Lunchtime

In 2010, Sarah Wu a.k.a. “Mrs. Q” decided to eat school lunch every day for a year and document the process.  She now has a book, so I think we should also begin thinking about how we’re going to turn this blog into a money maker.

But moving on, I’ve picked out a few of her posts that might be interesting for us to think about/that I liked.  Here is her original post, short and to the point.  Each “day” includes a photo of the meal and summary of taste/other sentiments aroused by a school lunch.  Fed Up With Lunch has evolved as the blog gained more attention, so look back in 2010 for the meal reviews.

Here is a summary of the new school lunch regulations with other links at the bottom of the post.  This one is about a pre-K student whose homemade lunch was deemed unhealthy based on USDA guidelines and given a school lunch instead.  I’ve included this one not so much for the story (the link from the blog is to Fox News), but for the clear emotional response inspired by taking a turkey sandwich from a child and giving them chicken nuggets instead.

And lastly, while we’re thinking about the food industry, this post is about a NYT piece I had seen earlier this week. Not only do schools contract with companies for food, but they also receive free products from the USDA and then send them out for processing.  For example,

“the Michigan Department of Education… gets free raw chicken worth $11.40 a case and sends it for processing into nuggets at $33.45 a case. The schools in San Bernardino, Calif., spend $14.75 to make French fries out of $5.95 worth of potatoes.”

Again, we’re back to the issue of working kitchens and whether a school has one in addition to the funds to staff said kitchen.  Is the convenience side of Belasco’s triangle the winner when making school lunches?  Cost?  Lobbying power?

Posted by jantoniabird on February 23, 2012

https://foodandhistoryattemple.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/lunchtime/