Monthly Archives: October 2010

Day 118: chili (and food waste)

School Lunches, , , , , ,

Today’s menu: chili, mixed corn and carrots, tortilla chips, peach fruit cup

The fruit cup was frozen solid. That white thing on top? A pimple of ice. I laughed out loud when I peeled back the foil. Totally inedible in that state. So I let it sit on my desk all day and had it as an after-school snack. Too bad the kids couldn’t take the fruit cups back to the room and do the same. Straight into the trash.

The chili was fine. I ate it using the chips as scoops. The corn and carrots were ok too.

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I didn’t take a picture of my trash today because I was interrupted during my lunch and it threw me off. Luckily my shock at an unexpected visitor wore off right away. Most people are only concerned about themselves and not what you are doing. No surprises in the amount of trash though. These are are not waste-free lunches.

I had the chance to journey farther into the school’s kitchen this past month. The kitchen is pretty bare bones from what I little I saw of the space. To change these lunches into waste-free lunches, it would be necessary to upgrade the kitchen and either hire more people or pay the current employees for the longer hours required to wash dishes.

Would the decrease in garbage costs and packaging costs off-set the increased cost of kitchen upgrades and supplies (including real plates and silverware)? Am I wrong to assume that over time the cost would dollar cost average lower and lower? What about landfill space? It will become more expensive to bury this stuff as the years wear on correct?

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 In Chicago Chefs come to Chicago classrooms — so cool! I want to see what happens next!

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Check out this blog post about School Food News from Ed Bruske. He found that Florida will consider banning all flavored milk in December. Good move.

What do I think about flavored milk? Chocolate milk = white milk + 3 tsps of sugar (and HFCS). It seems obvious that chocolate milk should not be offered daily. Maybe every other Friday or something, but with 1/3 of students being obese, it’s not good to eat an additional 3 tsp of sugar with your lunch every single day. In some ways I wish I weren’t lactose intolerant so that I could drink the milk every day to show you that having an additional 3 tsps of milk every day adds up.

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Check out this information about Challenge Day from Notes from the Cookie Jar. I work with younger kids so it doesn’t quite work the same although we do discuss character ed when appropriate. I think that Challenge Day is a great way for kids to learn about difference and understand other people who turn out to be just like them.

Open thread: Titanium Spork Award for September — Nominations?

Open threads, ,

Cue the music….

Titanium Spork Awards are back!

It all started when I got a bunch of titanium sporks from thinkgeek after I blogged about titanium sporks. I decided to give away one per month as recognition to people working to change school food. Previous deserving winners included:

April’s winner was Jamie Oliver from Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. Here’s his acceptance speech (below):

May’s winner was Lisa Suriano from Veggiecation. Here’s her acceptance speech (below):

June’s winner was Lauren DeSantis from Marblehead Massachusetts. Here’s her acceptance speech.

Thinkgeek told me that if I ever wanted more, all I had to do was ask. I contacted them this week and they’re like, “Cool, we’ll send a ton of them in the mail to you, Mrs Q!” It’s nice to have a little influence in the spork department!

Please nominate someone who you believe is doing great things for school food reform in the comments! I’m going to give away a titanium spork award every month of the school year!

Day 117: ravioli (and a sigh of relief)

School Lunches, , , , ,
Today’s menu: cheese ravioli, carrots, bread (I got only one slice today), orange
I was offered “popcorn chicken” or “cheese ravioli” and so I chose the latter in the spirit of trying something new. Poor things only won the “runner up” prize to a processed chicken product….that was my first “red flag.”
Those ravioli look as tired as I feel. The sauce was on the sparse side. They look sad.
I don’t know how many kids took the ravioli but I have seen kids tell the lunch lady “I’m vegetarian.” I couldn’t make myself eat them. They weren’t as bad as the cheese lasagna, but they weren’t the best either. The carrots tasted great because they were nice and hot and they slid right down my throat. I enjoy hot food.
I took my slice of bread and smeared peanut butter on it (I keep a jar in my stash) and ate it. That’s probably cheating, but I couldn’t eat just carrots and a slice of bread and survive the day. It’s days like this I think the kids would appreciate a regular peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Now if we could get that orange sliced up, the kids would get a chance to actually eat it.
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I told another friend about this project. I’m slowly bringing people into the fold little by little, but I have to admit that I’m telling more people and getting more fearless. Remember when I paralyzed with fear? It still happens, but I’m getting to the point where I’m more comfortable meshing my online identity with my real life one. I’m going to own this and it’s a good thing.
It’s fun to tell people my “recap” (reference to Larry David on Curb — one of my favorite shows). Guess what? Did you hear about that anonymous teacher eating school lunch every day? It’s me! So far none of my friends have said they heard about me. That’s good, I think. Anyway then I say the rest of it that loyal readers already know. I was on Good Morning America. I talked to Jamie Oliver on the phone and I’m chatting with the big guys in school food reform. I spoke at the Mayo Clinic. I know!
My friend today was shocked and then did a little happy dance. “I’ve got goose bumps!” she exclaimed and then said, “There’s no way I would have ever suspected it was you.” Hee, hee. How fun!!
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Next week I’m going to BlogHer Food to speak on a panel. I’m excited about it and I can’t wait to chat more in depth about these issues. There’s going to be a photo/video ban. If you are going to the conference, I’m looking forward to meeting you. No pictures though! Don’t worry, I’m quite ordinary so you are welcome to tweet descriptions of me!

Day 116: pasta (and a "superhero")

School Lunches, , , , ,
Today’s menu: pasta with meat sauce (or meat sauce with pasta), spinach, pear, “soft” breadstick
Yeah for spinach! Another new thing. It tasted good to me even though it didn’t seem to be seasoned at all.
Thankfully you can’t overheat it to bitterness like collard greens. Unfortunately if the kids don’t know that it’s not the bitter greens they have tried before then they won’t eat them. I didn’t hear anyone in the cafeteria saying, “Hey guys, today it’s a new veggie called spinach. Try a mouthful!”
I thought I’d take a picture of the containers when I get them: the plastic is sucked in due the increased heat and lack of air. There’s no question the food is hot.

I ate the pear, but I couldn’t eat the “soft” breadstick. I’m not sure it’s giving me anything nutritionally.

Sorry for the delay — Blogger’s picture uploader failed and I had to email myself the entire post…Grr…
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I participated in The Lunch Tray’s “Lunch Superheroes” series and here’s my post. One of her readers asked a great question and she opened it up to people involved in school lunch reform. That was my take on what the parent should do at her school. Just so you know, I do not think of myself as a “hero” — those are her words. I’m just an average person moving forward in the world. I had a wacky idea and wanted to see what would happen if I ate school lunch every day. I am doing it for my students. What do you think of my response?
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Someone asked if I get my students up and moving. Yes, all the time. Movement breaks are a necessity for little kids! If you are a teacher, I hope you have heard about energizers. Some of those lessons are fantastic!

I enjoy getting the kids up at the board (usually two at once) and sitting in a chair a few feet away and asking them some questions “quiz-style.” Even the act of just standing on your feet for a little while might be all it takes to get a student refocused to learn. Plus they love to write on the board and “pretend” to teach me. My style is “child-centered” versus “teacher-centered.” I present something and I’m hoping to elicit creativity and lots of language out of them. I am not from the “old school” where teachers do all the talking and direct everything. The “I’m talking and you need to be quiet and sit in your seat!” There is time and place for that certainly. I just know that I have to change things up so that kids don’t start fading and tuning me out. They must be motivated to learn or else it’s just rote drudgery.

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Any questions I haven’t answered in awhile?