Personally, I don't think that anyone should decide what our kids are eating, As we make that decision as parents. Most of these kids are in sports right after school and are starving by that time due to not eating the gross school food, not enough calories and so on. Parents need to tell their children what they can and cannot have, We all have the tool that states what our kids are eating on a daily basis. Use it and moniter. I have to pack my children's lunches everyday now as they can't stand the school food and say they just don't get enough. Some children are coming to school without being fed breakfast or possibly don't have money to eat at home and their only food source is at school. Not giving these kids what they need to survive is sad. I am very disapointed in the decisions the schools and government is making regarding our kids lunches. Let the parents decide.

My child came home on a daily basis saying the food was awful and she is so hungry everyday. So i decided to attend one of her lunches and I was in agreement that since I went to school at Stma the food has gotten very poor in quality. Now we pack lunches everyday but it would be nice if she could get some quality hot food from school. There's only so much from home I can prepare. My daughter loves fruits and to find one that isn't bad is rare. We now pack our own produce for snacks. I think our schools need to provide nutritional lunches with a better calorie load. As of now the "healthy" the foods the cafeteria is providing is tasteless and not enjoyable to our children. So instead of them eating these meals, they are discarding most of their lunches into the trash and going hungry. I was amazed how much food is left on the kids plates when lunch was over.

I have to agree with the others about the student's going hungry. I have heard the same from many. It is frustrating to know that your kids are going through most of the day hungry. It is not congruent to learning. You can not concentrate if your stomach is bothering you. They also need those calories to grow strong bones and fluid muscles that aren't cramping from lack of nutrition. I imagine this to be a bigger problem for the athletes who need the extra nutrition and calories. My kids are starving when they come home and consume whatever they can find or have to stop at Mc Donalds on the way home from school just to fill the hole in their stomach. We pay for a lunch that we think is nutritious and filling. It is not either of those if the kids can not consume it.
I am all for healthy lunches, but please cook the white limp lukewarm fries longer, provide appealing fruits and vegetables and make the main product on the tray big enough to fill them up since the rest is going in the garbage.
While I think we may move to bag lunches for our family, I do not think this is resolving the problem for families who depend on the lunch program to give their children what can not be provided at home.
I did read the comments yesterday and I thought the teens made their points very well and it would do the adults well to listen to them. They didn't say they wanted junk food-just some that was appetizing to look at and larger portions to fill them.

I wonder if the high school cooks have thought about some real seasonings for those tasteless items i.e. sweet potato fries. We eat them at home, and a sprinkling of 21 Season Salute from Trader Joe's, and sometimes a little cayenne pepper, make them delicious. Oh yes, and cooking them longer is very important...the texture is nasty if they aren't cooked to almost burnt. It's a narrow line.

I noticed that there isn't any concern about sugar content in the kids' hot lunches. It makes me wonder if junk like high fructose corn syrup, fructose, sugar, and those nasty chemical fake sugars are in the ingredients lists of what the kids are served.

The latest findings post 2009 are showing that it isn't FAT that makes kids fat. It's SUGAR. Of course manufactured, chemically treated fats like canola (ever wonder what a canola is? It's a made-up non-food!), vegetable, corn...these oils take weeks to get out of the system and are practically plastics. Serving foods with these nasty fats, and lots of sugars (the sweet potato fries are higher in sugars, for instance, and fruits are high sugar, and of course startches/breads/pastas are sugars) are making American kids FAT.

Our school kids in general wouldn't touch cooked kale, spinach and mushrooms with salmon, for example. My kids had to adjust, and that kind of meal is common at home now. I challenge everyone to make their kids sample such healthy options weekly to LEARN to eat well. For a long, healthy life.

It's nice to see more positive and productive comments today. It's easy to rant and rave, but well thought out ideas will create the change.

A perfect system doesn't appear overnight. The government responded to the issue of increased childhood and overall obesity in this country. In hindsight it is clear that this new policy has created another problem. The only remedy to this situation is time. Parents, teachers, students, and community members can help by noting their concerns and making them known in a respectful and constructive manner. Schools and politicians need time to get this right and find balance in the system. Perhaps through this entire process we can all learn something about healthy eating and pass that along to our kids.

The school lunch agenda is a waste of time and money. Child obesity isn't based on school lunches or corporate America stuffing potato chips and cheeseburgers down our throats. This is brought to our attention and over exaggerated for someone's political gain in government. We choose what to eat, nobody tells you that you have to eat unhealthy. The food schools serve, healthy or not, isn't going to affect the outcome of someone's health. It's one meal, 5 days a week. That's 5 meals out of the recommend 21 meals a week, not including snacks. Child obesity comes from the PARENTS who ALLOW their kids to eat unhealthy and not be active. People need to take responsibility for their own actions and quit blaming irrelevant issues or other sources for why their children are unhealthy...look in the mirror!

Well said Bryan!!

