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On Thursday morning, my son announces that he wants to buy lunch at school. They are serving pizza -- one of the 6 foods he currently eats -- which he claims "looked good" when he saw it on someone else's tray earlier this month. I suspect the real reason he wants to buy lunch has to do with the fact that his kindergarten teacher has a song she sings each morning for the lunch buyers that includes their name (it really is a catchy song -- I sing it all the time in the house) whereas she says the names of the lunch bringers. I am sure this is a matter of time constraints since there are more bringers than buyers, and the song is used to work teaching moments even into the mundane classroom business tasks, but the song has a strong pull. Most kids ask to buy at some point just to hear their name sung out to the class.
I could lie and say that I have nothing against school lunch, but I have a lot against school lunches, even though I remember the joy I felt the few times I bought lunch when I was little. I mean, come on, it's a rite of passage. Not just the eating the strange and plastic-y food stuffs (because you can get that at home with a bag of Doritos), but the standing in line, the smell, the pride in having your own money to spend. He wants to show me that he's responsible. That he can go to the kindergarteners' version of a restaurant, order his meal, and pay for it (with money I gave him) ... ALL BY HIMSELF.
I should want to encourage this because it certainly saves me time to not have to make food or pack the lunchbox or wash the reusable lunch equipment -- even if it's just for a day. It's a responsibility thing for him, but it's a break for me. A cheap break at that -- lunch only costs $2.50 per meal.
So those are the good parts about buying lunch -- responsibility for him, a break for me -- so why does his request to purchase lunch strike such fear in my heart?
When we were taking a tour of the school last year, we swung by the lunch room and the guide told us about the lunch routine. She started ticking off some of the things kids can buy and when she mentioned the pizza, she touched my arm with concern and said, "I don't want you to worry, but the cheese isn't real cheese. It isn't dairy."
I'm not sure why I would be worried about cheese being made from milk. Frankly, I was worried about why it wasn't made from milk. I inquired what the cheese was if not dairy, and she shrugged her shoulders and said, "I don't know." And while I was fairly calm over the idea of pizza, THAT was what freaked me out.
Because I think we've all seen enough of Jamie Oliver's tears to know that there is very little food in school lunches these days. There is food stuff. There are chemicals and strange preservatives. There are schools that have started making healthful choices, but even with those healthful choices, you simply can't provide meals to that many kids that match the quality of what can be made in small batches at home.
Canned or frozen vegetables are used because the school staff doesn't have time to individually shell peas. My pizza at home has homemade, high-protein dough, homemade tomato sauce, and real cheese. Their pizza at school comes shrink wrapped in plastic. And I can't expect more than that because it's a small staff who need to put out many meals. And they do it well and they do it within a small budget, they just can't compete with homemade food.
A friend who has a first grader was over this summer and she warned me about school lunches. "I ate there once," she said. "The menu said it was serving mac-n-cheese and green beans. Then the food came out on the tray. The mac-n-cheese was inexplicably smothered in an additional layer of sour cream and shredded cheese. The grey, canned green beans were covered by a pool of cream of mushroom soup and another layer of shredded cheese.
