Friday, November 20, 2015

School Lunches

Yesterday I went to the Thanksgiving lunch at my DD school. 

I signed into the office to get my pass so I can meet up with my DD in the cafeteria.  We wait in line for about 15 min.  We get to the front of the line and start to get our food.
The main course is on a Styrofoam tray that has been doubled up so it won't break before you get to the table.  The side items has been proportioned in individual plastic disposable dishes.  Everything looks appetizing.  (I wish I would have snapped a picture of the meal before I started eating it.) 

The menu was

Turkey and Dressing
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Green Beans
Fruit Medley
Applesauce cake
and a Dinner Roll.

The first thing I take a bite of was the dressing.  It was pretty sweet.  After the second bite, it reminded me of Jiffy mix corn bread.  For those that has never had Jiffy mix cornbread it is basically cake with cornmeal added.  It was way too sweet and needed salt.

The second bite was of the turkey. The looks of the slices reminded me of a mixed compressed roll of meat.  It reminded me of the Banquet Turkey that used to be in the bags that all you had to drop in a pot of boiling water when I was a kid.  The Banquet boil in the bag tasted better.  The turkey was also sweet and lacking of salt.  As cheap as turkeys are you would think it would be a fresh roasted one. 

The dressing was so sweet it reminded me of soggy cake.  It needed some savory spices like sage or poultry seasoning, garlic, black pepper and salt.  It also could have used some savory vegetables like onions and celery.

Green beans were just dumped from a can of no salt added green beans. It would had benefited from onions, garlic, pepper and salt.  Of course, hoping for bacon grease or bacon pieces is too much to hope for since the school system does not serve pork products.

The mashed potatoes was bland as all get out like they were made with water instead of milk and no butter added. 

The fruit medley was not too bad.  It had cantaloupe, mango, pineapple and grapes. 

The dinner roll was whole wheat but was so sweet, reminded me of a cake made with yeast or a whole wheat version of the King Hawaiian rolls. 

The applesauce cake was a bit on the dry side and dense like it had no fat in it.  The applesauce they put on top is what made it edible. 

For a lunch that the parents were invited to it was not very good.   The lunches were sweet and bland. 

The only thing the lunch had going for it is it was 4.00 for an adult.

From what I tasted they replaced salt and fat with sugar.  Actually sugar may not be the correct word.  It is probably high fructose corn syrup.  The milk they serve all low/no fat is full of thickeners and high fructose corn syrup. 

It is no wonder the kids are not eating their school lunches and so many school districts are losing money on the new federal standards.  Add the fat and seasonings back into the lunches, I am not talking about making the lunches high fat, but our bodies need fat and salt for the brain to function.

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