What are they feeding our kids????!!!!

[annie3001]

can his food be made at home, that way you know whats he's eating?

 

[farrier!]

Quote:
This is what his mother feeds him....

Chicken nuggets, chicken fries, mac and cheese, french fries, pizza, or peanut butter on white bread and corn (donuts cakes and brownies and candy too) nothing else.....

 

[Msbear]

Farrier, sorry for getting so angry about mom. I didn't understand the full story. Thank goodness for your help. This child just might have a chance

 

[Mandalina]

go get a copy of deceptivly delicious. seriously, it rocks. you cna make chicken nuggets,brownies,mac&cheese and even mozzerella sticks using/hiding in vegtables and flax seed. heck, yo ucan stick flax seed into pancakes which i am sure he would eat. also, whole wheat pizza crust and let him pick some toppings and use low fat cheese, kids dig it. there are a million ways to get some good food into your little ones.teaching them to cook and having them in the kitchen being hands on is a wonderful tool. now teaching him he cant live off of junk food....that is a whole other battle that will be hard as heck. i am sorry his mom has so many issues, but he needs to have a more stable lifestyle so he can become a well adjusted adult. is there any way he can come live with you or spend more time with you? or get him into some kind of activity like boy scouts?

 

[ChikeeMomma]

Quote:
Good ideas, Mandalina! I pack my child lunch for school because I don't think that the school provides that healthy of food. I do let her pick one day a month to get hot lunch -- it's a treat. It seems like the food is just as junky as what you'd get at McDonalds or a mall food court. Getting the little guy involved in boy scouts or something like that is a great idea!

 

[The Chicken Lady]

Quote:
they can buy candy bars and sodaa in school?

A lot of menu decisions are based on budget decisions. A pop machine in a school is straight-up advertising, and the school gets money from the pop companies (Pepsi/Coke...etc.) to have it there. When a school's sources of revenue from local, state, and national funds are decreasing, every little bit helps.

Not all schools have pop machines. It is usually the school board's decision with input from parents who attend the school board meetings.

A lot of public schools must provide free and reduced-price meals to students. Regarding the budget: unfortunately, a lot of what is cheap is also unhealthy.

 

[PineappleMama]

Quote:
OR, the ingredients are cheap (flour, eggs, etc) but require more storage space (more fridges etc) have shorter shelf lives, and/or require more preparation thus more hours paid to employees who do the preparing and cleanup and more training needed than the heat and eat stuff.

I'm not sure about this year, but I know for a fact that last year every school suffered a 15% budget cut, AND no raises at all. They put on a hiring freeze, to the point that a person couldn't even be added to the substitute cafeteria monitor list without a council being made, reviewing it, and approving the 'hire'... from what I've seen this year isn't any better... our school does fundraisers (typical junk), but also does the boxtops for education, collects tabs for Ronald McDonald House, just this year they started collecting Sunny D labels as some sort of funding thing, and I bet they'll start doing the Capri Sun empty pack collection I just noticed too... like you said, every bit helps. And of course, all of that is in addition to what the PTA does... gingerbread store, book fairs, silent auction, etc. We're very lucky that our school has a very active PTA group. Last year, with that huge cut, especially... we actually ended up with something like $5000 in surplus, so there's a new laminator and other things that were very much needed in addition to the typical books and whatnot that the PTA provides every year.

 

[Whispering Winds]

I was a school cook for 16+ years, and we had wonderful good food where I worked. We made homemade chicken noodle soup, always had fruit, vegetables, LOTS of it was fresh, salads and of course the inevitable chicken nuggets. I will give you a tip. Start offering only healthy food, and the parents will scream the walls down. We use to have the best tacos around, good cheese, lettuce and sour cream if the bigger kids wanted it, corn, and fresh fruit usually . . .had a parent call me and tell me his little girl came home from school and said the only thing she had to eat that day was a . . . . . . taco. NO MATTER how I told him that simply was not true, he believed her over me. I made home made rolls for the days we had beef stew, and you have to understand that we HAD to use the gov. commodities that came in every month to the best of our abilities. We would get fresh blueberries and made wonderful coffee cakes, and pancakes with them, all made from scratch. We made a lot of the food from scratch until the parents got involved and griped about not having "convenience" foods. I argued that the grade school kids from 5th grade up should be allowed to have a chef salad if they wanted, because we made them fresh every day and they were beautiful!!! But, the STATE said they were not nutritional enough, but those good ole' chicken nuggets were the best. Parents believe what their kids tell them, no matter what. I use to have the hardest time with the lunches the kids brought to school from HOME, and what do I have . . . .the worst picky eater out there. No, he wasn't catered too, he simply cannot stand the looks of some of the "good" foods, and he is 9. Slowly but surely we are trying new stuff and he does add something to his "I can eat this" list. He is healthy as a horse, has beautiful color, energy out the wazoo, but I also give him a good multi-vitamin every day and calcium because I know he is lacking . . .but I feel like most schools honestly do the best they can with what they have to work with, and don't forget the head cook isn't really the boss. She answers to the supt.

 

[conny63malies]

Its bad in some places. Back in Ohio teens didnt know what dandelions was .THey had never seen a real chicken. I gave the neighobrs a egg my chicken laid,she was so amazed by the REAL egg that she blew it out and kept it. School food is real bad in some places. I think my kids have a pretty decent menu at their current school right now
http://www.usd475.org/food/currentmenu.htm : january
this moth menu: http://www.usd475.org/food/currentmenu.htm
my son doesnt eat school breakfast , he prefers my homemade bread and jelly.

 

[NoseyChickens]

I work at the school my daughters go to. The stuff they feed them is horrible!!!. All processed and microwaved. NOTHING is cooked fresh. The "salad bar" consists of iceberg lettuce and maybe baby carrots if they are lucky. We qualify for reduced price lunch for 40 cents a meal. My children bring home lunch. Most of the kids refuse to eat the food they throw it away in masses. Altough to be honest most of what is packed in the lunchboxes is no better or worse. It's sad. We can't figure out why the kids can't concentrate but we have them pumped up with sugar and processed foods.

i used to do daycare for a 4 yr old boy who didn't know what fresh friut was. If it didn't come from McDonalds or Taco Bell it came from a box in the fridge for him. It was sad.