If Only American Kids Could Eat School Lunches Like They Do in France

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/food/french-kids-are-not-fat



The standard school lunch for an American child often contains dishes brimming with preservatives and sodium. While some schools have completely overhauled their school menus to contain fresh vegetables and grains, others still struggle with meeting nutritional guidelines. But for students in France, it appears that school lunches are the least of their concerns.

Rebecca Plantier moved to a town near Annecy, France to research why French children aren't as overweight as many American children are. The local city council offered Plantier a tour of her children's cafeteria, or cantine as it's known in France, and Plantier discovered early on that if America and France had a school lunch food fight, France would be the overwhelming victor.

In France, lunch menus are prepared two months in advance and sent away to a nutritionist who gives the menu final approval. The nutritionist can make adjustments to the meal, such as suggesting a dessert be swapped for fruit if "she thinks there's too much sugar that week," writes Plantier. Not only that, but lunches are prepared on site. There are no "ready made frozen" meals to speak of, no box-cutters excavating fish sticks or fries; instead, school cooks prepare everything by hand.

Another bigger contribution to French students' healthy disposition? Recess. Students have two 15-minute and one 60-minute recess every day, writes Plantier, and they also have the advantage of walking or biking to and from school, which students only attend four -- not five -- days out of the week.

[Sherman A1]

1. I heard this topic discussed on NPR awhile back

and it sounded wonderful.

[Egnever]

2. Will never happen

We have thousands of school districts.

[cwydro]

3. Ah, would be great.

But will never happen.

[Heidi]

4. It's a good, healthy lunch for kids here, too.

I remember being shocked that our goddaughters' elementary school lunches cost something like $8 each, but it was good stuff. They also had the option of coming home for lunch.

[xchrom]

5. it was only in high school i ran into school lunches

i always went home for lunch in grade school.

i brown bagged in high school.

[Heidi]

6. I remember us having some good homemade lunches

back in the 70s and 80s in northeastern Oklahoma. Our lunch cooks made superb cinnamon rolls, pies, and homemade dinner rolls. They never got the hang of pizza, unfortunately.

[xchrom]

7. well this was peoria -- so casserole was the eternal order of the day

[Heidi]

8. Oh, dear!

Bless your heart.

[xchrom]

9. thank you - it really was rather traumatic.

so...do you remember old lady hot dishes at church events? if you went to church?

[Heidi]

10. I was raised Southern Baptist!

And mercy, yes. And molded Jell-o salads.

[xchrom]

15. Jello salads!

mom always made grated carrot Jello salad.

[Heidi]

16. My mom's pièce de résistance:

Coconut Cream Cake

1/2 cup Crisco shortening
1/2 cup butter (softened)
2 cups sugar
5eggs separated
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups flaked coconut (1 for the cake, 1 for the frosting)

Frosting
Cream together:
1/2 cup butter softened
8 oz. cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
Add and mix until smooth:
1 pound powedered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large bowl, blend shortening and butter together. Add sugar gradually and beat until fluffy. Add egg yolks 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. keep egg whites in large separate bowl. Sift together flout and soda. Add alternately with buttermilk beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Add 1 cup coconut to batter and stir in. Beat egg whites until stiff. Fold into the batter. Pour batter into three round, nine-inch greased and floured cake pans. bake 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees. Cake will spring back slightly cooked, frost each layer with one-third of the frosting and sprinkle each with one-third cup coconut. You may also add chopped pecans to each layer if you wish.

You're welcome!

[xchrom]

23. GASP!

Fabu -- bet i give that a go.

[Heidi]

26. Do!

Then blow me a Coconut-Cream-Cake scented kiss across the Atlantic!

[xchrom]

28. most certainly!

[madville]

45. Ambrosia

Never see that anymore except at my 91 yo grandmother's house.

[MFM008]

11. back in the 60s

We had home style lunch's. Meatloaf, potato's and gravy, all hot. 2 milks. Real dessert. Balanced. I was a trim active kid.....funny after microwaves came out...I gained weight..

