School Lunch, Truman Didn't Know of Cheese Sticks

In signing the 1946, President Harry S Truman signed The National School Lunch Act and said at that time,

"Nothing is more important in our national life than the welfare of our children, and proper nourishment comes first in attaining this welfare."



If you are thinking about how hungry you are then you aren't thinking about math and reading. It's a fact. When your blood sugar drops, your stomach starts grumbling, fatigue sets in, that is not the best time to try to learn something new.



As a country we value this idea so we all got behind the school lunch program but now those good intentions are full of empty calories, canned fruit, sodium laden vegetables and a fryolator.



This week my youngest son could have eaten Fried Cheese sticks, a mayonnaise laden chicken salad sandwich, served with canned sweet potatoes & canned apples and canned blueberries with whipped cream. He did not buy lunch that day. Instead I sent him to school with a Boars Head Honey Ham and American Cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread (no crusts, he's not that good!). A box of organic apple juice, a honey crisp apple, a small bag of chocolate Teddy Grahams and a strawberry yogurt. The lunch box came home full of wrappers and a couple of lonely Teddy Grahams. When he walked home from the bus he came in the door happy and ready for a snack, but not cranky because he was famished. I know fried cheese sticks wouldn't have gotten him through the afternoon math quiz.



I have three kids in three different schools, and a husband who works in an industrial park with one busy restaurant. That's four different lunch menus everyday. Nine times out of ten the youngest brings his lunch. The middle one always brings a lunch and the oldest goes to a school with a salad bar. My husaband doesn't like to wait in lines (for anything) so he brings a lunch. Actually he brings the equivalent of three lunches.



When I see the school menus on the web-sites my first thought is "whomever planned this menu doesn't like food" and my second thought is "why are the standard so low?"



The National School Lunch Program is available in 99% of public schools, and about 30 million schoolchildren took part in 2007 at a federal cost of $8.7 billion. The breakfast program is available in about 85% of schools and serves more than 10 million children each day. Nutrition standards for school meals have not been updated since 1995.The committee said its recommendations reflected the 2005 federal dietary guidelines for Americans.



The guidlines need updating but in the mean time we need to serve our families healthier food.