Catholic school nutrition

[pristine2]

Thanks to all of you for your thoughtful replies. It’s very helpful to know how people might react to our concerns.

Of course I did not mean to offend anyone – and certainly not “insulting”. We love our new community. I’m just quite accustomed to speaking my mind, especially where my children are concerned. And I thought this forum an appropriate place to speak up. And yes, we are frustrated that our children are so constantly exposed to junk food, even at church.

Both my wife and I feel compelled to address the issue in some manner. But we will do so as respectfully and constructively as we can. We certainly would not try to impose our children’s diet on any one else, especially with respect to beef & pork. In and of themselves, these meats can be very healthy food. The problem I have is with oils, salt, sweeteners and the various chemical additives adulterating the food.

The bottom line for us is that we do not like to see any children harmed, and it is hard to ignore what they are being fed. We can see with our own eyes that diabetes and obesity are stalking this community, in much the same way as famine and malnutrition still blight impoverished areas of the world. And it is obviously the most vulnerable children, both at our school and the community at large, who pay the largest price.

Perhaps I am also struggling to understand what, from an ethical and religious point of view, a Christian approach to food should be.

The community garden idea is an excellent one!

Corki: we were very surprised about the Friday menus, too. Only during lent are meatless dishes offered on Fridays. During the rest of the year, it’s almost always a meat dish. We’ve learnt that this came about gradually after Vatican II. The only alternative on offer is a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.

The costs of the foods is critical, as many of you pointed out, but so too is the labour involved in providing them. As my wife and look for ways to volunteer, I think we will try to get involved directly in the school food services.

Thanks again to all of you.

 

[pristine2]

Finally, there might be biological reasons for differences in dietary preferences. Can a German eat like a Vietnamese and be okay? Can a Vietnamese eat like a German and be okay? I have my doubts as to both.
Nobody knows.

I’ve had this observation too over the years, too. Surely there are ethno-genetic factors at play, and cultural factors too. Climate must also play a roll. You need a lot more salt if you’re living in Ghana than you do in Canada.

But I think there are certain universals.

About a million years ago I attended university in Paris, and boy did I love the food. I was living on a student stipend. A typical meal was bread, cheeses, and cold-cuts. Lots of heavy stews in the winter. The fruits & veggies were glorious, but I could rarely afford them, and most were only available in the warm months. In winter it was basically cabbage, carrots and potatoes. The pastries were simply scrumptious, but these too were an extravagance. Almost everything cooked in butter.

Even then, I couldn’t help but notice how thin the French were. Don’t know if it is still true.

 

[Petaro]

Like other responses, I would recommend that you continue to pack lunches for your children and advise them as to correct treatment of communal treats and other offerings.

We are all aware of the dangers of sugar, (although all food is translated to a form of glucose when entering the cells). For years our family lived on bacon and eggs or a mixed grill for breakfast as well as meat in all the other meals. They all died of course. However they worked into their late sixties and died in their nineties. The pain they must have endured.

I remember when potatoes were of the devil. Now eggs are full of cholesterol, (although recent studies suggest that they don’t increase our “bad” cholesterol levels)
Once it was fat; now it is carbohydrates and sugar. Thank God for coconut oil! I read it cures cancer.

Don’t get me started on the red cordial (although now we recognise hyper activity in small boys for the mental illness it is and thankfully have Ritalin.)

I recently was in Texas and was morally outraged at the size of the helpings at breakfast at the hotel. OK, it was a buffet, but you get the principal of my outrage.

God gave us hands and a mind to control how much we use our hands to put food in our mouths. Our western countries are full of stores that can sell us diet low sugar, sugar-free, fat-free food; food without preservatives, organic cucumbers, free range chickens and eggs.
But still we get fatter and fatter. Thank heavens for the diet books! And the tapes, and the classes, and Pilates and Rumba and yoga and…Talk about guilt!! Catholics and Jews have nothing on this new age guilt.

I am so racked by it even thinking about what I am going to have for dinner, that I must have a little snack. I read that dark chocolate is good for the heart. I think I have a block somewhere. Thankfully the wife is not home,… otherwise I would have in all decency to share.

 

[pristine2]

“God gave us hands and a mind to control how much we use our hands to put food in our mouths. Our western countries are full of stores that can sell us diet low sugar, sugar-free, fat-free food; food without preservatives, organic cucumbers, free range chickens and eggs.”

In truth we don’t have such stores where we are, and what organic food is available in the grocery stores is frightfully expensive and not always very fresh.

