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A Call to Put Away the Lunch Box
I get Google Alerts about blog posts and articles that mention “school lunch,” and lately the emails have had lots of links to stories about how to pack a healthy midday meal. I’ve been getting alerts about everything from packable recipe ideas to the latest stylish lunch boxes. All of this reminds me that while more than 30 million students participate in the National School Lunch Program each year, another 20 million forgo cafeteria fare and bring lunch from home.
Many parents pack lunch for their children because they don’t consider chicken nuggets a healthy meal. I don’t either. But before you resolve to pack lunch for your child every day this year, think about this: one of the best ways to get better food into public school cafeterias is to put away the lunch box and become a loyal lunchroom customer.
I’ve blogged before about how cafeterias operate much like restaurants. Since their revenue comes from a mixture of federal per-meal reimbursements and student dollars, cafeteria directors need to bring students into the lunch line to stay afloat. They do that by offering the foods kids like — pizza, chicken nuggets, nachos and French fries. The hope is that students will look at the menu and say, “Mom, I want to buy lunch today because the entree is popcorn chicken.”
That means kids have a lot of power when it comes to determining what’s for lunch at school. But it also means that parents have a lot of power. After all, parents are the ones who supply the lunch money. If parents — and I’m talking big groups of parents — started using that power, cafeterias would probably be pretty receptive. If cafeterias had to cater to parents instead of kids, they probably wouldn’t serve popcorn chicken.
So how do we get cafeterias to change their focus? Try organizing a group of parents and asking for changes to the school menu. Then have every member of the group pledge to buy lunch for the whole year. You might even offer to pay upfront — not to put money on your child’s declining balance, but actually to commit money to a year’s worth of meals. Unfortunately, the National School Lunch Program is set up to discourage risk-taking, since cafeteria directors fear that new, healthier items, in addition to being more expensive, will lead to drops in student sales. A pledge or an upfront payment is a kind of insurance policy for your cafeteria. It takes the risk out of serving healthy food since it guarantees participation — and the revenue that comes with it.
Yes, it’s easy enough to pack a lunch for your child if you don’t approve of what’s offered at school. But every packed lunch means less revenue for school lunch programs, and less revenue means less healthy food for the students who do eat lunch in the cafeteria. What’s more, the parents who pack lunch for their children out of health concerns are precisely the parents who care about good food. Without their voices, there is nobody to speak up for school lunch change.
School cafeterias operate by giving customers what they want. Right now, we’re allowing kids to be those customers. If parents can take back that buying power, we’ll take one huge step to improving school food in America.
August 13th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Whole grain breaded Chicken nuggets that are baked and served with fruit, vegetable & milk are not a healthy meal? I don’t think any packed lunch would be better.
August 21st, 2009 at 11:10 am
Hugh: Are you serious? Whole grain breaded nuggets are better than a packed lunch? I’m sorry, but chicken nuggets are more filler than chicken, which is made no better by the “health” of the breading on the outside. And if you’ve looked at a cafeteria lately, the fruit is typically the canned variety floating in high fructose corn syrup. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen fresh fruit served. And finally, the vegetable is either canned or frozen and usually ignored by the children completely (a choice I would make as well).
I fully think that a packed lunch with fresh foods is infinitely better than the frozen, canned, or boxed variety served in the cafeterias. (And if you need tips on how to do it, there are lots of healthy lunch ideas posted at laptoplunches.com for instance)
The idea that parents pool their resources to ensure the children have access to healthy lunches is an interesting one, though! I want my children to eat healthfully and have always taken the approach that at least MY children will eat well and I pack lunches everyday. An intriguing thought to buy the lunches to change the lunches. Thanks!
August 28th, 2009 at 10:05 am
I pack my kids lunch everyday. Why, because my daughter has a sensitivity to most preservatives and my son has poor enamel on his teeth due to a congenital birth defect. I have neither the time or the PTA clout to get either school to overhaul their food policy. I can’t even get them to serve my son regular (non-sweetened) milk and avoid fruit juice (I guess because they are not the ones who have to hold him while he gets his biannual fillings or see the dentists concerned looks).