LAUSD Students Roundly Reject Healthier School Lunch Menu

[The Straight Story]

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — The revamped school lunches at Los Angeles Unified School District have won awards, commending them for improving the menu at the second largest school district in the nation. Too bad the students don’t agree.

Rejecting healthful alternatives like vegetarian curries and tamales, quinoa salads and pad Thai noodles, students are throwing them in the trash by the thousands, bringing junk food from home and buying instant noodles and other decidedly unhealthy fare from the “black markets” that have begun to thrive at campuses across the district, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The wholesale rejection to its healthy menu comes about a year after a very public food fight with TV chef Jamie Oliver. Oliver filmed a few weeks of his ABC series “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” at one LAUSD campus, but the permit was terminated abruptly.

The series’ first season featured Oliver trying to revolutionize the eating habits and food policies of Huntington, W. Va.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/01/19/lausd-students-roundly-reject-healthier-school-lunch-menu/

[JI7]

1. those healthy school lunches sound good

[RZM]

2. They do. But they probably sound better to us adults than to kids n/t

[diane in sf]

6. The "healthy" menu sounds pretty starchy.

[JI7]

8. depends, the pad Thai could have a bunch of veggies in there

and not too many noodles , and whole grain noodles.

it depends on what the sides are also.

[HockeyMom]

3. If they aren't eating hese things at home, they won't at school

I have seen the exact opposite at school with Mexican and Haitian kids. They would not eat the chicken nuggets, hamburgers, fries, etc. When the school served black beans, rice, tortillas, and fresh fruits like oranges and bananas, they devored them.

Why? I doubt these kids were eating chicken nuggets and fries at home. Yet, the school stopped serving the rice and beans, and kept the nuggets and burgers.

[limpyhobbler]

4. they're not rejecting "healthier", they're rejecting "weird stuff they never heard of before"

Somebody ought to be able to design a slightly healthier menu without getting "exotic".

I'm not talking "exotic" as a euphemism for "ethnic".
I just mean "stuff they have never heard of before".

Either that menu was designed by idiots, or it was designed for failure.

[gratuitous]

5. Isn't this nice?

Practically everyone agrees that we would like our nation's children raised to be healthy. Eat right, exercise, and all that. And we take little stabs at the problem with a modified school lunch menu, but we don't do anything to help parents at home. You offer help to parents at home, and you get know-nothings like Sarah Palin whimpering about death panels and how nanny staters like Michelle Obama want to snatch the s'mores out of your kid's mouth.

How do we get buy in for healthier children when one political party is so dedicated to subverting anything that's done?

[JI7]

7. maybe they need to start simple, like Grilled Chicken Nuggets , Turkey Burger

foods more similar to what they get but more healthy.

[enlightenment]

9. Common sense.

Something sorely lacking in most bureaucracies.

[virgogal]

10. I don't blame them. What the hell are quinoa salads?