Randi Kreiss

Back to school, and back to burgers and hot dogs

Posted

Five years ago I wrote a column critiquing the food being served in our school lunch programs. This week, with most schools in their second week, I’m here to tell you that mac and cheese still rules.

Not nearly enough has changed on school menus, even though health experts continue to warn us about the dire consequences of eating too much sugar and fat. At our peril, we ignore doctors and nutritionists who illuminate the inevitable path from obesity to disease.

The banner on one school lunch websites reads, “Wellness is a way of life.” Yet, below the banner are some of the food choices: French toast sticks, chicken patties, hamburgers, French bread pizza, mashed potatoes, frankfurters, tortilla chips, sausages, mac and cheese, lasagna and mozzarella sticks. True, the schools now serve their burgers on whole-wheat buns, and they do offer some healthy alternatives like salad and fruit, but why are the fast-food-like choices on a school menu at all?

It isn’t the fault of our public education system. In fact, school meals are an easy, and somewhat unfair, target. School nutritionists must use affordable ingredients that can be whipped into food that kids will actually eat. The school cooks didn’t invent gravy and sausages. The taste for salty, high-carb food begins at home, and so does the trend toward obesity.

Over the past five years, school menus have improved, but they’d be even healthier if we upgraded our own eating habits. No third-grader is going to select a kale salad unless she learns to like it at her dinner table.

I returned this week from a “field trip,” if you will. I visited my daughter and her family, including the 8-year-old and the 6-year-old. My daughter recently completed a seminar on nutrition, so healthy eating was a major theme of this visit. As a doctor, she believes the takeaway, for all of us, is to stop eating sugar and processed foods. Not a news flash, but a reminder to cut down on the junk food we routinely consume.

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