A Call to Arms: The War on Healthy School Lunches
The average school lunch being consumed by children all over the nation costs less than one dollar (Cooper). A lack of effort for improving school cafeterias nationwide has led to dismal meals for students. The academic and physical growth of a child is dependent on many things ranging from sleep to eating habits. When one piece of the puzzle is missing, the whole idea falls apart. In this new age of health crazed diets and low-budgets, the Brunswick City Schools Food Service Department falls short. With inedible substances and a lack of regard for fresh foods, students have to scarf down the infamous “mystery meat” daily. With numerous farmers markets and farms in the proximity of Brunswick, …show more content…
Frozen food may provide the ease of maintaining food that can expire soon, but not without an expense. Based on the Food Department’s menu, a frozen chicken patty consists of twelve grams of carbohydrates (Becker). The nutritional value of fresh chicken consists of zero carbohydrates while a light, flour battered fried chicken serving only consists of 2.37 grams of carbohydrates (USDA). Based on this research, many of these extra carbohydrates are found from the use of preservatives, which have a negative effect on the body. Nitrates, found in foods such as hot dogs, are used to preserve food, which has been linked to thyroid cancer (Kilfoy). Preservative filled “chicken” patties are vastly unhealthy compared to fresh chicken breast. The main encores are not the only foods in the lunch line that are over processed and packed with preservatives. Many of the snack options include cookies (make from pre-packaged cookie dough), Goldfish, and Bosco Sticks. One Bosco Stick alone contains twenty-seven grams of carbs and twenty percent of your recommended daily intake of saturated fat (USDA; Nagle). One item alone is unhealthy without the fact that students have access to unlimited amounts of these during lunch. A student may walk out of the cafeteria with five bags of goldfish and two Bosco Sticks if they please, and there are no regulations that can prevent such …show more content…
Though the school may meet the bare minimum requirements for funding from the National School Lunch Program (by providing one-third of caloric needs a day based on NSLP standards on the Food Department website), the preservative filled snacks and main lunches counteracts this act (National School Lunch Program; Becker). The possibly carcinogenic filled food promotes an unhealthy life style that will likely carry on with the student at home and after graduating. A simple, yet promising, measure can easily be taken with a few steps. School systems like Hudson, Independence and Tallmadge have already taken an initiative to promote fresh, locally grown produce and meat. By eliminating a large middleman, these school systems are able to afford the freshest products from local farms in the area. The Fresh Fork Market is a distributer that brings many different farms together to provide easy access to this food. With Ohio’s plentiful resource of farming, it is foolish to not buy locally. Though certain schools have only implemented this plan for a few weeks at a time, bringing this new program to the Brunswick School District for a large percentage of the time will drastically change the outlook on eating healthy promoting a healthy
The average school lunch being consumed by children all over the nation costs less than one dollar (Cooper). A lack of effort for improving school cafeterias nationwide has led to dismal meals for students. The academic and physical growth of a child is dependent on many things ranging from sleep to eating habits. When one piece of the puzzle is missing, the whole idea falls apart. In this new age of health crazed diets and low-budgets, the Brunswick City Schools Food Service Department falls short. With inedible substances and a lack of regard for fresh foods, students have to scarf down the infamous “mystery meat” daily. With numerous farmers markets and farms in the proximity of Brunswick, …show more content…
Frozen food may provide the ease of maintaining food that can expire soon, but not without an expense. Based on the Food Department’s menu, a frozen chicken patty consists of twelve grams of carbohydrates (Becker). The nutritional value of fresh chicken consists of zero carbohydrates while a light, flour battered fried chicken serving only consists of 2.37 grams of carbohydrates (USDA). Based on this research, many of these extra carbohydrates are found from the use of preservatives, which have a negative effect on the body. Nitrates, found in foods such as hot dogs, are used to preserve food, which has been linked to thyroid cancer (Kilfoy). Preservative filled “chicken” patties are vastly unhealthy compared to fresh chicken breast. The main encores are not the only foods in the lunch line that are over processed and packed with preservatives. Many of the snack options include cookies (make from pre-packaged cookie dough), Goldfish, and Bosco Sticks. One Bosco Stick alone contains twenty-seven grams of carbs and twenty percent of your recommended daily intake of saturated fat (USDA; Nagle). One item alone is unhealthy without the fact that students have access to unlimited amounts of these during lunch. A student may walk out of the cafeteria with five bags of goldfish and two Bosco Sticks if they please, and there are no regulations that can prevent such …show more content…
Though the school may meet the bare minimum requirements for funding from the National School Lunch Program (by providing one-third of caloric needs a day based on NSLP standards on the Food Department website), the preservative filled snacks and main lunches counteracts this act (National School Lunch Program; Becker). The possibly carcinogenic filled food promotes an unhealthy life style that will likely carry on with the student at home and after graduating. A simple, yet promising, measure can easily be taken with a few steps. School systems like Hudson, Independence and Tallmadge have already taken an initiative to promote fresh, locally grown produce and meat. By eliminating a large middleman, these school systems are able to afford the freshest products from local farms in the area. The Fresh Fork Market is a distributer that brings many different farms together to provide easy access to this food. With Ohio’s plentiful resource of farming, it is foolish to not buy locally. Though certain schools have only implemented this plan for a few weeks at a time, bringing this new program to the Brunswick School District for a large percentage of the time will drastically change the outlook on eating healthy promoting a healthy