Lunches

School lunches are an interesting topic that hits both on the buying local issue and buying better products issue. If you have kids in school, I would advise eating a tray lunch with them from time to time. You may be surprised.

I have fond memories of school lunches. I was the weird kid who loved them. I bought school lunches all the way up through high school. While mentoring this past year I have bought a school lunch every Tuesday. The adult lunch is the exact same as what the kids are eating. Let me just tell you that they are not the same as I remember!

Austin school lunches are technically pretty healthy. They are low fat and there are lots of whole grains, fresh fruit, and vegetables. Sounds good, but in practice it falls apart. The vegetables are usually mushy beyond belief so they don't get eaten. The main dishes use very little real meat and seem to rely heavily on soy blends. They are often carb heavy and seem to consist of lots of packaged, processed foods. There are plenty of refined sugars in sugar-added milks and yogurts.

At the school I mentor at 90% of the kids get federally funded free lunch. That means you and I are paying for these lunches. I would rather pay more to ensure kids get real meat and local, fresh produce. I would rather pay more to have cooks prepare the food from scratch at the cafeteria. In the long run it would mean lower health care costs by showing kids how good real, healthy foods can be.

Sadly, I don’t think many of them get much better at home. I have a voyeuristic habit of checking out what other people are buying at the grocery store while waiting in the checkout line. Every week there are people with kids in tow buying poor quality food. I’ve seen families load up on nothing but white bread, baloney, ramen noodles, and sugary cereal. If there were no additives these people would all have scurvy!

Grocery bills are our second biggest expense (behind the mortgage). It is worth every penny to buy better food. This includes eating out. We all have to eat so we should make it an enjoyable experience! I'm all for budgeting, but living in an affordable house with affordable vehicles and few expensive habits means you can eat what you want when you want and enjoy to the fullest one of life's most basic pleasures.