Mystery Meat for Lunch

What is it about school lunches? I always thought that it was just public schools that had dreadful cafeteria options, but apparently, even private schools that cost an arm and a leg are still feeding our kids pseudo-foods. What happened to the national health-consciousness trend (think Michelle Obama's organic garden)? Where are all the parents who are buying organic foods in increasing numbers, and where do their children go to school? Are all the statistics wrong, or are parents just ignorant of what goes on outside their homes?

As you may know from my previous post about my daughter's nursery school, we provide our own snacks for her because what is provided there is often questionable, to say the least. I'm not completely happy with the nursery school for a variety of reasons, and I'd love to find something closer to home (it's a 20-30 minute commute), so I've been keeping my eyes open.

Today, after coming out of the grocery store, I noticed a pamphlet on my car's windshield. Of course, I began immediately muttering profanities. Then I realized that the pamphlet was for a Montessori school that will be opening up in our area next year. I read the pamphlet with interest, went home and checked out the website. I was thrilled to see all sorts of great things, like natural material toys, mixed age classes, botany as a core subject area ... what fun! And it's walking distance from home! Yay! I thought I'd found a home for my kids! Then I see the bad news - lunch and snacks are provided by the school, included in tuition. What is lunch? Here is a sampling from their lunch menu:

Chicken Nuggets
Meatballs
Macaroni and Cheese
Grilled Cheese
Ham & Cheese
Mozzarella Sticks
Baked Ziti
Pizza
Corn Dogs
Hot Dogs
Beef and Macaroni

I can almost guarantee that these are all heavily processed, fatty, salty, sugary foods that are probably frozen or canned. Nevermind that this menu completely excludes vegan children, providing no options for them whatsoever. It's absurd for any child to eat a regular diet of these foods! All those great teaching methods will go to waste on children fed nothing but garbage. Kids need real, fresh vegetables, fruits, whole grains and wholesome proteins to sustain their energy, their growing bodies and their developing brains. And how will it affect our children if they regularly eat dairy foods full of hormones (known to cause early onset of puberty and reproductive cancers), meats full of antibiotics (which is how most antibiotics are consumed in this country, not by prescription), grain products stripped of their nutritional content (making them pure calories and nothing more), preservatives, stabilizers, artificial sweeteners, high glycemic sweeteners, and many other edible toxins? Will the Flintstones vitamin they took in the morning make up for everything lacking in their diets? For many of us, it matters what our kids eat. That needs to be the case even when our kids are in someone else's care.

Lunch is a part of every school day. In fact, for many kids, it's their favorite subject. That's no joke! What kids learn at the lunch table are life-long lessons, maybe ones that will ultimately affect them more than their ABCs will. A learning institution that doesn't see lunch as a learning opportunity, to teach kids how to get the most from their bodies and their lives, is failing its students, plain and simple.