Lunch Article

What’s in your lunch?Are lunches today healthier than those of yesteryear?By Janine Leffler


Summer is almost over. Time to trade swimsuits in for schoolbooks and sunscreen in for sharpened pencils. It’s also time to think about what to pack your children for lunch. Obesity is an epidemic on the rise. About 1.2 million people in the world are overweight and at least 300 million of them are obese. Carl Anderson who works at the Color Shop on Main Street in Wilton said in an interview that lunches 30 years ago were by far healthier than today’s lunches. “There was a lot less around and a lot less portions as well as less sugary cereals and snacks.” The Food Service Administration estimates that 30 percent of all public high schools currently sell Burger King, Dominos Pizza and other brand name fast food in their cafeterias along with federally subsidized meals and many dispense chips and sodas in vending machines down the hall. (http://motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/01_ma_207_01.html) The question of the day: What’s in your child’s lunch? Are their lunches healthier than lunches were 30 years ago? One fact about today’s lunches is that they contain more processed foods. For example children these days are bringing more fruit snacks and things such as Fruit Rollups instead of bringing fresh fruit. Thus you never know what’s going into the food your kids are eating. In an interview with Diane Spofford, a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston she said that her favorite lunch to take to school as a child was cold meatball sandwiches, because the meatballs were homemade. She said when it comes to lunches being healthy “It depends on what kid you are talking about, my kids eat just as healthy as I did, others, I am not so sure.” To her, lunches of convenience such as Lunchables are not the healthiest thing for kids to eat. Lunchables are a pre-made lunches packaged by the KRAFT and Oscar Meyer companies. Through my research I found out that the contents of these lunches are less than appealing. They are filled with preservatives and fats. A recent study has shown that they are also high in salt containing nearly three fourths of the daily-recommended salt allowance. One particular Lunchables meal consists of mystery meat, which sounds kind of eerie because you don’t know what’s in it. There have been some pretty disgusting things served in lunches in the past and that hasn’t changed much today either. Carl Anderson who works at the Color Shop in Wilton said the most disgusting thing he ever had to take for lunch was “Spam, which was a spread able canned meat product.” I’m not one to complain about cafeteria food, basically because when I was in school I took lunch from home and only brought school lunch once or twice a week. It wasn’t till I got to college that I encountered something gut wrenchingly disgusting, so gross it made my stomach turn numerous cartwheels. This delicacy, if you can even refer to it as such, is called Tater Tot Casserole, something that my college’s dining common serves on occasion. It is basically the leftover tater tots from that morning’s breakfast baked up and doused in mushroom gravy. Needless to say, I try to avoid eating this at all counts.
So what are local schools doing to improve the kinds of food in the lunches that they serve? “All of our lunches are in compliance with the federal government. This year we implemented a wellness policy. Part of the policy is to make sure that food served in our lunch program meets the nutritional requirements of the federal government.” Director of Food Services in Milford Bob Supernant said in an interview. Amherst has a similar wellness policies in place which replaces food that contains a lot of fat and sugar with healthier foods. “Hopefully it will raise awareness of what is healthy. It needs to start at home so the kids can recognize what is healthy and be encouraged to try it.” Janice Bock, from food services at Amherst Middle School said in a recent interview. Recently AMS has made some improvements to make diets for students healthier. Examples include updating what is sold in the vending machines by changing fried snacks to baked snacks and more juice and water as opposed to soda.
In collaboration with the USDA the UNH Cooperative Extension has created a program to help improve student nutrition in local schools called Changing The Scene. This program offers those who participate the following benefits:~ A tool for assessing their own exercise program~Guidelines for identifying, contacting and working with all of the groups that need to be actively involved with the school wellness team~Newsletters schools can send home to parents, with a blank page schools can use to promote their programs For more information about this check out the following website: http://extension.unh.edu/news/changesC.htm
When thinking about packing lunch for your child, try to avoid foods that high in fat and sugar, processed foods, fried snacks and any beverages which are high in sugar. It’s all about making healthy choices. Happy Packing and here’s to a great school year!