Monday, September 15, 2008

Do I want to know?

The schools down here offer a service where you can add money onto your child's lunch ticket online. This is amazingly handy. They e-mail me when the account gets below a certain pre-set limit and I pony up the credit card number to keep my kids fed. Convenience, thy name is paypams. Now, as much as I am appreciating this handy-dandy system, I can also see what each of the short members of the family buy each and every day (ie why the account is being drained faster than I have accounted for). I'm not sure this is a good thing. I mean, aren't children's poor nutritional choices at school supposed to stay hidden from their parents? No longer! For instance, the youngest bought himself macaroni and cheese, potato wedges, chocolate milk, and a slice of cake for lunch on Friday. Do you see anything green in that listing? Me either. This fruit and vegetable free meal cost me the rather steep price of $2.75. His sister bought herself almost the same meal, minus the potato wedges (a sweet potato muffin instead and substituting ice cream for the cake slice. Nothing green here either! The middle schooler didn't do any better, choosing *premium* cheese pizza (I don't know what premium means either--other than being a euphemism for "costs more"), chocolate milk, and ice cream. Perhaps I should stop checking their food purchases and give thanks that they aren't yet a part of the childhood obesity epidemic, despite their poor nutritional choices at lunch.

2 comments:

  1. Luckily mine has no choice, the meal is what it is and it is quasi-nutritious (i.e. has canned veggies on the tray). Now whether she actually eats it is a WHOLE 'nother story.
    Chris on the other hand has decided he wants to brown-bag. This means PB&J every day of his life until he changes his mind back to hot lunch...

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  2. But at least you can delude yourself that she's eating the veggies, right? Mine seem to have soured on the brown bag it option but since they go to one of only two peanut-free schools in the district and PB&J was the mainstay of our brown bag lunches last year, I guess I'm not surprised. Lunchmeat does get warm, smelly, and occasionally slimy by lunchtime if it's not refrigerated.

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