Sunday, August 29, 2010

the ongoing food revolution - the lunch version

It's back to school time... wannna talk back to school lunches? One of my bloggy BFFs The Scattered Mom sure does and she's having a party with prizes!!



School lunches throw me for a bit of a loop. Our school is on the balanced day program where the kids get two 40 minute nutrition/recess breaks. There was a real learning curve when Abby started school. but now that she's headed into grade three I think we've got it figured out. For Abby anyway.

Now we have Maya starting school and I feel like I'm starting all over again. Maya is a very picky eater and she would happily go without food rather than try something she's already decided she doesn't like. She's lived on peanut butter sandwiches pretty much her entire life and that phase is about to come to an abrupt end because peanut butter is a no no at our school. Now what?

She recently started eating grilled cheese, so that will be making an appearance. Yep, my kids love cold grilled cheese. Luckily she likes yogurt, but only the kind that has two flavours in the same container. She likes KD, the kind that has the cauliflower in it. She doesn't eat cheese or lunch meat or any meat at all really or granola bars or muffins. She will eat gold fish crackers, rice crackers and rice cakes.

Abby will typically have a sandwich, either ham or a grilled cheese. Just last night at dinner she asked if she could have grilled chicken on a *multi-grain* wrap with some ranch dressing in her lunch this year. She also likes granola bars either the ones I make or the high fibre ones, blueberry or corn muffins, biscuits, goldfish, homemade cookies, cheese and crackers and cheese strings. Occasionally she'll take a juice, but she has a refillable water bottle at school and prefers to drink water.

Our school used to have pizza day once a week and sub day once a month. There will be changes to those this coming year with what the schools will now be allowed to offer for lunch. Schools will be required to have a food committee and a log book will have to be kept regarding what we offered the students on which date. Food being offered to the kids will have to fall within certain nutrition guidelines, so for example pizza will be allowed, but only on whole wheat crust and either veggie or plain cheese. I'm not sure if sub days will make the cut.

My kids lunches aren't perfect, but the get a little bit better all the time and it's those little changes that eventually add up to something big.

2 comments:

Mommy Project said...

Really?!? I think a whole wheat/grain veggie sub is a whole heckuva lot healthier than a cheese pizza!!! Hmmm...maybe i'm going to have to get myself on some sort of committee!!
;-)

Susanna said...

Did I understood correctly that you pack lunch or snack for the kids to school?

My kids get lunch at school, but since they skate a lot I'm used to packing lots of snacks. And one hit is raw veggies in a separate small lunchbox. For some reason this isn't popular at home, but when they are on the go it's suddenly yummy. I usually pack sliced carrots, sliced cucumber, cherry tomatoes, grapes or similar.

Have fun with start of school! The kids have already gone for 2 weeks and I'm slowly getting used to it again.