Take this school lunch. Please!
Have you ever hung out with a group of second-graders during lunchtime? I have, and what all the high-stakes, high-pitched, frantic trading, its the elementary-school version of the New York Stock Exchange: “Ill give you my trail mix – it has M&Ms! – for two Oreos.” “Ill trade you my vanilla pudding for your Gatorade.” “No way will I give you Doritos for an apple!”
The allure, and even pressure, for most kids to have some good ole American junk food – the trans-fatty, sugar-and-salt-laden, over-processed, artifical-colored-and-flavored beauty of it all – packed into their school lunch bag is fierce. And, woe to my two poor kids whove begged, begged me to put, at the very least – geez!!! – to put Fruit Roll-Ups in their lunch. (“OMG!Thats so not fair! All the other kids at school get them. And theyre not un-healthy. Theyre called fruit roll-ups because theyre full of fruit!” Um, no theyre not, but will my kids listen when I say that an orange is a fruit; an orange-colored rubbery strip is not? No, they will not.) So I can imagine the daily battles schools with hundreds of kids must be having – especially school administrators who actually care about what their students are eating.
No wonder theres an escalating food fight in the Chicago Public School System, where principals can forbid kids to bring their own lunch if they deem them too unhealthy. Thats just what Principal Elsa Carmona has done at Chicagos Little Village Academy. Kids cant bring their own lunches and must eat what the school serves them. That means the kids arent drinking sodas and eating Flamin Hot Cheetos. So this is great!
But heres the puzzler: If you youve watched an episode of Jamie Olivers Food Revolution, youve gotten an insiders view (maybe way more than youd want to, like how they process hamburgers with ammonia or pack flavored milk with nearly as much sugar as a Coke) into what passes for lunch in the L.A. public school district. And if the school lunches in Chicago are anywhere near as unhealthy and nasty-looking as the ones in L.A., well, beyond the issue of parents, and kids, rights to pack and pick what they eat, Im wondering: Isnt there any way for a kid to get a decent lunch in this country?
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