Healthy School Lunches

Okay, first I should tell you that the healthy school lunch isn’t to be found in an American public school.  Chef Dominique Valadier is the man who purchases the majority of the food served at the school within a thirty mile radius of the school and then prepares it with little or no frozen ingredients.  All at the cost of about $3 per student.  If you want the full story you can check it out here.  Makes cafeteria food sound yummy!

So here is what I was wondering…why can’t we do the same kind of thing here.  I mean I’ve heard the odd story about our schools getting healthier and you hear about the ‘war on obesity’ all the time BUT I don’t see many changes in actual school lunches.  At the schools I’ve worked at the usual lunches were pizza, some variety of meat nuggets, fried this and that.  Yes, we started having salads but they consisted of iceburg lettuce a few slices of tomato and cucumber and cheese.  Uhm…not so nutritionally superior in my opinion. 

Wouldn’t it be great if all public schools were required to follow health guidelines just as they are required to follow curriculum guidelines?  If the government is going to control the schools then dang it they could do something about the food while they were at it.  Or, and this is probably the solution I like better, they could privatize schools completely.  I’m pretty sure if parents were picking where their kids were going to school and had an influence in where their education dollars were going they’d be more vocal and more insistent in their cries for healthy food.

Do you think school lunchrooms should strive to make healthy food a priority?  Do you think the government should force public schools to serve healthy (and tasty, of course) food?  OR do you think the government should back off all the regulating and let the private sector take over?