So what are you fixing for dinner? Taco Patty perhaps? How about a Round Wedge Pizza or Chicken Fryz? That's what's on the menu in the Harrisonburg, VA, school system. They're so proud of their fare, the posted big ol' pictures of them in all their glory on their website. I was hungry — right up until the point I saw these pics. Count 'em 22 different meals, and I only saw one green thing in the whole lot. The saddest lunch? The Italian Dunkers. Or, Cut Up White Bread With Sugary Spaghetti Sauce.
No wonder we're facing a childhood obesity epidemic. What makes this all the more alarming, is that so many kids rely on these meals to combat hunger. In the 2006-2007 school year, 16.3 million kids got free or reduced-price lunches through the National School Lunch Program, a stat that's particularly poignant here in the midst of Summer. Reports show that Summer nutrition programs aren't meeting needs, and sponsors are backing out as rising food and fuel costs makes it impossible not to lose money.
The conundrum of course is what's cost effective and what will kids eat? For kids weaned on Cheetos and corn dogs, the goop in the pictures probably tastes fine. It's far from fine for them though.
To see which schools are combating the Italian Dunker, read more.
In (my hero) Morgan Spurlock's movie SuperSize Me he profiled Appleton Central High School where kids are given fresh, wholesome, low-fat food through Natural Ovens, resulting in happier, more-focused students. Arkansas is hoping to be a "model state" in addressing childhood obesity, starting with banning vending machines. California has already banned trans fats in schools.
With poor communities getting the brunt of the Taco Patty (42 percent of Bronx elementary students are overweight) and school-lunch prices climbing even further (40 percent more in Des Moines) what's the solution? How can schools better serve our kids lunch?
3.1 Phillip Lim
I used to eat the most disgusting sh*t for lunch, nothing the school made, but chips and tastykakes. I survived.
1tator-tots. bleh. still can't eat them.
The state of the school lunch system is such a shame. Did anyone see the tv show with Shaq about a year ago? He proved that healthy meals can be a part of school lunch on the same budget. They did a test run in Florida.
2Oh!!!! I used to be stationed right over Shanendoah mountain in Sugar Grove, WV. I used to go to Harrisonburg to shop or drink. I love it there.
But YES they do need vegetables. You know honestly I can't remember getting vegetables at school either.
3My high school did a pretty good job with the lunches - of course, I didn't eat that stuff, I ate total garbage like everyone else!
4Yes. It was Chubway for me every day.
5That pizza was making me hungry . . . but I just clicked through to the rest of the pictures — I'm not so hungry anymore.
6Gee it's too bad that it costs too much to feed our children healthy meals at school. Mine made it clear she wasn't eating school swill in the first grade - I've got quite a collection of thermoses and hot food carriers now.
7In high school, I ate french fries with gravy, swiss cake rolls, and a Coke for lunch pretty much every day. It's a wonder I didn't weigh 1000 pounds.
8This makes me so angry! Because there are rules about what schools feed for lunches, but lobbyists were able to get french fries count as a vegetable. This is also why grains are the base of the food pyramid. Not based on nutrition, based on politics.
Marion Nestles book What to Eat talks a lot about it, and I was completely scandalized to learn about all the food politics in our country.
9yeah...I was ashamed to say it, but in middle school I would have two small bags of sour cream and onion chips and a chocolate milk for lunch. Luckily I was eating healthily at home.
10The food they offered at my school was AWFUL. Even the pizza! Tasted like it was wet sand instead of "sausage". I saw a program the other day where a school was giving kids, I am not kidding...a slice of pizza with a piece of bacon on top of it! Breakfast bacon!
School food has got to improve. From what I can remember, I think there were guidelines set up during the depression where schools HAD to have fatty meals (because so many kids were starving). Now that kids have too much fat, the regulations have not kept up to address those needs.
I think it is very important to invest more money in good food for schools. If we spend an extra $1 per meal now, society will probably save $5 in diabetic health care costs later.
11I wonder if healthier food really does help you to focus more and do better in school? I'm a little skeptical of the Supersize Me mention, since movies/documentaries can always be edited to show a particular bias. The food served in most schools across the nation definitely could be healthier, and isn't it sad also that we've gotten to the point where unhealthy processed food is cheaper than the wholesome stuff? Though that does help explain the supermommies who feed their kids organic everything..