[santroy79]

12. My son juststarted school. He like vegs

he wanted tried to get 2 different kinds of vegs and they told him he could only have one. Seems odd when kids try and eat healthy they are turned down.

[HuckleB]

43. Send him with his lunch.

It costs less, and he'll be happier.

[santroy79]

13. one other thing. In France

High Fructose Corn Syrup is not allowed. Unlike here in the states its in almost everything

[a kennedy]

29. High Fructose Corn Syrup .....and there you have it.....the silent killer.

IT'S IN EVERYTHING!!!! Ugh.... fake sugar, the silent killer I call it. Look at your labels on all processed food, it d*mn near is the #1 ingredient. Ugh....

[HuckleB]

42. "Fake" sugar?

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/high-fructose-corn-syrup/

Baseless fear mongering is just not cool.

[HuckleB]

41. HFCS is just another form of sugar.

The fear-mongering about HFCS is just silly pointlessness that serves no actual positive end.

[mwooldri]

14. Recess. An overlooked important part of the curriculum.

Certainly in primary education (first 7 years) I believe proper breaks at school help children learn things that cannot be taught in a classroom. Things like social interactions, learning through play, and other stuff I can't think of right now. With secondary education, recess is important too but it can be also used for extra curricular activities.

[woodsprite]

19. My son hasn't had recess since 5th grade ended, and then only for 20min/day. n/t

[mwooldri]

35. Same here with my son. I had the benefit of an English State School education.

I had a 15 minute break and a hour to hour-thirty for lunch, depending on whether I was in first, middle or comprehensive school. Since school in England typically ends in the academic year of your sixteenth birthday, most people go on to a pre-university college or a technical college. At the college I went to, an hour was still scheduled for lunch and was used for club activities.

My eldest is now in middle school. The school he goes to is not a traditional one (a magnet school modeled after the Ron Clark Academy) and there is a fair bit of "play" in class, so I don't hear any complaints from him about the lack of recess. The lack of recess in elementary school was surprising to me too - apparently the school system thinks that PE substitutes for recess, so the school only had recess three times a week.

[woodsprite]

36. I spoke with my son after school today, and he said he is having trouble getting time

to see his advisor. In his one class, they are allowed 3 hall passes for the bathroom -- for the whole year. If there are 'extenuating circumstances', students are to request additional passes from the teacher, but the request must have a parents signature.

I know his school has a good academic reputation (social? Not so much. There's a police substation inside the school). He's in the highest level program there, but sometimes it reminds me of little prisons.....

[GliderGuider]

17. I attended a lycee in Paris in 1968 - I still remember the awesome lunches

Hot, fresh and outrageously tasty, served in help-yourself bowls to tables of 6 students - with a liter of beer per table to wash it down.
Cafeteria haute cuisine...

[elias49]

18. American exceptionalism again!

We're number one, we're number one!

[MsLeopard]

20. Yes

In obesity, diabetes, and people in prison. Caring about what our kids eat in school doesn't even make the list of things to think about in circles of power. Sadly.

[Ferretherder]

21. (stretches arms, cracks knuckles)Right. Well, bein' from Looziana,...

...of course, we had REAL food for our school lunches. Every day, the lunch ladies(all twelve of them) would get up at 5:00 o'clock in the morning, bag a mess of squirrels, or bring down a tote-sack full of ducks, or haul in an alligator or two, then, on the way back to school, stop by some patch of 'wild mustards or turnip greens' and gather a mess, hit a farmer's market for some fresh okra and potatoes, and get back and whup that stuff up for lunch and serve it all with the cobbler of your choice(with homemade ice cream) and all washed down with muscadine wine or Barq's root beer!

But, ya' tell that to the kids these days,......they won't believe ya'!

(with apologies to Monty Python)

[TBF]

22. We have decent lunches in our public schools -

where I live. High taxes in this area - folks who buy in the outer suburbs and commute into the city. That's the thing. Unless there is some sort of federal conformity all the districts are going to vary.

[tooeyeten]

24. How much money

Does food lobby contribute to school board elections, governor's campaigns, state reps, etc. in France?

