Today’s menu: pizza, carrots, milk, pineapple chunks
That brief spell where I liked the pizza is over.
Today I had to eat with a colleague so I took a quick, covert shot. I’m still figuring out what to do when I have to eat with others. I do miss conversing at lunch, but I can do without. But sometimes it’s basically mandatory to eat with people. It doesn’t attract attention that I’m eating school lunch (especially on pizza days); taking the picture(s) is the problem. I’m still figuring out what to do about that. But today in the confusion I had a small moment by myself to snap a shot. Phew!
Like a ninja!
I take a ton of pictures of what I eat. I tell people that I am taking a meal with for the first time that it's just something I do.
If someone is nosy and asks why you are taking pictures, it would be easy to pass off as for a food log – to help you with diet or portion control 😉
LOL @ Red.
Sad thing is, the pineapple chunks (with the sugar and conservatives) is probably the worse thing on this plate and not many people know it. In fact, it probably get promoted as one of the three (milk, carrots, pineapple chunks) healthy aspects of the lunch.
So do you finish everyone on the plate? Is that one of the conditions? To eat EVERYTHING that's served?
Kevin :: Glyco Trainer
On Twitter: @glycotrainer
Official Blog: glycotrainer.blogspot.com
I know some people take photos of what they eat in an effort to log their food in a journal later, like from a calorie perspective. Maybe that could be a cover?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/2674514/Photographing-meals-could-help-weight-loss.html
I don't know about making up a cover story. That could imply that you think you're doing something wrong, couldn't it? You aren't, but I'd still be careful.
On the other hand, this blog is, in large part, a food log. So that isn't a bad idea. Just be careful about elaborating. (Or you could start a separate food journal in truth, so there's that…)
If I were you, I wouldn't risk taking a photo on the days you're eating with another teacher. Since your lunches are probably repeating every so often, I'd post an old photo, explain that it's an old photo (and why you're posting it and how it differs). Definitely don't admit to having a blog. Curiousity killed the cat, but don't let it cost you your job!
That's interesting about the pineapple chunks being the least healthy item – that is what I would have eaten first!
On a different note, I think they've dealt with the issue of it being Lent by serving cheese pizza on Fridays. There still hasn't been any fish served this year, right?
Thank you for being SO brave and tackling the extremely disgusting food us students have to eat! Your schools food looks (actually) pretty good, at least it's cooked. At my school, there is no "love" put into the food. Everyone who has been and eaten the food at my school agrees it's the worst in the district. How are we raising the kids of America? By feeding them scraps from factories and square pieces of pepperoni on pizza! It's funny because everyone at my school always drools over pizza day, but I find it pure crap. They won't let you leave the cafeteria unless you have a "balanced meal", but there has been many times were I refuse to eat lunch at ALL and they never notice. Of course this is not healthy (which is why my mom usually packs me lunch), but there has been times where I was SICK that afternoon from eating there food. Please raise awareness, we're all rooting for you!
@nameyourdevice
Before believing anything, it's extremely important to see who is saying it, and what their claim is based on. The comment by "glyconutrients" is his opinion alone, which seems to be based on the fact that pineapples contain what he refers to as "sugar and conservatives." I presume that his reference to "conservatives" has little to do with politics and, in fact, is a typographical error for the word "preservatives." Either way, the natural sugar in fruit is not quite as evil as some would have you believe.
Sometimes just reading a comment carefully, and looking at the links in it, tell you quite a bit. And as I've said in these comments before, anyone can post anything they want; it doesn't make it scientifically accurate, and without your own research–or even just serious thinking about it, it's dangerous to swallow some of this stuff outright. In other words, one person saying that some pineapple chunks are unhealthy does not make it so. In fact, I'm sure that just as many would say the chocolate milk is the most problematic part of the lunch. But, of course, the most obvious choice for least healthy is the pizza, with its high fat, white flour, etc. Which is true? That you need to decide for yourself; just don't accept one comment by someone you don't know and have no idea if he has any nutritional training. I noticed on this particular commenter's blog, by the way, that he is soliciting for people to "Share this information with others to become wealthier. Make over $2.600 (USD) in the next month. We can help." I'm just sayin' . . .
Is there a way to use the lunches as a curriculum activity? Figuring percentages or probability of certain meals/items/whatever in math? Graphing? Something?
As far as taking pictures, is your cell phone covert enough that you can pretend to be answering a text message in case anyone asks? That's what I would do. Anyone questions, say, "My husband's so cute, he just sent me a little love note," or "I've got to pick up my husband's dry cleaning on the way home, he wanted to make sure I didn't forget," etc. Boring little stories that no one would question. 😉
Make sure, if you do the phone option, that you have the sound settings for the camera on "off". 🙂
Just imagine if all the money spent on the fancy packaging for the individual food portions, especially the pizza in that big fancy printed box, could be put in the food instead. Just imagine how much more space the food takes up in a truck when it is individually packaged due to all the increased air space in all the boxes and the fact that they have to be kept frozen. That alone means nearly twice as many trucks have to travel twice as many miles and that much more fuel for refrigeration to boot. All this extra packaging is insane and does more to keep the industrial food procressors and packaging makers in buisiness than to nutritionally serve our children, not to mention all the environmental impacts of it that they will be stuck paying for later as well. This should be a thing of very great shame!!!
And why the H are the fruit cup always frozen? Why are they ever frozen or even chilled? To the best of my knowledge those little cups are a 100% long term shelf stable product and taste just great at room temp. So why waste all the extra money to freeze them and then have it so they end up wasted anyway. Something really wrong there, that is for sure!!!
Take out your cell phone as if it had buzzed, move it around for "service" and hit the wrong button. If anyone says anything just claim that you have a new phone or are technologically defunct with these things.
I don't know what state you're in, but I bet the fruit cups are frozen because of state mandates. A few years ago, I was assistant director of a summer program for indigent children in a Dept of Agriculture-funded housing complex. Our program qualified for daily delivery of school lunches.
The problem was, the "safe food handling guidelines," at least in FL, are nothing short of insane. We had to take the temperature of each item in each lunch before serving it. If any cold item was above 34 degrees, we had to throw it out, no questions asked. We actually had to let our kids go hungry one day because when the lunches were delivered, they were at 34.5 degrees! Our fruit cups were always half-frozen too, because it's physically impossible to thaw them out without risking going over the 34 degree mark. It's stupid, ridiculous bureaucracy.