12You know, there are foundation programs that help schools build gardens so that kids can raise their own school lunches and learn at the same time. Alice Waters does it here and I think Jamie Oliver does it in the UK.
13The kids could have nutritious lunches that they seem to like and eat, the kids could learn about botany, ecology, agriculture, food preparation, responsibility AND the school could have another fund-raising option, selling seedlings and plants that the kids started - even compost.
I was a private school kid so we didn't really have school lunches. But we did have kind of a "Taco Tuesday"-we were able to buy tacos and the bean and cheese burritos from Taco Bell.
I LIVED for Tuesdays!
14That would be a great program, Stephley!
I know that bad nutrition hurt me in school. I used to eat a lot of sugary cereal for breakfast, and by 10:00 am I was starving. I would try to have a snack like a granola bar, but you couldn't eat in the halls or classrooms. I was usually very light headed and dizzy in my classes before lunch, and my grades suffered.
I think that kids who eat too many carbs not only suffer physically, but mentally too.
15My son's school has a rotating "farmer's market" day. One day a week, one class takes a "field trip" to Pike Place Market and buys the produce and fruit for that day's lunch. All the menus at his school are vegetarian - he definitely eats better than I ever did!!!
16Does he make suggestions when you grocery shop?
17Its a full circle... Millions of people buy what is cheaper because that is what they can afford. Its been like that for years and years. Now that gas prices have gone up and don't even look like they are going to drop anytime soon; the price on everything rises too.
I don't know what to feel anymore for a government that is fully aware of its issues but doesn't make a real effort to change that. More money should definitely be invested in good food for schools. That should be a top priority! School food, Education, and School Safety should all be on the list of things that politicians care about. Its a crying shame that they don't care about those things at all.
18silversnowflake you took the words right out of my mouth, this is exactly why we have a juvenille diabetes problem/obese children problem and the one's who can effect change, don't. One of the reasons I won't vote all republican or all democratic, so many on each side show their true colors on this and other areas of caring about the health of U.S. citizens.
And don't even get me started on the how little support/aid the farmers get.... they grow our food for hecks sake!! Throw 'em a bone, people!!!
19How little support we give to farmers? I feel for the farmer, I really do, but farming is the most subsidized industry in our country.
20Wow, Martini. Your son's school kicks ass.
21nasty!!!!!!!!!
22My elementary and junior high schools served exactly that kind of disgusting crap every day, but for some weird reason I liked it
I think because I was raised on Chinese food at home and liked the
exotic American-ness of the school lunch food. (I still adore casseroles and Hamburger Helper, and stuff like that.)
My nutritional situation, however, improved a great deal when I went to a very nice and progressive boarding school for high school, and got served proper food instead of, you know, Tater Tots.
And I do agree that the school lunches need to be improved. Anyone who wonders why kids are getting fatter and fatter really should just take a trip to the local public school's cafeteria.
23This is awful especially now after all we know it's outrageous. When I was in School 75-89 I noticed the food got even much worse during the eighties. It was disgusting.
I can see where states are caught between a rock and a hard place though when it comes to affording the proper food. Once again this is just another reason why we are failing our children by not fully funding education across the board.
One of my teachers made an excellent point once. If a whole town can mobilize to save one child from a well in Texas a town can mobilize to save all of its children. Is not a multitude of children just as important as one child?
24The cost of adult lunches here in the south...$3.40, the cost for a student...$2.30. So yes, the districts and the government officials have seen that only the free or reduced lunch kids buy the junk anymore. Does that really surprise anyone? It's a disgusting practice that needs to be governed more acutely by school dietitians, or district appointed officials.
25Steph, yeah, he does make suggestions! He loves to pick the veggies and fruit. And he goes through phases where he really wants just one thing all the time, as many different ways as you can make it. His big thing now is that he loves tofu, but I am not good with it. He told me the other night "mama, maybe Adam (the school chef) can give you lessons"!!! LOL!
26"He told me the other night "mama, maybe Adam (the school chef) can give you lessons"!!!
