Super Eco

Photo credit: LaptopLunches.com

I ate lunch at school with my daughter last week. I toted in cold spinach/tomato Amy's pizza, banana slices with a few semi-frozen berries tucked in, raisins mixed with semi-sweet chocolate chips, water in our Sigg bottles. The other kids? They ate ... well, brown and beige stuff. I identified fried chicken, French fries or mashed potatoes with gravy, pudding, chocolate milk—a bland, unappealing smear of processed "food products" that explained the loudspeaker announcement halfway through mealtime reminding the kids to eat a few bites of their meals before heading to the ice cream machine (for more brown-coated goo).

This is the state of today's public school lunches. Science, it seems, would concur: research in this month's Journal of the American Dietetic Association looking at school food and children's diets found that 80% of children were getting too much saturated fat and 92% were overboard on sodium.

It's not like we don't know what to do about the problem. We know what trans fats are—we're just not sure how (or don't care enough) to avoid them. We're way out on a limb, overcommitted to processed foods. We know children's plates should be filled with color, not overprocessed sameness.

It's time to get back to basics and serve our kids real food at school. Here are some people helping parents get that accomplished:

• The Food Museum School lunch reform from A to Z; loads of links
• Slow Food in Schools Good, clean, fair food
• Lunchbox ideas Planning and packing healthy lunches that real kids will eat
• Federal school wellness policy Helping local districts build policies on fitness and nutrition (including ubiquitous junk food and soft drinks)