Chef Salad w/ Crackers (offered) OR
*Grilled Chicken on Bun (offered) OR
Sack Lunch (Ham and Cheese SW) (not offered)
Baked Chips (offered -- and I am assuming that Sun Chips are baked)
*Carrot Sticks w/ Ranch (offered)
Variety of Fresh Fruit (banana, apple, orange)
*Chilled Peaches (offered)
Today's meal was brought to you by the color orange.
The grilled chicken sandwhich was my choice today.
It was dry but tasted okay. Iceberg lettuce, tomato and pickle were available on the side. It appeared to be on a whole wheat bun. Carrots were crisp and yummy. The orange was delicious.
We had the sun chips again. Today I snapped a picture of the contents.
Sodium is 160 mg, Total fat 6 g
And I thought this was worthy of taking a picture of. This is what the chicken sandwich was wrapped up in. It is such fast food, that you don't even have time to figure out where to put the sandwich without written instructions. Talk about insulting the kitchen staff!
Posts
A few thoughts from a big fan...
ReplyDeleteI salute you for taking on this project, Ms. Tree!
That wrapper looks a lot like those at Burger King, where my brother worked for years, and had all kinds of instructions for the food prep people.
Meredith is one of the no-pizza eaters but otherwise likes school lunch. A good part of it is that, at school, she controls what she eats without parental intervention, which has nothing at all to do with what is served and everything to do with the fact that she is 9. She often chooses the chef salad. I would love to know about the "ham" and "cheese" that are involved in that effort, but you may already have more than enough investigating to do!
Thank you for undertaking this project, which has clearly already caused a bit of a stir -- and you've only got one week left to go!
I appreciate what you have chosen to do. I think it is interesting that "pizza day" is a dislike for children all over the district. I didn't know about the bloody baked chicken story until I read it here on your blog. I stay away from the chicken in all forms. What are your plans when February is past? I'm sure you will think of something.
ReplyDeleteLaura what do you call "REAL FOOD"? Is the baked chicken, green beans, fresh fruit or spaghetti not real enough for you? You also have to think about how much each tray of food cost. Not just the cost of the food but time it takes to prepare. You also have to decide what those children are more likely to eat. It will do no one any good if your so called "Real Food" is cooked if the children wont eat it. Yeah some of the menus are not great but all of them is not as bad as what people try to make them out to be. Why don't you go back to where I said, why dont one of you try making the menus with all the restrictions and food costs and other things that you have to look at. And dont forget to look at how long will it take the staff to prepare the menu.
ReplyDeleteYou know, Ms. Tree, I'm glad that you do recognize your kitchen staff and do extra things for them because unless you have worked in the kitchen you really don't know what its like. I dont mean every now and then but try it for a month or two. Everyone says you are not attacking the staff but when you criticize how the food taste you are attacking the staff. They do the best with what they have and thats all they can do.
I have a question for you Quila. Do you actually prepare the food? Do you start with a recipe, receive fresh ingredients and then actually prepare the recipe?? You know chop the vegetables, boil the pasta, make a roux? OR do you instead open a container pour "food" to another container and heat it up? If it is the latter then you have nothing to fear about the criticism of how the food tastes. You've done nothing but heat up what is provided for you. You have no control over what is in the food, how it tastes or even how it looks.
ReplyDeleteDo not fear Quila. I am not here to make kitchen workers of OKCPS out to be the villain. They are not. As I've said before the problem lies beyond the school kitchen.
Dear Anonymous. I'm not sure what my plans will be. I have considered going in to a middle school or a high school. I have considered checking out the breakfast menus.
ReplyDeleteWhen I come to the end of this month I'll post what my observations are and what I think about this project.
Thanks for reading!
Thanks for the thumbs up Meredith's mom! I'm glad to do this!! It's seems to be making an impact.
