Ramblings about School Lunch

So it sounds like Trump is trying to roll back some of the regulations on school lunch guidelines, and at the moment I'm not going to comment on whether that's a good choice or not. I do, however, want to comment about the argument people are making about how because of Michelle Obama kids are getting food that they refuse to eat because they don't like it, and so all that food is just being thrown away. I vividly remember what school lunch was like when I was growing up, and food was thrown away then too. My tray consistently had limp green-ish brown things that might have been beans, gray hamburgers with "ketchup", tater tots that were hollow because they'd been fried in so much fat, hot dogs that tasted odd, and dry-looking sawdust that I was told was taco meat. I learned that if the menu said "pizza" they meant bread with hamburger and cheese on top, but if the menu said "barchedda" or "galaxy pizza" it generally was pizza. In first grade we were given strange brown-ish red blobs (possibly sugarplums) that we didn't dare touch. I threw away an obscene amount of food that I didn't like. I'm ashamed of how much food I threw away. I remember carefully watching Mrs. Mac because I knew if she saw me approaching the trash cans without having eaten my food she would make me go back and eat it. It was better in high school when we had a salad bar every day. That's why my kids take a cold lunch to school every day (aside from the fact that over $2 per meal for my kids' lunch is not in the budget). It's what I should have done myself. So in terms of waste I doubt that the amount of food being thrown away has changed much.

In defense of the lunch ladies, they were being asked to make and serve a meal to 1000 kids within a couple of hours. They're stretched thin and they don't have much of a budget. I feel bad complaining about the food because I know they were probably doing the best they could. Also, their cinnamon rolls, chocolate cake, and dinner rolls (especially those ones they served with spaghetti) were pretty fantastic, and every once in a while they would serve this potato soup with a lot of pepper in it that I loved. And sometimes the cups of peaches were still frozen, and that was the best. The baked potatoes were actually just fine, but I was being picky.

If we're going to have school lunch (and for many children in poverty I think this program is really important) then these are the obstacles we have to face. How do we make school lunch healthy, affordable, palatable, and convenient to serve? And we have to recognize that doing this for your own family is not the same as doing it for an entire school. Making hand breaded chicken nuggets or freshly sauteed green beans is enough work for my family of five; we're not going to get that at school.

And on a slightly related note, recently I read an article talking about how many schools punish or shame students when their parents haven't paid their lunch accounts (as in, they threw the student's food away). My first reaction was shock that they could be so cruel, but on further reflection I have to admit that it happened sometimes at my school too. I remember in my irresponsible fifth grade years I forgot my lunch check or tickets several times, and if I had forgotten two days in a row I felt physically ill worrying about having to fill out another charge form. A few times I even snuck out of the line and went to my younger sister's classroom to borrow a lunch ticket from her. I remember a few times I got lucky because on a day when I didn't have a lunch ticket I was chosen to be a lunch helper and got free lunch. I actually don't remember if Jill the lunch lady ever yelled at me about not having a lunch ticket, but she definitely did yell at some other kids.