But where and how food is sold is definitely part of the issue. There seems to be a pretty clear link between unhealthy diet and the loss of family-run food stores. It’s an anecdotal impression, but one reason I think the French do eat so much healthier than we is that the average middle class person still shops at bakeries, cheese shops, pastry shops and fruit & vegetable markets rather than supermarkets. I think it makes sense to have a relationship with the people who are selling your food. I have no empirical evidence for this, but I’m nonetheless convinced this is true.

It’s hard to distinguish between value-neutral information about healthy food, and hyperbolic scare tactics linked to marketing campaigns. The declarations in the late 1950s that fat = heart disease haven’t stood up to scrutiny, for example, and the processed oils used to replace animal fats (like butter) now appear to have been far more harmful.

That doesn’t give us the luxury of trivialising the issue. And a measure of common sense can’t go amiss. One bag of spicy cheese-flavoured Doritos, fried in transfat and saturated in BHT, isn’t going to harm my child. Three bags a week over ten years may prove very harmful indeed, especially if she is also being fed a steady supply of similar rubbish. I provide good food to her at home and carefully pack her lunch nearly every day. It should not be hard to understand that I resent when the adults around her, whom she trusts implicitly, dangle such “treats” before her, even ostracising her if she refuses them.

 

[savedbygrace71]

That doesn’t give us the luxury of trivialising the issue. And a measure of common sense can’t go amiss. One bag of spicy cheese-flavoured Doritos, fried in transfat and saturated in BHT, isn’t going to harm my child. Three bags a week over ten years may prove very harmful indeed, especially if she is also being fed a steady supply of similar rubbish. I provide good food to her at home and carefully pack her lunch nearly every day. It should not be hard to understand that I resent when the adults around her, whom she trusts implicitly, dangle such “treats” before her, even ostracising her if she refuses them.

I completely agree, and its frustrating how few people understand the concept.

It’s a constant worry but we have been largely successfully in overcoming it so far. A European raised kindergarten teacher was a huge help. She understood why we didnt want our son to eat pop tarts for snack in the middle of the morning! Now in first grade we pack our own snacks so that issue is avoided. He eats fruit!

We happen to have many friends who feel the same way we do about food, and that helps my son not feel the odd one out. As long as your kids understand and can verbalize it for themselves, they will learn to say, for example, no thanks, to the red sugar water being offered as drinks at school functions. They will ask for just plain water and happily drink it!

 

[Xantippe]

I don’t think it’s fair to little kids to ask them to police themselves. What if they eat the forbidden treat at school and then lie to you? That’s so much worse than just eating it. I’m personally reasonably strict with my kids at home about food, but I don’t expect them to report on every cupcake or cookie that they had at school. However, when candy or sweets come home from school, some of it goes straight to the trash.

Petaro, that was very funny, especially the bit about the huge servings at the buffet.

Pristine2 said:

“As my wife and look for ways to volunteer, I think we will try to get involved directly in the school food services.”

That’s a very good idea. It always makes a bad impression to say, “XYZ is screwed up. I know what I want you to do, and it’s going to take 2-3X as much time and money as you are currently spending” rather than, “I’d like to help with XYZ and I have the following ideas I’d like to try. I’m really excited about it.”

I suspect that a community garden will not actually generate very much produce (especially not during school months), but it will generate interest among the kids in the stuff being grown.

By the way, are you familiar with CSAs? There may be one in your area. It’s sort of a farm subscription. I have to warn you, though, that during certain months, you’ll get some less kid-friendly veggies.

localharvest.org/csa/

Another thing you might try with school is periodically sending in some unusual fruit for the kids to try. I still remember being a 3rd grader and being offered a kiwi fruit for the first time as part of my class. It was so good! Pomegranate is another good one. It’s messy and potentially staining, but kids love taking a pomegranate apart. There are even things like purple potatoes that would be very exciting for little kids.

healthyeating.sfgate.com/purple-potatoes-nutrition-2182.html

Kids around 6th grade can start cooking independently. A cooking club might be a great thing to try at that age. When I was a 6th grader, I did a club called 4H and did the cooking group (gardening and raising a calf or rabbit are other options). It was so thrilling at that age to bake stuff and send it to the fair and get ribbons. I even did a cooking demonstration at the fair.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-H

In fact, come to think of it, I would strongly suggest talking to your local 4H coordinators to talk about opportunities. I think you would really enjoy it.

There are so many existing resources.

 

[Xantippe]

A big part of the problem for us is that a lot of Americans are convinced that they can somehow cheat their way into good health. When I was growing up, everything was “low-fat,” which turned out to mean that you just have twice as much because it doesn’t fill you up.

