Food Fight

There is unrest brewing in my town. People are taking sides and there is a line being drawn in the sand. And sadly, that line is made up of…hot dogs.

Each September, the start of the school year brings new teachers, new friends and new adventures in learning. This year, our town also introduced a brand new school lunch menu. With childhood obesity growing at an alarming rate, a group of concerned residents and school staff members created a Healthy Kids Initiative with the goal of providing our children with better food choices during school hours.
In general the whole buy-lunch-or-bring-lunch debate splits right down the middle at my house. My older son prefers to bring lunch every day, while my younger son prefers to buy it. Though it takes me very little time, I don’t enjoy preparing the older one’s lunch each day (Yes, he’s old enough to make his own lunch. Perhaps it’s time to suggest that). So the lazy part of me has always enjoyed the fact that my younger son prefers to buy. True, I sometimes have to scrounge through seat cushions or the bottom of my purse to come up with the change for lunch each day, but it’s a small price to pay for having one less task in our usual chaotic morning.

The downside to my son buying lunch each day is the possibility of him living on hot dogs and bagels. He’s the type of kid who likes to try new things, but on days when he’s unwilling to risk his taste buds on something exotic, a hot dog or bagel is his trusty stand-by.

The night before school began, I looked up the lunch menu online and immediately noticed that hot dogs were no longer an option. The plain bagel is now replaced by a whole wheat bagel. I told my son that the menu option was ham and cheese on a croissant and that hot dogs were no longer available. His response: “Okay, I’ll bring my lunch instead.”

The next afternoon, while on Facebook, I was surprised by the volume of comments posted on multiple friends’s pages regarding the new lunch menus. No hot dogs? No plain bagels? Some kids chose to skip lunch all together, rather than trying one of the healthy options, and came off the bus starving. Parents who were ready to pay for the entire year in advance were ripping up their checks. It was incredible to see people prepared to eschew an entire year of school lunches after just one day.
You would think that our new lunch menu consisted solely of Brussels sprouts and tofu. Not true. Nachos, chili, hamburgers and meatball subs are still part of the menu. However in each instance the food is prepared with lean meat. Nachos and tacos are served with fresh shredded cheese instead of canned cheese product (If you look at the list of ingredients on the old cheese used for nachos, cheese is the fourth ingredient listed. Not first. Yuck) Not every kid will want to try a grilled chicken Caesar wrap, but some might and actually find that they like it. And though hot dogs are not part of the menu at this time, perhaps a healthier version will reappear in the future.

Believe me, I’m not a health food guru. I keep a supply of fresh fruit and healthy snacks in the house, but I have bags of chips and cookies in the pantry as well. I want my kids to make good food choices, but I don’t always make good choices myself. It’s a tricky balancing act for parents and children alike.

Kids are hard to feed, starting from the moment they begin solid foods. Remember that toddler sitting in his high chair, shaking his head from side to side to avoid a spoonful of applesauce, yogurt, or something equally healthy? We didn’t give up on the first try. We stuck to our guns and continued to encourage healthy foods instead of throwing up our hands and feeding them just Pepperidge Farm goldfish instead.

The second day of school, the menu item was “healthy pizza”. My son bought it and enjoyed it. A friend mentioned that the kids in her neighborhood got off the bus talking about how much they loved the pizza. Perhaps if we give it a little time, we’ll find that our children actually like the new choices. They might surprise us. And if they absolutely refuse, there’s always the brown bag option.

So let’s give the new menu a chance. Let’s see how our kids respond to it for more than just one day. Let’s find out if we can live, temporarily, without hot dogs for lunch.

Because when it comes down to it, do we really want our town divided because of a few weenies?