Healthful Bites

Just in time for National School Lunch Week last week, Mrs. Q (aka Chicago elementary school speech pathologist Sarah Wu) released a book spinoff of her popular blog Fed Up With Lunch. School lunch is a captivating topic, in my opinion, since it’s something that nearly everyone can relate to and the issues at play have so much more going on than meets the eye.

Soon after Fed Up With Lunch was available I downloaded the book on my Kindle and devoured almost as quickly as the kids at the author’s school could finish the almost daily side of six tater tots! On her blog, Wu used photos and brief descriptions to chronicle her experience eating school “hot lunches” for one full calendar year. Soon after its launch, nutrition advocates caught wind of her project and an extensive dialogue about public school lunch offerings began. This book explains the behind-the-scenes work that went into the blog (Wu had to scurry back to her room each day to snap a picture of her meal. She was afraid school officials wouldn’t be so keen on the concept—hence the pseudonym.) As a result of several meals that looked like this and this, Wu became more interested in nutrition and public policy, and shares what she learned, along with many of her lunch photos, in her book.

While I didn’t learn anything particularly new from a policy level since I had already read up on the topic for a few college projects, Fed Up With Lunch provides a pretty thorough overview for those who may have forgotten all about that time when regular milk was called “white milk.” For any reader, whether well-versed in the topic or not, it’s pretty fascinating to try to brainstorm ways to improve the current system while considering all of the cooks in the proverbial school lunch kitchen (government organizations and subsidies, large-scale food distributors set in their ways and don’t think about trying to implement neat programs like those suggested by the folks behind Edible Schoolyard or Alliance for a Healthier Generation…). It seems to all boil down to a money issue, but there has to be some way to put out food that’s better than rib-shaped mystery meat on a bun, French fries and a sugary juice box. Because how healthy is it if you eat that 180 times each year? And what does it teach kids about how they should be eating for the rest of their lives?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user USDAgov

I’m no saint through—my bagged lunchduring grade school might have included a turkey bagel sandwich, apple, bag of chips or pretzels and a Nutty Bar (remember those?) or cookie. What did you eat during your school lunches and how does that compare to what you enjoy for lunch now?

And do you have any suggestions for how our country can makeover the current school lunch program?