Friday 5/7: Pizza Friday

The menu reads as follows: Assorted Pizza, Tossed Salad, Fresh Carrot Sticks, Fresh Apple

What they got: Plain pizza, tossed salad and a fresh apple and milk.

On paper this meal sounded well-balanced but upon execution it kind of failed. If you notice the carrots are missing. Actually the carrots made it to the school.

They just never quite made it onto the kids' plates because while serving them they [the school] realized the carrots had expired. If you look closely you will notice a USE BY: FEB 27 2010  These have been expired for over a month now. That said, the USDA's official stance on this is :

Except for "use-by" dates, product dates don't always refer to home storage and use after purchase. "Use-by" dates usually refer to best quality and are not safety dates. But even if the date expires during home storage, a product should be safe, wholesome and of good quality — if handled properly and kept at 40° F or below

I pretty much follow the above and will still use products even though they have technically expired but I guess the schools are not allowed to make those kinds of determinations....or did they? The food comes from our main kitchen, so did they know that the carrots had expired for over a month already? Needless to say our school caught it and stopped them from being served. Was there something wrong with the carrots? Probably not, but I think the school chose to err on the side of caution and to not offer the carrots to the kids at all. Lets see if they get it right next Friday!

Tuesday 3/23: Chicken Nuggets

Menu reads as follows: Chicken nuggets, mashed potato, seasoned veggie, wheat bread, fresh orange.

What they got: Chicken nuggets, powdered mash, canned carrots, wheat bread and syrupy fruit

Wow! Its looks way better than many of last weeks meals and this time no scary stuff on the nuggets. In fact they were almost 'crispy' and nicely browned. The powdered mash, which coincidentally  is the same color white as the styrofoam plate, was less appealing and much of it landed up in the trash as did everything except for the nuggets. Not one fresh vegetable or fruit was served. I have to question the Farm to School program that Chartwells claims to participate in.

Syrupy fruit does not count as a fruit in my household, its more like a dessert, and canned carrots simply lack texture and taste plus are usually  high in sodium and sugar. If only we could have a look-see on the label!  While I'm okay with this meal on some level I still feel very disappointed in how unhealthy it really is. Every bit of it is processed with additives, fillers and preservatives...I like to call them the silent killers.
Yesterday Princeton University came out with a study that concluded high-fructose corn syrup does in fact prompt more weight gain therefore linking this stuff to rising obesity rates. I call it stuff because once it looked like corn and now its sweet and syrupy. I cannot make that connection. If I had my way I would ban it completely, but I think for now  asking  the schools to not serve it to our children is a good start.

I dont have official numbers but from what I've heard at least 1/3 - 1/2 of our school district qualifies for free/reduced lunch, that is over 1000 kids everyday being fed breakfast and lunch. (I will reach out to admin for official numbers.)  If this is what they are eating daily I'm afraid that they are not getting a head-start in any way.  In fact, the odds are steeped up high against them.