school lunches

In the midst of the Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and the Local Matters movement, we have been bombarded with a deluge of information of what is better for us to eat and why. But, most of us may not see the links to a student's home life and what they are eating for lunch and how important this link is.

While we encourage packing your child's lunch (at least until all schools have the Healthy Options program) to know what is going into their little tummies, during a time of recession, many public school goers are not able to do so. With parents laid off from jobs and some jobs cutting back, schools lunches are some parents' mealtime saviors.

When I first learned that very little cooking actually happens in our nation's school cafeterias, I was truly shocked and bewildered. What in the heck were the students eating if not food prepared in their cafeterias? I suspect that a great many people are unanware that food prep in the majority of school cafeterias consists of reheating processed and pre-packaged foods. In fact, according to The New York Times, less than 20 percent of the nation’s districts cook more than half oftheir entrees from scratch.