Lunch Wars: Seven Things You Can Do Right Now

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In our town, we have both a greenhouse at the High School (along with culinary classes) and a town community farm that is actually located AT one of the elem schools. And I don't think ANY of that makes it into the elementary or middle schools - or even out of the HS classrooms. Talk about opportunity - on so many learning levels. Will have to look into this...

These are all fantastic tips! I think that really educating yourself and then teaching others are so important!

After my daughter was born I spent a lot of time educating myself about food health and safety. I couldn't stand the idea of feeding her anything but REAL food. As she gets older I hope that we are teaching her the difference between real foods and processed garbage. She's not of school age yet, but as soon as she is I can't wait to work with other parents who feel the same way to teach others about the importance of real food.

I think teaching food is so important! That is something that I'm trying to keep in my as my son grows up.

packaging can have a huge impact! I am glad you included that! We try to use reusable containers as much as possible!

I also love the teach food idea. I hope to be able to teach my future child where food comes from, how its grow and how to appreciate what it does to our bodies. Education is ke!

I love the teach food idea. This is something that can be done at home, in school, anywhere. It's an easy way to take an active part in changing how all of us view food.

These are really easy, doable things, thanks so much! I love that you included the packaging as part of improving the school lunch environment. It's actually thanks to my kids' school that I cut back on plastic sandwich bags and started using cloth napkins to wrap my kids' sandwiches in. My daughter would come home and scold me for using plastic because they were having a contest to see which classroom generated the least amount of waste!

I think the first recommendation is key--I've seen even with my nieces and nephews that when they help me plant seeds in the garden, water it, and watch things grow, they're much more likely to try those veggies that they normally wouldn't, and they LOVE the process!

"Create and participate in school gardening and cooking classes that produce real food." - I didn't see this until my first few years in college doing my undergrad in horticulture. I will be active in my kids' schools when they are growing up, that's for sure.

I love the idea of looking into what the school uses for lunch trays, that's something people seldom thing about.

I am not an angry mom though. I just don't like that name. Why not "motivated moms" or "interested moms." Why angry? I understand anger is a motivating factor, but nothing puts people on the offensive than declaring, "I AM ANGRY! AND I AM COMING AT YOU!"

Thankfully, we do a lot of cooking together, talking about healthy choices and other stuff at home. I wish we could do more right now, but my plate is quite full (pun intended).

I love this. There are so many things, and sometimes I wonder if things are sinking in... I do only some of this now and not sure how much energy I have for more with everything else I'm involved in, BUT I love the part about how not every food is good for everyone. I know there are certain foods I can give the wee ones that send them into wacko land that don't affect other kids. Do I avoid those? You betcha!

But then there are the good days: When a friend stopped me in the hall yesterday to tell me about how at a playdate, Little Miss didn't just tell her about her dairy allergy, but also informed the mom that "I try to stay away from high fructose corn syrup, too, because it's just not good for me." Awesome. I love it, and so did that mom!

Jaimie Oliver's Food Revolution made a huge impact on my kids' perception of food so that when I read this book and started telling them some things from the book they were more than receptive.

Great tips! Thanks again Amy!

Great ideas. I especially like the idea of cooking with my son. He is very set in his ways on what he will and will not eat. Cooking his own food might help him want to try new things.

I love these ideas for the most part, except for the 2nd. Unless the school has a special day inviting all parents to lunch, this might be embarrassing for the child.

I still find this list overwhelming, but if I take a deep breath, and skim through I can pick one or two to get started.

It's reassuring, for one thing, to feel that we've got the first one covered, though we could always do better. I find cooking with my children to my biggest current challenge. I'd rather do it myself and get it done--and have a little peace while I do--than engage them. But I know that handing good habits down to them is critical and cooking with them is one of the best and most natural ways to do it. I am going to try cooking with them just once a week or so and working my way up from there.

I've also started investigating the school food situation in our district. My kids don't go to the public school, so having lunch with them is not an option for learning about it. (Our private school has the food thing utterly down, lucky for us.) But I have made some great discoveries of organizations and movements to improve the food for kids in the public schools and have discovered that in fact, the local, organic school-food caterer at our private school is a nonprofit working to bring the same quality of food to the poorest areas of our district. So there's a terrific in to helping the kids who don't have my kids' privileges. Next up, I'm planning to contact them and ask how I can help.

Oops...I somehow posted that on the wrong article.

I think all the "nutritional" information on the front of the package has made people stop thinking about their food. If it says "natural" on the front or lists some nutrients that sounds fancy, people assume it's good for you. They don't look at the back of the package. People forget what real food tastes like when they eat so much packaged and mass manufactured and processed foods. If it's in a can or a jar or a package it must be safer...It makes me so sad. It starts as early as baby food. I made my daughter's baby food from fresh fruit and veggies (I made purees and froze them in ice cube trays for easy use). When we moved and our new pediatrician asked what she was eating I told her and she was really confused. She said, "so like baby food only made at home?" I couldn't believe that I had to explain how I WASN'T feeding my daughter out of a jar.

Thank you for writing Lunch Wars. It was great to hear about something I'm so interested in from someone else's perspective. Very inspiring. Thanks for the bullet list, too. :)

So often change is overwhelming and we never know how to get things started. Thank you so much for these helpful action steps that we can all begin taking right away. Much appreciated!

Great points! I think also communicating with other parents about lunches needing more veggies and no fried foods and refined grains would help. It would get more people thinking about it and wanting to get involved. I'm hoping I can convince our school this year to do a field trip to a farm to see where their food comes from. This makes me think of the list I did of 15 tips to raise Adventurous Eaters. It starts at home. :)

I love bullets, especially when it comes to overwhelming tasks. Fixing school nutrition feels very overwhelming -- but having lunch in my kid's school cafeteria does not!

Thanks for boiling it down to these seven bullet points, Amy! The process of trying to bring better food into our schools-- especially as my kids' district uses one of those big vendors mentioned in Lunch Wars -- can feel like too much to bite off. We try to eat healthily and introduce a variety of foods at home. I think my challenge will be to join my kids for lunch in the cafeteria sometime!