[Seoul Food]

Where my kids went to school there was a major reworking of the school lunch program to get away from the traditional-style 'ketchup is a vegetable' and frozen waffles with fake syrup rule the morning. The State, and with it the local school district implemented a much better service and moved towards 'farm to table'. For $3.50? The school lunch is one of the better deals around these days.

This would be nice at my kid's school. The lunches there are almost $3 and they just rotate pizza, french toast sticks, chicken fingers, mac and cheese and the like.

 

[Seoul Food]

Your obvious political bias not withstanding, Do your REALLY think offering fruits and veggies in place of Junk Food is unacceptable? Kids, like adults, have changing tastes, and if they never get exposed to anything other than "heat and serve" salt laden food, they'll only have one future: FAT.

As to the "roaches" in classrooms....how is that related to cooking in another part of the building? Is cooking or food prep done in the classroom? If not, the "roach" issue is not connected to the issue at hand.

I think offering fruits and vegetables is great but unfortunately there are a couple of big hurdles with that. One is that the cost of serving these types of items is way higher than what they were currently using. Add to that you need more skilled labor to produce these items without ruining them. (It does take a little more skill cooking vegetables properly rather than opening a #10 can and throwing them in the oven until they turn gray.) The other issue I believe would be that while it may take continued exposure to these items to slowly add them to the children's diets, the school is in the hard position of trying to feed and give some nutrition to these children but also make it healthy.

So what would be better or worse, feeding children foods that they like and will eat that are not as nutritionally balanced so they can be full and pay attention at school or feed children foods they may not like/aren't used to which are better for them nutritionally with the hopes that they will eat it with the possible side consequence being hungry kids who cannot concentrate through the rest of the day.

 

[Seoul Food]

I learned the basics of reading and writing at home before I ever went to school; however school helped me to expand my knowledge on those subjects. I learned the basics of a balanced diet at home before I ever went to school, but why shouldn't schools attempt to contribute to expanding a child's food knowledge. If my food knowledge was limited to what I learned at home, I probably wouldn't be a chef today and my diet wuldn't be near as healthy as it is! Knowledge comes from many sources, not just from home. Institutions of education should be interested in expanding knowledge in as many subjects as they possibly can. Schools are not meant to replace what is learned at home. but to supplement it and to help a child expand his mind.

The school I went to had classes focused specifically on food, cooking and baking. The schools are already so tight on budgets and fitting in all of the curriculum that it stands to reason that they have to choose subjects like math and science over food nutrition and proper diet. It also shouldn't be the school that tells the students what to eat or not to eat. The goal of the lunch period is to ensure that the majority of students there eat something.

Also with so many students being on a free breakfast and lunch program, I'm sure they aren't eating the best at home so the food they are getting is most likely food they are used to or already getting. We also have to understand that if a student only gets a lunch at school there are many other meals they are not which are being served in the home. It doesn't matter if we force feed them greens and fruits during one meal of the day if all of the others they are getting are processed crap.

 

[Seoul Food]

If all the kids do at home is spend time on their cell phones, video games, and TV, why bother teaching them math and science?

Well that's because it's usually mandated by law for both child attendance to said school and the learning material through state or federal guidelines and programs. I don't know of any educational laws that mandate learning proper nutrition and eating.

 

[Seoul Food]

Parenting 101: You don't ASK you TELL. And if they won't eat what you put in front of them they don't eat. You'll see how fast they "broaden their pallets". Parents need to be parents NOT their kid's friends!

Yup, they'll get hungry enough eventually, and they say hunger is the best spice.

 

[Seoul Food]

Then again if there were more school cafeterias like this, just maybe kids might want to eat better.
https://www.fermag.com/articles/8634-the-trevian-way

Looks nice. We'll see how it holds up in the long run. But I think the phrase "well-to-do suburb area" about sums it up for why this would even have a chance of succeeding. In our state our public schools are having a hard enough time employing good full time teachers to lower the classroom rate of student to teacher, updating learning materials, and other basic school functions. Unfortunately a large proportion of the student body is on a free meal program along with parents needing to send boxes of supplies at the beginning of each school year with basic items that should already be available. While it would be nice to have a coffee shop and vegan or ethnic dishes served university style I just don't see a major switch to that anytime soon with our current situations.