Friday, April 23, 2010

Lobbying

I seriously was in the process of breaking down yesterday. My poor kid. He is just a mess at school. The thing that is so stressing is, he is okay at home. He is fun, silly, smart, easy going, and normally in a good mood. I can tell him we are going somewhere and then at the last minute change plans and he will just say "okay". Even if he is disappointed at something. He just rolls with it. But as soon as he is in a class room setting he is a different kid. Part of me wishes we could just pull him out and try again next year.

Today I volunteer in C's class, so that will help out some. I am nervous about going in there with a sub, but I put my big girl panties on this morning. I realized that the lunch thing really is important to me. Last night I was sure I was just on a psychotic rant over that, but after looking up some information on it today, I think I was onto something.

I will be petitioning the school board to change their menu. This morning I emailed the general mailbox for the county asking where to start. Their website is fairly comprehensive regarding the nutrition of school meals. They have a calorie chart and a detailed explanation of the guidelines they follow. They make it look good. But really, the count french fried smiley faces as a veggie. The chicken is all breaded, not actual chicken breast. Regarding the a la carte items, these are the extras the kids can add at will, one a day, that cost extra and the parents have no say, the county writes, and I quote:

These recommend snacks contain the following per serving:

* fewer than 300 calories
* 30% calories or less from fat
* 10% of calories or less from saturated fat
* no more then 35% by weight sugar.



Great one snack will be less than 35% sugar, so what 34%. It isn't good. It isn't right to teach kids to have a desert after every meal. Not only that, I saw on the nutrition guide that I was right about yesterday, C's blueberry pie did count as the fruit. They listed it as "fruit crisp" with 185 calories, 4.3 grams of fat, 1.7 of saturated fat, and 1 gram of trans-fat. How is trans-fat even allowed!??? And you know what - the sugar content isn't even on the guide. There has to be more kids out there that are sensitive to sugar and pure crap. I am officially a mom on a mission.

1 comment:

Kim said...

Good for you, hope you get them to change it after all your the parent buying the lunches. You think they would have healthier stuff, but in their case they probably are serving whatever gives them more for their buck, and probably resulting in unhealthier things.