Lunchables, Chicken Rings, and Other School Lunch Sins

Yesterday I served lunch duty at my son's elementary school.

Lunch duty, as explained by my six-year-old, is: "Mom, all you do is show up at 11. That's early. I don't know why we eat so early, but we do. But all you do is when someone raises their hand, you go over and see what they need."

So I did. Usually what they needed was A) for me to open something, B) a spork, C) ketchup, or D) to tell me that the kid next to them was copying them. In the cases of A, B, or C, I provided the necessary service and moved on. In the case of D I told them I was there for lunch duty, not tattling duty, and to work it out amongst themselves.

The hour and a half I spent in the lunchroom really opened my eyes to something. I'm not going to be so quick to speak ill of school lunches anymore. Of course, school lunch has its problems and I certainly don't think that pizza is a vegetable. But the lunches brought from home were far more frightening than the ones served at school.

It's easy to blame the cafeteria lady, but at least she's trying to serve vegetables and fruit. Yes, it's cuddled up next to a terrifying thing called "chicken rings," which are nuggets (the particle board of food products) shaped like doughnuts. On chicken ring day, Zach likes to ask his high schoolers, "If chicken legs come from the leg, and chicken breasts come from the breast, where do you suppose chicken rings come from?"

If that's not food for thought, I don't know what is.

 

Take a quick survey of the "cold" lunches brought into an elementary school, and you would be completely shocked at the cornucopia of sugar, dyes, artificial flavoring, sodium, and generally nutritionally void food.


Hands down the most bizarre thing I saw was a bag of pre-packaged chicken nuggets a kid brought from home. When he shook the bag real hard, they magically became "barbecued" (or so he said). I'm not sure I have the brain capacity to handle the weird science that created "edible" monstrosity.

But the average lunch included:

• A Capri Sun. 16 grams of sugar. (That's 4 teaspoons)
  Here's the ingredient list: FRUIT PUNCH: WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, PEAR AND GRAPE JUICE CONCENTRATES, CITRIC ACID, WATER, EXTRACTED ORANGE AND PINEAPPLE JUICE CONCENTRATES, NATURAL FLAVOR, VITAMIN E ACETATE.
  
•  A Lunchable. I saw a few of the pepperoni pizza version. 6 grams of sugar, 760mg sodium
  Ingredients: PIZZA CRUSTS - WHEAT FLOUR (ENRICHED BLEACHED WHEAT FLOUR [FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID], WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR), WATER, SOYBEAN OIL, GLYCERINE, SUGAR, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: YEAST, VITAL WHEAT GLUTEN, MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, SALT, SOY LECITHIN, GUAR GUM, CARBOXYMETHYLCELLULOSE, DATEM, CALCIUM PROPIONATE, SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, XANTHAN GUM, ENZYME, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, SORBIC ACID. CONTAINS: WHEAT, SOY. PIZZA SAUCE - WATER, TOMATO PASTE, SUGAR, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, SALT, GARLIC POWDER, ONION POWDER, SPICE, CITRIC ACID, POTASSIUM SORBATE AS A PRESERVATIVE, XANTHAN GUM, NATURAL FLAVOR. PASTEURIZED PREPARED MOZZARELLA CHEESE PRODUCT - PASTEURIZED PART-SKIM MILK, WATER, WHEY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, MILK PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, MILKFAT, SODIUM CITRATE, SALT, SORBIC ACID AS A PRESERVATIVE, ENZYMES, CHEESE CULTURE. CONTAINS: MILK. PEPPERONI MADE WITH PORK, CHICKEN AND BEEF - BHA, BHT AND CITRIC ACID ADDED TO HELP PROTECT FLAVOR - PORK, MECHANICALLY SEPARATED CHICKEN, BEEF, SALT, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF PORK STOCK, SPICES, DEXTROSE, LACTIC ACID STARTER CULTURE, OLEORESIN OF PAPRIKA, FLAVORING, SODIUM ASCORBATE, SODIUM NITRITE, BHA, BHT, CITRIC ACID.
  
• Go-gurt. (Have you heard of this? It's yogurt in a tube. Weird.) 10 grams sugar. One clever blogger pointed out that ounce per ounce, that's more sugar than a Coca-cola.
  Here are the ingredients: Cultured Pasteurized Grade A Milk, Sugar, Nonfat Milk, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Modified Corn Starch, Kosher Gelatin, Tricalcium Phosphate, Potassium Sorbate (preservative), Carrageenan, Natural And Artificial Flavor, Carmine (a food additive for coloring, to make it you have to boil dried insects in water to extract the carminic acid).

Let's not even talk about the litany of Frankenstein ingredients in three "simple" lunchbox staples. Let's just add up the sugar.

16 + 6 + 10 = 32 grams

There is one teaspoon of sugar in 4 grams, so that's 8 teaspoons of sugar in one lunch. Go spoon out eight teaspoons of sugar on a plate. Go on! I'll wait.

Here's a great article about what sugar does to your brain and body.

Now, let's all ponder why in the world so many kids are having difficulty concentrating. Have such a hard time sitting still. Can't seem to get enough food. Can't seem to behave.

Kid after kid after kid I saw chowing down on bags of Doritos -- one kid had the family size bag!, and candy, and sugared-up "fruit" drinks, and pudding, and on and on and on.

We have got to do better than this. I bet a lot of parents think they're doing the right thing by packing their kids' lunch, but just because it came from the loving confines of your home doesn't mean it's healthy.

And it's not to say that I pack perfect lunches, either. I have days where I rely on pre-packaged items for the "dessert" in Drew's lunch. But I try to make small changes to get more nutrients and less sugar. Things like packing water instead of a fruit drink. Pretzels or veggie straws instead of chips. Whole wheat bread or tortillas instead of white bread.

We're setting these kids up for a lifetime of battles with their weight, with their immune system, with their relationship to healthy foods. They quite possibly will never figure out why they're so tired, so sick, so down in the dumps.

First we have to learn about food for ourselves, and then we need to teach it to our children. Otherwise they'll never know where chicken ring really comes from.

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