I agree that the lunches at school are not very desirable to most kids. Both my children complain almost daily about the taste of most of it. Here's what I don't understand- we as parents put money in their accounts, then they get to school and can decide at lunch time that they don't want to eat the "nasty" lunch so they spend their money on ala carte items. So how does that make it healthy if they have the option to NOT eat healthy ?? I understand that as a parent it is our responsibility to tell our children what they can and cannot spend their lunch money on, as I did for a very long time. But I decided since both my kids stay after for school sports that they were starving and needed something in their stomachs so I gave in and said if you hate the lunch go ahead and just get something you will eat and don't waste my money on something you are just gonna throw away. There has got to be a happy medium, offer them something good as the main meal and only healthy options to go with it. Just a thought.

I too agree - the government &/or food service program should not be able to dictate and determine what is healthy for my children. They say they are giving them healthy choices, but they really don't have a lot of choices. They get served what the Government thinks is good for them (has the Government always been right?). The parents are the ones who need to teach their children what is healthy or not. The children are not offered a choice of white or wheat. Then when they do get bread it is just bread - absolutely nothing on it. No butter, margarine, jelly - Nothing!! Is there anyone out there who can say that they would really enjoy or choose to eat bread with nothing on it. Yes my children will eat it because they need it to get filled up, but they dip it in ketchup or dressing so it's not so dry. I have packed cold lunches at times, but that does get boring and it is sometimes nice to have a hot lunch option. I feel the lunches used to be much tastier and more filling for the kids. Not all kids are obese and as previously stated why should this one meal impact all kids when it is the parents responsibility not the school or the government.

Funny the sweet potato fries came up on the same day I went to have lunch with my son. They were cooked as they should be I think, crispy, but I have to agree that they were not good. I tried 3-5 of them thinking that they would get better?? I looked around at the kids trays around me and of the ones that took them, nobody ate them. I disagree that kids now won't eat hotdishes. Of the friends & family we have, all make & eat hotdishes. They are also very easy to sneak veggies in as well.

My kids are very used to having to try new and different things at our house, so eat a wide variety of food. My oldest is very active, not overweight & eats alot. He used to LOVE the school lunches, but maybe the last 2 years or so has complained about most of the meals. Looking at the menu & tasting a few of the meals, I sadly have to agree w/him. As much as I don't want to, I am getting to the point where I may start making his lunches instead of buying the school ones, so I know he will eat enough.

In a perfect world, the schools could invite Whole Foods or Fresh and Natural to provide a deli-case full of new veggie-based options kids could sample, and vote on. We go to these stores about monthly, and I let the kids sample things and fill a small container with items they want to try. There could be incentives for trying new items. And the best liked items could become part of the rotation.

In that perfect world, the Dairy industry wouldn't dictate what kids can drink for lunch, either. It's insane that there's no soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, coconut milk, organic milk...for a short time calcium-enriched juice and soy were offered, but then the Dairy industry got the gov't to stop it. CRAZY!!!

The way the government is doing it is just ridiculous. Typical feds, though, with the micromanaging of ounces and calories and fat. If only schools consulted chefs and natural food experts years ago, and set up a gradual plan to train the kids' palates over time and eyes so that when they had only healthy choices they'd be willing and happy about it.

I wonder, do the kids have a microwave available? For kids with allergies, celiacs, and other issues, it's tough to make much variety for lunches. We don't buy processed foods/snacks, which really limits lunches to raw veggies, fruits, and deli sandwich meats. Hard to fill up for long without a tupperware full of homemade hotdish from home, but cold is not good.

The kids don't have to eat the lunch. Don't ruin it for everyone else who can take care of their bodies. No one forces kids to eat the school lunch, so if anyone is obese I can promise it is from the food served outside of school. Making it healthier is one thing, but our portions are dangerously low. We don't even get sub sandwhiches anymore, what's wrong with those? Our serving sizes have gotten decreased by far too much. We get 4 chicken nuggets and a tiny ladle of noodles. I need 3 scoops of pears to make up for it. Being an athlete it's a joke to get not even 1000 calories. We used to grab a handful of bread to make up for it but now we can't even do that. The serving size is more of a big deal than the "attempt" to make it healthier. You would be surprised how much money the school makes on overpriced food in ala cart because kids are so starving. And with the sweet potatoes, kids in lunch gather 2 full trays of sweet potato fries from everyone in the lunch room. It proves that no one is eating them. The school is wasting their money by serving them.

I hope it's beginning to dawn on everyone now: Federal dictates, federal micro-managing of ANYTHING is a bad idea. This lunch room dictatorship is the perfect example of how far from Constitutional Freedoms we really are.

You get what you vote for...and if you vote for a nanny state to take care of you (health care, etc), the state will lord over your every choice.

In the end, it's not STMA district's "fault." It's the fault of everyone who chose to put Mrs. Obama back in the White House. Just sayin'.

Rick, good points, all! It may seem that we've strayed far from the topic at hand, but it's all due to a slippery slope we've been on for decades. That has brought us to the point where federal offices in Washington DC are dictating what schools can put on kids lunch trays.