I’ve had gestational diabetes, which was such a pain, and one thing I’ve learned from that is to be very strict with myself about making sure that meals and snacks always contain carbohydrate, protein and fat. You will not catch me eating just plain starchy food anymore. If I have a bagel (and it’s probably going to be a mini-bagel or half a full-sized bagel), it’s going to be with cream cheese or some other source of protein and fat. When I was younger, I would have thought of it as being actually more virtuous just to eat the plain starch, little suspecting that eating straight starch just leaves me feeling hungry and sets me up on a cycle of non-stop eating of unsatisfying starchy food.

Oh, and while I’m thinking of it, MyPlate is a very good resource:

choosemyplate.gov/kids/

The visual of the plate split into quarters is very effective with kids (and helpful with adults).

 

[Corki]

Corki: we were very surprised about the Friday menus, too. Only during lent are meatless dishes offered on Fridays. During the rest of the year, it’s almost always a meat dish. We’ve learnt that this came about gradually after Vatican II. The only alternative on offer is a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.

If they offer a PB&J sandwich as an option every Friday, that’s great! Even before Vatican II, abstinence from meat was not obligatory for those under the age of 13. So, if this is an elementary school, even during lent, most of the students would be too young.

 

[Allegra]

If you are concerned about your kid eating a birthday cupcake every now and again, I think this borders on obsessive and is probably actually more unhealthy than the cupcake itself. If you expect the rest of the school to follow your dietary requirements, you will probably offend some people and become the butt of jokes of others. If you are going to do anything at all, I would suggest coming up with a plan to provide the students with healthier lunch options such as chopped veggies and fresh fruit. You will probably not get much flack for that. You could also volunteer to organize a community garden where the kids could grow their own squash, tomatos, and green beans. That’s a big expense and a whole lot of work though. I would lay off the birthday treats and if you don’t want your kid to eat them, let the teacher know and leave it at that.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

My children packed lunch from home all through school. There were lots of reasons why we started - health and expense the top two. They preferred it because the food was better, lunch from home catered to their tastes, and they didn’t have to wait in the cafeteria line.

I bought a few small containers so that they could have a serving of cut up fruit, little snacks like nuts or popcorn, etc. Their lunches were appealing and other children wanted lunches like that too. I did notice that most of the other children carrying lunch from home were from immigrant families. Like your daughter that may have been because it was easier to handle cultural/religious dietary needs.

My son in high school still carries his own lunch everyday including homemade treats and snacks.

Please don’t start food wars with your daughter over forbidden treats though. When others are getting cake and she’s made to refuse every time. That’s a good way to develop food conflicts in her. Hopefully the school will be willing to limit treats and begin to use non food rewards - stickers, bookmarks, etc. An occasional birthday treat or class party with candy won’t then be as much of an issue.

 

[pristine2]

If you are concerned about your kid eating a birthday cupcake every now and again, I think this borders on obsessive and is probably actually more unhealthy than the cupcake itself.

If it were really “now and then,” I’d agree, especially if the cupcakes were really cupcakes with five or six ingredients like butter, milk, eggs, flour and sugar. The ones sold by the supermarket “bakery” have 40 (forty) ingredients, most of which offer no benefit to the consumer, but are there to extend shelf life, lower manufacturing costs and enhance the impulse value of the product. Sorry, but I find this appalling. I really doubt you were fed this sort of rubbish as a child. On average, the kids are presented with processed sweets and packaged fried snacks three or four times a week at school alone. On top of that, the same practice is employed by the staff at the YMCA, which is supposed to have a healthy food policy.

Over the course of a typical month my child is offered more than enough low-quality food to lead her directly into a life-long struggle with obesity unless, by luck of the draw, she is genetically immune. Of course we encourage her to make good choices, but she is only eight years old, far too young to expect her to understand how to resist, especially when all her peers are indulging. We’re simply forced to intervene.

You may think it is obsessive, but we’ve lived in three other countries since our first child was born and have never faced anything like this problem before.

 

[pristine2]

Hopefully the school will be willing to limit treats and begin to use non food rewards - stickers, bookmarks, etc. An occasional birthday treat or class party with candy won’t then be as much of an issue.

That’s exactly what we would like to see.

 

[Allegra]

If it were really “now and then,” I’d agree, especially if the cupcakes were really cupcakes with five or six ingredients like butter, milk, eggs, flour and sugar. The ones sold by the supermarket “bakery” have 40 (forty) ingredients, most of which offer no benefit to the consumer, but are there to extend shelf life, lower manufacturing costs and enhance the impulse value of the product. Sorry, but I find this appalling. I really doubt you were fed this sort of rubbish as a child. On average, the kids are presented with processed sweets and packaged fried snacks three or four times a week at school alone. On top of that, the same practice is employed by the staff at the YMCA, which is supposed to have a healthy food policy.

