This glass is half empty

In one of my schools, I arrive at the school breakfast time. Each day that I come to this school, I prepare to hold my breath as I cross through the cafeteria on the way to my office. The food being served is like a bad accident: I can’t help but steal glances at it, even though I know I don’t want to know what it is. Sometimes it’s cold pizza, sometimes sausage, and on a good day, it’s a sugarcoated cereal. Sure, there are orange slices available, but what child will take an orange slice if pizza is offered before that? [Truly, the way the line is formed, the fruit stand is last and most children get out of line with a tray full of junk food before they even see it.]

I started looking into this because I find the obesity epidemic grossly fascinating. It is preventable, and so much easier prevented than treated, but how are these kids even going to have a chance when they’re served two meals a day at school, both of which are generally crap? I started with the district’s website and found that the “Food Services” link is far and away the most limited of all divisions on the site. Most of the links were dead or dated back to 2006, but there was one telling fact I found: “50% of all food items offered by any organization must be selected from a list of nutritious foods.” In other words, 50% food in the cafeteria is nutritious, and if you’re having trouble with the math, that means 50% need not be nutritious. Any parent who might be concerned with this would be met with a lot of dead ends in trying to research this: the “Menu and Nutrients” link on Sodexho’s (the contracted company supplying the food) website is in fact only a menu, with no nutrient facts listed. Furthermore, only lunch is available, with no indication of what might be served for breakfast. The county’s “Children and Weight Coalition” had a promising title but its website was filled with links like “This page will have lots of links to resources” and “Calendar of Events goes here.” I tried the California Department of Education’s website too, but found its most current Nutrition Analysis Report, 1998-2005, to be “in progress.”  There were references throughout the district website to a variety of promising sounding committees (e.g. Nutrition Action), but the references all dated back to several years ago and were limited to references only, no direct information.

The lack of information was disappointing, but I’ll leave you with what I did find: a sample menu.

Main Entrees:

Monday – baked chicken nuggets and tater tots

Tuesday – rib-b-que sandwich and chips

Wednesday – orange chicken with brown rice

Thursday – breakfast for lunch

Friday – baked breaded chicken with oven fries

If your child does not want the main entrée, it can be replaced with any of the following dishes, which are offered on a rotating basis at the following stations:

Café Ole: enchilada, taco salad, chicken fajita, soft/hard tacos, nachos

Grill: hot dog, chicken sandwich, hot ham & cheese, cheeseburger

Deli (sandwiches served with pretzels): ham and cheese, peanut butter and jelly, turkey and cheese, tuna, salami and cheese

Italian: cheese or pepperoni pizza, Italian dunkers, pepperoni pizza pocket