TUPELO, Miss. - When it comes to the lunches our children are eating at school, there's good news and there's bad news. The good news is school cafeterias across Mississippi have worked hard in the past couple of years to rid menus of excessive fat, sugar and calories.
Soon, they'll begin to incorporate whole grains and low-sodium items into cafeteria fare.
The bad news is parents aren't doing a very good job at home of packing healthy lunches for the kids who like to brown-bag it. They also aren't setting good examples at the dinner table.
"Last fall, I was a teacher's assistant in a kindergarten class, so I saw sack lunches versus cafeteria lunches," said Brenda Massey, director of food services for the Booneville School District. "You'd be amazed at the sack lunches full of sugar. I'm talking really unhealthy stuff."
Often, parents think that because a food carries a label with the word "fruit" on it, it's something good, said Leanne Davis, a registered dietitian at the North Mississippi Medical Center's Wellness Center.
"Fruit chews, Fruit Roll-Ups, Strawberry Pop-Tarts, Capri-Sun Fruit Drinks, sweetened applesauce — these are not real fruits," said Davis. "If it doesn't say 100 percent fruit juice or if it has added sugar, it doesn't count."
So what's a parent to do?
"Think about the Food Guide Pyramid," said Davis. "Look at that pyramid and see what you could put in that lunch box. Could you get a whole grain, a piece of fruit, a veggie, some protein and a little bit of fat? When I'm building a lunch box, I'm trying to think color, variety and texture."
For instance, you might put a tablespoon of peanut butter on a whole wheat tortilla, top it with a sliced banana and roll it up. Put a small bag of pretzels with that and buy a carton of milk in the cafeteria and you're good to go.
For the non-meat eater, you could pack 2 percent cheese cubes, grapes, pretzels, a granola bar and a bottle of water.
Or how about a salad made with spring greens, grilled chicken, black beans, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots?
"Make it as colorful as you can," she said. "Put the dressing on the side and add a piece of fruit to round it out."
Davis warned parents not to cram too much food into younger children's sack lunches.
"A second-grader only needs half of a sandwich," she said. "He only needs one or two ounces of sliced turkey, a half-slice of cheese, a half-cup of fruit and maybe a couple of carrots. You don't want to overwhelm the little ones, but you do want to make sure the older ones have enough."
For older students and especially athletes, tucking an extra piece of fruit or a granola bar in the lunch box for an afternoon snack is also a good idea, Davis said.
What about those parents who don't have the time, energy or desire to pack school lunches?
That's where the school cafeteria comes in.
"We have worked so hard to find innovative ways to prepare meals so that students can still have their favorite foods but also make healthy choices," said Lynne Rogers, director of food service for the Tupelo Public School District.
"My motto is, 'All foods can fit,'" she said. "If a child wants to select french fries, he should be able to put a meal together that incorporates french fries."
By the way, those french fries are baked, as are potato rounds, steak fingers and fried chicken.
"I think parents need to know what we're doing, how we're preparing our foods and the ingredients we're using," she said.
So, if that student chooses those french fries, maybe he could pick up the grilled chicken sandwich with tomatoes and lettuce on a whole grain bun to go with them instead of the taco supreme.
If he adds a fresh fruit cup and a carton of milk, he's got a healthy meal.
Each lunch meal offered in the cafeteria has five components: milk, meat, fruit, vegetables and bread. Every day, students are given a choice of 1 percent plain milk or 0.5 percent flavored milk; two meat choices; two fruit choices; two vegetable choices; and one or two bread choices.
The student may choose as many as five components, but must have a minimum of three.
"Servers encourage them to have all five," Rogers said. "But it's not the same as counting the number of items on a tray. For instance, pizza is a meat and a bread. So a student could choose pizza and a carton of milk and be compliant. But we'd rather them go back and see if they could pick one or two more items they might like."
Massey said one reason students tend to make less than desirable choices in the cafeteria is because they're not learning to eat healthfully at home.
"Normally, the children won't pick up a whole wheat roll or a whole grain roll because that's not what they're used to," she said. "They've got to learn that at home or at least be guided that way."
And the cafeteria can prepare healthy breakfasts and lunches all day long, but if parents aren't doing the same in the evenings, students will get mixed messages.
"We have people who pick their kids up from school at 3 o'clock
E-mail
Print
-
More News »