Over the course of a typical month my child is offered more than enough low-quality food to lead her directly into a life-long struggle with obesity unless, by luck of the draw, she is genetically immune. Of course we encourage her to make good choices, but she is only eight years old, far too young to expect her to understand how to resist, especially when all her peers are indulging. We’re simply forced to intervene.

You may think it is obsessive, but we’ve lived in three other countries since our first child was born and have never faced anything like this problem before.

Are you sure you aren’t exhaggerating the situation? Most classes don’t have any more that 30 students in it and they all only have one birthday a year. Even if they happen to have one birthday a week and the teacher buys a treat on friday to celebrate good behavior, that’s only two teats in a week. I’m not sure why a teacher would want to give more treats than that. I work in a school and all of our classrooms are really busy with learning to read and write and teachers don’t usually want a whole lot of unneeded interruptions and they certainly don’t want to pump them up with sugar. If the teacher is consistantly using treats for classroom management, then I think it’s reasonable to request that practice come to an end, if for no reason other than it’s an ineffective way to motivate a classroom. However, I wouldn’t mess with the birthday celebrations.

 

[Irishmom2]

You have a right to see that your child does not eat junk if that is your desire.

You do not have a right to pass judgment on people that allow their children to eat snacks you do not allow. You do not have the right to dictate what everyone else eats.

I 'm sorry, but the problem is yours, and it appears that you want the school to be the bad guy and not you. You should teach your child, as others have said they have done, to say no thank you, and to be strong enough to just not eat it. No one is standing there forcing them to eat it. An 8 year old is certainly able to resist, and certainly able to do something that no one else is doing. Use it as a lesson for later on when your child will face worse pressures than eating a cupcake or not.

 

[Rau]

I 'm sorry, but the problem is yours, and it appears that you want the school to be the bad guy and not you.

Self-discipline is good and relevant here. But did you read post #1? The school is not doing its part well. Self-discipline is good - but not all ills in our communities need to be seen as solely a matter of self-discipline.

 

[Cricket2]

You have a right to see that your child does not eat junk if that is your desire.

You do not have a right to pass judgment on people that allow their children to eat snacks you do not allow. You do not have the right to dictate what everyone else eats.

I 'm sorry, but the problem is yours, and it appears that you want the school to be the bad guy and not you. You should teach your child, as others have said they have done, to say no thank you, and to be strong enough to just not eat it. No one is standing there forcing them to eat it. An 8 year old is certainly able to resist, and certainly able to do something that no one else is doing. Use it as a lesson for later on when your child will face worse pressures than eating a cupcake or not.

I honestly didn’t think the OP was trying to dictate to others how and what they should eat. I do think we have too many “diet police” out there however. No one forces me to go to McDonalds, and when I go I am there for the burger and fries. However, this country does have a severe problem with obesity and we do need to mitigate the problem.

I think most schools could do better via that which they offer. I personally am opposed to soda machines being at school, as well as snack machines. They are there to make money and they supply what will sell. Some schools are replacing chips, candy and sodas with better options and I think it is a good thing.

I had suggested the school organize an organic garden project. This way interested kids and parents could have an active way of contributing to better choices at the school. This could solidify what parents are trying to teach their children about better eating habits and foods.

So, I don’t think the OP was trying to be rude or insulting, just expressing concerns. Yes each child has to learn their own measure of self-control, all parents should be involved in what is served at the school. Otherwise the school should just require kids to bring lunches and forgo any other services.

 

[Irishmom2]

Self-discipline is good and relevant here. But did you read post #1? The school is not doing its part well. Self-discipline is good - but not all ills in our communities need to be seen as solely a matter of self-discipline.

I would not have written post #2 if I had not read post #1.

And not all problems belong to other people to fix.

 

[Irishmom2]

So, I don’t think the OP was trying to be rude or insulting, just expressing concerns.

Please, I said nothing about him being rude or insulting, so I don’t know why you are even saying this to me.

 

[Rau]

I would not have written post #2 if I had not read post #1.

And not all problems belong to other people to fix.

Agreed, but you have explicitly said this problem is all the OP’s. I’m not sure if this reflects your ideas on nutrition, or your ideas on school responsibilities vs. parental.

The need for self-discipline is agreed. But are you ok with the school’s practices?

 

[Irishmom2]

Rau, did I say that the problem is ALL the OP’s? Did you read my first post? Yes, the school might be totally to blame for argument’s sake, but if they aren’t going to do anything about it, or don’t want to do anything about it or can’t do anything about it, then yes, it is the parent’s problem to fix for their child.

I am not here to discuss whether the school is at fault or not. I was only trying to tell the OP that the bottom line is that the parents have to deal with it and not hope for the school to, because as many people have already said: it is not going to happen.