[drray23]

31. lobbyism is very hard in france

I grew up in france and went to these cantine. First off it is not free. My parents had to pay a fee each month.
Regarding your point about lobbyists the system in france does not allow that as easily as here. You can not give to pacs or the like. Every candidate is given a pool of money ( public funds ) when they run.
So the kind of quid proco we have here in the us does not happen.
When french people want something they do not hire lobbyists, they go in the street and protest. If they happen to be truckers or railroad employees they paralyze the whole country. Tip : dont travel to France november and early december, thats when unions renegociate contracts and often train, airplane and road traffic is disrupted.

[closeupready]

25. One thing you don't see mentioned too much is that

French teachers and schoolmates can be very cruel to the overweight and others who are classically 'misfit'. So it can be a matter of survival for students who tend to be heavier that they exercise and watch their diets like hawks.

[a kennedy]

27. and then there's this......

Students have two 15-minute and one 60-minute recess every day how long ago did recess get kicked out of our kids curriculum?? That's always the first thing to go, that and band or glee club, when the money is tight. Oh yah, cut the courses that actually get the kids moving and then complain they're fat and over weight.

[piratefish08]

30. my boys go to a tiny rural school in VT. their lunches are always non-GMO, cooked fresh,

most ingredients are sourced from local farms and all waste is collected for local pigs. (mine).

we are very fortunate as I know this is NOT the norm in our country's schools.

but thought you needed to know it still exists in some places.

[unblock]

32. not only 4 days a week, unless it's changed since i was there.

i had wednesday (i think) off, but then i had to go to school on saturday for a half day.

grade school for me was a long, long time ago, but at the time, this was, i believe, the french national standard.

[freshwest]

33. This was the way it was done in my public schools in the fifties and sixties.

[indepat]

34. The sad fact is TPTB in America are much more concerned with reducing the Federal

tax burden on large corporations, the uber-wealthy, and the plutocrat class than having nutritious meals served to school children. After all, this is a right-wing driven society and the fruits thereof are here for all to see.

[eridani]

37. I had that much recess in the 50s. What has changed?

Meals weren't quite up to French standards, but were prepared from scratch and cost us 30 cents per meal (not sure how much subsidy was involved).

[PersonNumber503602]

38. During late 80's to the mid 90's, we had about that much recess time at my elementary schools

The lunches were really awful though.

[politicat]

39. The school day is longer, there: 8:30-4:30.

I've been an advocate for this since I was in elementary school. It made more sense to me to just be at school the same hours as my mother was at work. It would add time in the day for art, music, theater or sports, provide more time for indepth instruction and homework assistance, or even just allow for independent work at the end of the day without actual homework.

Plus, seriously? Job creation. Instead of three cafeteria people working half days, up to five working full time. It makes it easier for districts to share specialist teachers (like music or advanced mathematics) between schools if they have more hours in the day to block out. It helps full time, on site teachers, too, by giving them downtime in the middle of the day. Having a combination of shared specialist and designated classroom teachers improves everyone's working conditions because they can share.

It does harm the after school care industry, but dear FSM that is already a disaster and a half so please, anything that kills that with fire.

[HuckleB]

40. Recess is likely the key, and they may just walk/bike to school as well.

US school lunches might not be the best things in the world, but fear mongering about "preservatives and sodium" is not likely to provide much comparison. In fact, this piece offers no actual data with which to make a comparison. And what is with all the desserts in France? I mean, somehow the author just gave those a pass?

Hmmm.

[AuntPatsy]

44. Fresh lunches? The people responsible for the schools lunch programs should be forced to eat it

Themselves forever, nothing fresh about those lunches here on Texas! It disgusts me!

[madville]

46. Nothing but carbs on that tray

From the processed, breaded, HFCS filled mystery nuggets to the sodium-laden, high sugar engineered, carrots and corn.

The only "low-carb" thing on that tray is the green beans with probably wind up in the trash can.

If I ate carbs like that everyday I would weigh 100 pounds more than I do now.