Oh, dear!
What ways have you made the tofu so far? I grew up with the stuff at least 3x a week, maybe I can suggest something?
27Jude, darling! Yes, please help me!!!!
I tried stir frying it, but it is all mushy - not firm, even though it starts out that way... and I tried using it as a meat replacement in curry--we won't even discuss what that turned out like!
What am I doing wrong????
28Hrmmm.
Well, how you cook it will determine what texture of tofu you should use. Only extra firm for stir fry, I think, and even then you have to be very gentle with it.
Couple of quick and simple suggestions, but I don't know how well he will like these--they're very Chinese:
1. Cold tofu salad (liang ban dofu) is a very quick and easy salad made with cold tofu. Use something that's fairly firm, but with the silken texture. Just cube the tofu, add a sprinkling of chopped green onion, and toss it gently with sesame oil and a little sprinkling of salt. My dad did this a lot (I think it's northern Chinese, but I could be wrong).
2. Mapo tofu is a sort of spicy hot dish made with tofu, a rich and fairly spicy sauce, and (if you want) meat. You can actually find a very decently tasty pre-made sauce in the Asian section of supermarkets out here, and I always put lots of sliced shiitake mushrooms in with it.
You can also see if he likes dried tofu (also called dried bean curd), which is going to be much firmer and holds up very well in stir-fry.
I also like adding some silken tofu cubes to a spinach salad with that Asian-flavor salad dressing you get at the supermarket. And hot and sour soup and egg drop soup are both much improved by cubes of tofu!
Does that help at all?
My dad actually also used to make tofu by hand, at home. Sadly, he was not one for bothering to write down recipes, and I have very few memories of the process beyond "damn, that looks hard."
29*Oh, and as a general tip no matter what you're cooking, tofu pairs very well with the flavors of sesame oil and/or shiitake mushrooms.
30**I have never felt more like a freaky West Coast liberal than when discussing my lifelong love of tofu!
31That's cool Martini, I love when they bring home the good ideas they pick up at school.
32
Jude, you are great! You know, I think I am just getting the wrong kind of tofu,from what you
wrote here. That salad sounds yummy! I am gonna try that for myself tomorrow!! I will let you know how it goes with my next cooking attempt for sure! Thanks for all the suggestions! 
33I adore Tofu Jude! One of my guiltiest pleasures is my obsession with Pad See Ew with tofu.
I've been drooling a lot today. LOL
34mmmmm, Harmony, now I am drooling, too!
35It's SOOOOOOOOOOOO good!
36What's Pad See Ew???? I don't think I've ever had that!
37Oh, Martini, do you have an Asian market near where you live? Because you'll have a much better selection of tofu brands and textures there.
38It's a thai dish with broad noodles, chinese broccoli, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, garlic, egg, and I get mine with tofu. OKAY I'm really drooling now.
39Yes, we have one less than a mile away, or I can go to the International district to Uwajimaya, that is an amazing grocery store. We go there all the time.
I actually bought a dried seahorse that I had cast in silver that I then made into a necklace
for a friend of mine. It was awesome - but that is another story! 
40OMG, Harmony, what are you doing to me - I had a late dinner, but could so eat that whole plate right now!!!
41Oh, that DOES look yummy!
Yeah, Martini, you should be able to find more variety of tofus there, as well as sauces to try and lots of cheap produce and meat and fish. What is the store, a Ranch 99?
I like Uwajimaya, but I always find myself spending way too much money on magazines and stuff in the bookstore section
42I know. I'm KILLING myself right now. I want it so badly.
43The one close to me is a local-run business called HT Oaktree. It is pretty good, but Uwajimaya has a larger selection and more specialty foods.
44class="inline left">
GROOOOOOOOOOOOOAN.
45OK,Harmony, what is going on here??? I am going to be on a beach in a bikini in about 2 weeks, and THIS is the kind of stuff you are posting?? How much working out would I have to do to work off this and the pad see ew??
46And this! And this. I can't help it. YUUUUUUUUUUUUM.
47So what's for dessert???
48Damn Jude I'm gonna start calling you Julia, Ms. Childs if you're nasty.
49I don't know. You pick!
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