Do You Really Want To Eat Them?
Why pack a lunch when you can get a perfectly good, healthy one at school? It saves time in the morning, some parents say. Other parents say its a waste of money and good food from home. Which side is right?
This year school lunch trays have been a little bit lighter. Kids have been complaining that they are still hungry after lunch, and that affects their ability to learn and how well they do in school. It also affects what food they eat. When kids get home, on a regular basis, they usually make a beeline for the junk food. But what will happen if kids eat their usual amount of junk food and they still are hungry? They just keep on eating. Studies found that children who regularly ate school lunches were 29 percent more likely to be obese than their peers who brought lunch from home.
Nutrition
School lunches are also supposed to be healthy. “The average school meal must have no more than 30 calories from fat, no more than 10 percent of calories from saturated fat and provide 1/3 of children’s Dietary Reference Intake for protein, calories, calcium, iron and vitamins A and C,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service. But not all of the time. In fact, as 6th grade student Lillian Brooks was eating her school lunch, calzone, grease dripped down her hand. “As I was about to take a bite of my calzone, I felt something sticky run down my hand. I looked at my hand, and to my surprise, it was grease,” She said.
There’s Good Things Too!
There are some good things about school lunches too. They save time in the morning, when you are getting ready, you save about fifteen minutes in the morning buying lunch at school instead of slapping a sandwich together at the last minute. Also, they are actually pretty cheap. School lunches are, at an average, about $2.46 per lunch. Which, if compared to a restaurant lunch, is a lot less.
How They’ve Changed
Also, school lunches have changed a lot. “When I was little, school lunches weren’t very good for you,” local teacher Rachel Barker says. “In fact, my mother always packed my lunch because it was healthier.” School lunches used to have white bread, and less healthy things then we have now. We now have cafeterias offering students fruits and vegetables every day, limiting the calories, fat, and sodium that we have to the right levels, and increasing offerings of whole grains. School lunches have many pros and cons. They have small portions, and are sometimes made with ingredients that are disturbing. But they are pretty cheap compared to other lunches and have changed a lot. So, its your decision. Do you want to eat school lunches?