Prominently displayed on the corporate food service brochure was the new USDA "My Plate," the government's updated food pyramid. "My Plate" prominently displays 50% fruits and vegetables to 25% each grains and proteins. So, hoping this company practiced what they preached, I looked over the weekly menus:
- Grilled cheese, tater tots, and pears
- Pizza, fries, and fruit cup
- Nachos with meat and cheese with corn
Hmmmm, I haven't had elementary math in a long time but those school lunches just don't add up. Especially if you don't count corn as a vegetable!
And that's saying nothing about how it's all overly processed, preservative- and salt-laden, canned or frozen not fresh food.
But I know from experience that the kids would probably love it. Because I loved school lunch. Cheesy, salty, carbs, dessert! But that was long before people really talked about or understood seasonal, local, fresh, organic. And I am not so simple that I would say school lunch made me fat; mainly because I gained most of my weight after 12 years of public school lunch. Though, it might have contributed to my poor food habits.
Suffice it to say, I'm not jazzed about school lunch, almost more from the chemicals than the calories. But I also don't want to make that cafeteria tray the Holy Grail. So, with gentle prodding from Mama Hungry, whose small Catholic school didn't even have food service except on hot dog Fridays (it was NY after all--and the fish requirement, though culturally still prevalent, officially went out with Vatican II, as I understand it), I've relented and they can have school lunch occasionally, pre-approved. Though, secretly I'm hoping they'll run back to my homemade lunches. Even if I know better.
We did, however, have a great conversation about food this morning. They like to hear the story about why I became a vegetarian, as if it were a family fairy tale. They don't remember my eating meat, even though I've only been veg for 4 years. And so Bud was talking about wonton soup and I agreed that it was good, "How do you know, Mom? The dumplings have meatballs." And I reminded him that I used to eat meat.
"Why not now?"
Once upon a time . . . And so I told them again that I didn't like the idea of eating dead animals. They followed along that eggs, milk, and honey were okay to me because the animals didn't die. And then I told them that even though they ate meat, we tried to choose the happiest chicken and cows who ate the best food and lived the best lives and died the best way.
"And the food at school is made from unhappy cows!"
As Gommie commented later on the phone, "You'll probably need to put some money in the therapy jar."*
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The "therapy jar" was an early, entertaining concept Mama and I originated. Every time we did something we figured would screw up the kids somehow, we said we needed to put money away for their future therapists.
I think, if we'd been diligent, we'd have enough saved for college (and therapy) by now!
The therapy jar references had me laughing out loud.
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