Friday 4/21: Pizza!

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

What they got: Plain pizza, tossed salad, fresh carrot sticks, an apple and milk

It seems to me that Friday's Pizza will always be what it is...frozen pizza that's sometimes overcooked and occasionally undercooked, as was the case last Friday.

I do have to commend Chartwells on least making the meals look appetizing and appealing. After all, we all eat with our eyes first!  I wonder what it would take to actually prepare our own pizza in large trays as opposed to just heating and serving a product that has more ingredients than I'd even like to know about. I'm sure there is a slew of reasons why it would not work, with money being the top factor!  Any bakeries in Hoboken feel like selling the school whole wheat dough at a really good price?

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!

Friday 3/26: Pizza

Menu reads as follows: Assorted pizza, tossed salad, fresh apple.

What they got: Pizza, tossed salad, fresh apple.

Today, this was my stryofoam tray! Yes, I had the pleasure of eating pizza with the kids! Actually, the regional chef (Chef S) was visiting again and he invited me to eat lunch with them. Of course I accepted and it was rather weird that I was now eating school lunch and my child was not! :))  I am happy to report that things have most certainly improved since last week's attempt . The lunch was way more appetizing and I actually saw many kids digging into their salad and fruit! Amazing what a little visual stimulus can do!  That said, I'm still worried about what the pizza was actually made from and in all honesty a couple hours after the meal I had heartburn! I know, from previous experience, that when I eat flavor enhanced and preservative laden foods the acidity levels in my stomach go hay-wire. I was not surprised. So while presentation has improved we still have a lot of work to do to improve on the quality of food.

The real surprise was seeing Chef S interact and talk with kids. He encouraged and offered them fruit from our new basket, which we have been assured, will be a permanent fixture in the cafeteria of St.Francis!

Chartwells is taking a real interest and I am happy that they are being responsive.They even invited me to come and check out the High School as well as Wallace at lunch time since that is where the 2 kitchens they cook out of are located. I'm looking forward to seeing a real school kitchen and cafeteria in action!

Wednesday: 3/24 Pizza Sticks

Menu reads as follows: Pizza sticks w/sauce, green beans and Apple Sauce.

What they got: Pizza sticks w/sauce, green beans, a pear and milk.

I was quite excited today to be going to her school to finally meet the 'Pizza sticks' face-to-face! Yes, I had never seen one and all I had to go on was my 4 year old's description:  'It's like bread'. And she was right. It is bread. White bread baked- well I think it was baked, couldn't really tell- with white cheese in the middle.

The kids get to dip 'the stick' into a marinara sauce. I might actually like this had it been made with whole wheat flour, cheese and baked till golden brown :)  Today's side of green beans was not received well. Not one green bean (okay, maybe one) made it into the mouth of a child, instead they were tossed away along with the all the styrofoam plates! Speaking of, I'm going to mention the styrofoam plates in every blog from now on because I think it's tragic that we are even using them in the first place!

Consider this: Styrofoam is made from petroleum, is non-biodegradable and can take up to 500 years to break down! It is environmentally unfriendly and releases toxins which are proven to be harmful to our health! Why on earth would you let kids our kids eat on it!? Oh, I know, its cheap and requires no clean up! Well I guess there's one less thing for the food service provider to do, and hey, they don't have deal with the sick people or the landfills!  Is no-one paying attention?  Stop the styrofoam. Please.

Pizza Friday!

Menu reads as follows: Assorted Pizza, Tossed Salad and Fresh Apples. 

What they got:

Need I say more? 

No, but I will!  The more I look at this serving the more upset I get. The thing that infuriates me is that once again they (Chartwells) made the meal sound enticing with 'tossed salad' and 'fresh apples' but somehow those items never made it to the school, again!   Instead the kids got dry pizza, milk and juice.  Half the pizzas served where french bread pizza and the other half the flatbread kind. Some were burnt and some not, but luckily the lunch lady did not want to serve the burnt ones. I think I'll be sending pizza from home from now on.

Chocolate milk is thankfully not allowed everyday, but I think on Pizza Fridays they let them drink it. A quick look at the labeling reveals that it contains 28g of sugar for a half-pint serving! Official US Guidelines advise, for adults, a maximum of 40g refined sugar for every 2000 calories consumed. I could not find anything that refers to kids but i'll keep looking when I have more time and report back. According to the guideline for adults 28g seems like a lot for a child to consume in 236ml of milk, don't you think?

Since I am going to start obsessing about ingredients let me list some for the above milk as taken off the carton: lowfat milk, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), cream, cocoa processed with alkali, corn starch, cocoa, salt, carrageenan, vanillin (an artificial flavor), vitamin A palmitate, vitamin D3. 
These ingredients are not far off from an organic brand I buy, a few differences noted: 1. The use of HFCS in the above brand, whereas the organic brand used unrefined cane sugar and 2. The sugar content above was 28g vs the 22g in the organic brand and 3. The presence of vanillin, corn starch and cocoa processed with alkali in the milk served at school. I feel like the less ingredients the better!
I am not saying we need to serve organic milk but I really believe we need to re-think whether or not we even need to serve chocolate milk for school lunch.  I almost wish they would encourage the kids to drink water instead.