to bed hungry?" she asked, testy now, and I said yes, but that would obviously be the child's choice. Furthermore, I'd never heard of a child making that choice for long. In short order, the child discovers that green beans are not nearly as noxious as he imagined them to be, and that is how one rears a child who is not only not a picky eater but who also has good table manners.

"Well," she said, "I just don't agree with that at all!"

"I'm sorry," I said. "Am I talking about you and your child?"

There was a pause. Finally, she said, "Well, if my children don't like something, I respect that and I fix them something else."

But catering is not respect! Respect is helping a child understand that the world does not revolve around him. Respect is helping the child develop good social manners. Respect is discipline. I said none of that, of course, because I work at being well-mannered........

(snip)

Just to clarify: I meant that MAYBE, when the only clear-cut rule is "clean your plate" and not "eat things that only grown-ups like to eat" AND the portions are tiny, kids just might not dig in their heels and go without food for 28 hours. If they do, JR would suggest telling them that the doctor says they have to eat three meals a day, and that kids who don't do that need more sleep and so have to go to bed an hour early. That usually does it.

"You try organizing and serving up 500 kids in two batches 35 minutes apart."

Actually, this is done not only by individual military units all over the world, but routinely by a number of academies, not all of them military...

...but the sad thing, to me, is that you're insisting tacitly that young people simply cannot and will not cope, in this case to learn the ridiculously simple thing, "how to have lunch".

Gee. Someone has forgotten that the most basic human need is the most basic motivator.

Surely you are mistaken, rad. I simply commented that someone putting out hundreds of meals in a short window of time will necessarily have to institutionalize the meals in order to meet the time requirements. Taste may not be as perfect as an individually prepared meal but it is not necessarily because the food worker is an overpaid and undermotivated public servant.

I didn't say anything about young people coping.

"Surely you are mistaken, rad."

Nope. Seen it.

And now that I think of it, Disney World does that with fast food. Haven't you been to Main Street?

But there's not much chance helicopter parents will think their little precious needs to be TOLD what to do to get lunch.