ReplyDeleteMs. Tree it is done both ways.Not everything comes in a container but no not everything is done with fresh vegetables. Like I said you are not fixing for 5-6 people. Chopping all those fresh vegetables takes time and like I said whether it comes from a container or you have to chop everything fresh you dont get extra help in the kitchen. The labor hours are set. You also need time to do extra cleaning in those hours to because there is no maid service that comes in and cleans up the mess. Say they spend all their time chopping fresh bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and boiling pasta and making a pasta salad. How many children do you really think will eat it? This is not only time consuming but a waste of money because the children throw it away. That is why I keep saying isn't it better to fix something that the children will eat instead of filling up the trash cans with it.Also as far as the taste test go did you not look back in the previous monthes where they had a taste test on avacados and bean sprouts? Yeah maybe you know what a banana is but there are so many parents that do not buy fresh fruit so not all children has tried everything. And as far as the problem being beyond the school kitchens. Im sure that some days those people beyond the kitchens would like to tell the people complaining that if they think they can do a better job with everything they have to worry about when making the menus(like cost of the food and if its in the warehouse and if the children will eat it and how much fat sodium sugar and everything else in it)then bring it on. Adults are like children, they need to hear praise sometimes and not just criticism.
ReplyDeleteQuila~
ReplyDeleteI want to make it clear as well that I appreciate the hard work that goes on in the cafeteria and am fully aware that you are not staffed, nor do you have the facilities, to prepare food from scratch. The system needs a bigger change, including more funding, to make that happen.
I have volunteered many times in our school cafeteria and, not only served on the line, but also stayed to help clean up after lunch. Our manager frequently stays late to get her own work done because she has prepped and served and had no time for the copious paperwork required.
There are some changes that are easy to make, like not serving sugary breakfast items, cereals, and milks, adding fresh fruits, switching to whole grains. These can and have been done with little extra expense and minimal increase in labor.
There are some improvements that require a systemic level of change starting with the USDA and all the way down to the district and hopefully our government will rise to the challenge.
When you cook at home, do you use ingredients such as hydrolyzed vegetable protein, sodium casseinate, disodium inosinate, and torula yeast? No, because these are not FOOD. These are just a few of the ingredients used in the turkey gravy and fed to our children. Real food is made with ingredients that you can purchase at the super market and not filled with chemicals.
87% of the children in our district are on free/reduced lunch and they don't need to be fed chemicals and taught to only eat fast food items. This generation of children will have shorter life spans than their parents, for the first time in the history of man, unless we help to change what they are being fed now.
Laura Unless you buy all fresh vegetables and fruit then everything has added ingredients and even the fresh vegetables that you buy you don't know what kind of chemicals has been sprayed on them. The people who are teaching the children to "only eat" fast food are the parents that dont cook and only eat out at these fast food places. From the time tht children can walk and talk these fast food places and the parents cater to them. Dont blame it all on the school lunches.They are just trying to prepare something the children will eat. As far as breakfasts goes cereal is offered everyday but another choice is also offered and growing children need calcium for their bones. So why take milk out of their diets? You don't know what they get when they get home or if they get anything at all. Im not a dietician or a nutritionist but I think its better that these children eat something on that tray instead of just throwing it all away. But like I said you cant please everyone.
ReplyDeleteNever meant to blame it all on school lunch. You can't tell parents how to do their job, but it is not unreasonable to ask for healthy school lunch and breakfast.
ReplyDeleteThe milk I was referring to are the sugared milks offered at breakfast and lunch, adding an extra 22 grams of sugar per day to the diet.b
Ms Tree....have you ever bought something in a package with an arrow pointing to "OPEN HERE"?
ReplyDeleteWhat is the difference in a wrap that tells you where to place the sandwich and a package that tells you where to open it? Maybe you couldn't find enough things wrong with the lunch so now you're picking on the sandwich wraps.
Seriously Quila, do you think it is ethical to feed children fast food look-a-likes, however healthy they may really be, and then send them out into the real world and expect them to be able to tell the difference between your healthy alternatives and Chicken Mcnuggets (NOT HEALTHY) or P$zza H$t pepperoni pizza (DITTO)? Please answer.
ReplyDelete