WWH: School Lunches

When I started writing this post, I did a quick google on School Lunches. Not surprisingly, I scrolled through 2 pages of "pro-school lunch" articles, all written by either a school district or a blog/website that specifically supports school lunches.

In general, I don't believe that school lunches are necessarily "bad." For many families in our country, it's sadly the only balanced meal their children get in a day. In our era of fast food convenience, french fries are considered a vegetable and a school lunch may be the only time something green (other than a fruit roll up) is offered.

However, kids left to make their own decisions don't always make the best decisions. I know that my 5 year old, left to make her own milk decision, would choose chocolate milk (which we don't drink at home) simply because the word "chocolate" is in the title.

According to Calorie King:
1 cup of 1% Chocolate Milk has 158 calories, 2.5 grams of fat--24.8 g of SUGAR
1 cup of 1% plain white Milk has 105 calories, 2.4 grams of fat--0 g of SUGAR

I'm also opposed to the amount of sodium typical in a school lunch, as well as the added ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup (which seem to be in EVERYTHING these days), and the load of artificial flavors and preservatives laden in boxed, canned and pre-packaged foods.

As expected, left to their own accord, most kids will choose the "fun food" over the healthy food...such as chocolate milk over the plain milk or eating all of the pizza and none of the vegetables.

That's not to say that we hold all "fun" foods from our kids; we're not naive enough to think if we keep them from our children they will never want them. I'm sure there are many people who grew up without any treats and "went crazy" when they could finally choose for themselves. We allow the kids to choose occasional sweets, but the key for us is to teach that dessert is not necessary (and we RARELY have dessert after a meal) and that controlling ourselves with the sweets is important. Moderation is definitely the key.

One of the MANY reasons that we homeschool is to teach our kids good eating habits and reinforce them daily. We don't eat meals in front of the television but rather at the dining table. We very rarely snack in front of the television, minus the occasional bowl of popcorn for a movie as a family. Our goal is that our children know where their food comes from, the nutritional value of the food, and how to choose and prepare such food.

My goal for next year is to develop a decent garden. I'd planned to do it this year, but I'm just not up for it during this pregnancy. Next year we'll start with some basics: tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, green beans, etc. We want our girls to know how to grow their own food and appreciate where it comes from.