School lunch

It’s an everyday challenge to teach kids, trying to teach them on an empty stomach is nearly impossible. We can all remember back in grade school, while eating lunch asking ourselves, “What is this? Coleslaw? Potato salad? Gruel?” School lunches have a history of a reputation of tasting bad. Quality of food has always been suspect. Now, with the dramatic rise of childhood obesity and food-related environmental concerns has led to a focus on school lunches both in terms of the quality of meals served and the educating about food systems, choices, and the impact on health. Most foods are not made on site. They are prepackaged and cooked in a 3rd party distribution site and shipped to the schools daily or weekly.

According to an USA TODAY investigation, “The government has provided the nation’s schools with millions of pounds of beef and chicken that wouldn’t meet the quality or safety standards of many fast-food restaurants.” The USDA checks meat for bacteria and other dangerous pathogens. For one Fast-food restaurant, Jack in the Box, has bacteria standards that are up to 10 times more stringent than the low quality meat USDA donates to most schools.

Before December of 2010, most schools had zero regulations on nutritional hazards, such as high fructose corn syrup and/or sugar limits. For example flavored milk, for an example, contains four (4) additional teaspoons of sugar, which adds up to seven (7) total teaspoons of sugar per serving. If a child drinks two cartons of flavored milk per day at school that’s equivalent of a 16 oz of soda. According to the Massachusetts Public Health Association, between 56% and 85% of children in school consume at least one soft drink daily. 30% of Schools that rarely, if ever, offer a vegetabl...

... middle of paper ...

...ins. By banning junk food, you're just making kids sneakier, because they are not going to give up junk food. I mean what are they going to do, check everyone's lunch everyday to make sure it's all healthy food? It will cause more harm than good. All of the school district will lose funding, not a lot of funding. Right now schools need that money to buy the school supplies, teacher salaries. Secondly, students need to learn how to make their own choices. One day they will become adults and this is preparing them for the choices, they have to make when they are older. People should learn to make their own decisions about what they eat. We all have been told what to do and how we should do it all of our lives. It should be our decision as to being obese or not. No one should be allowed to make that decision for us-- especially, the federal government.