Friday, September 7, 2012

First guest post...SHANE! Friday, September 9th.


Today on The School Lunches Suck! Blog, we are featuring our first guest poster, Shane!! Shane and I share similar views when it comes to the school lunch program, so I asked him to do a guest post on the blog. Enjoy!!!

My name is Shane and I am a Junior at a small school in rural Northeast Kansas. As an avid reader of this blog, I love what Travis is trying to do and the message he is trying to get across. A problem I noticed though is that Travis, and Beatrice High School, are the only schools getting addressed. I figured this could lead some people to believe this problem is isolated to only his school. So I did the only thing I could think of doing, I contacted him about it. After talking it over, he asked me to write a guest blog on here to show that it is not only the large high schools with the new "healthy" lunches, it is all high schools. My high school has less than 100 people in it overall, and has the same complaints all other schools are having.
In our school, over 80% of students participate in sports of some sort throughout the year. In a school like this, getting enough to eat at lunch is even more important due to the amount of activity we are doing after school. Myself, being in Cross Country, can burn upwards of 1000 calories in a hard practice each day. Our school lunches are supplying around an average of 850 calories, as previously noted in Travis's blog. So where does my energy come from if lunch isn't even supplying enough calories for practice, let alone every day activities? It doesn't come. I have to carry it over from breakfast. By the time practice is done each day I am ready to go home and chow down on whatever I can find, which is normally unhealthy. So how much are the lunches really helping health if we go straight home to eat more unhealthy?
Our lunches have been similar all year to BHS's. The outlaw of salt at tables has started a "BYOS" (Bring Your Own Salt) trend among the students where they bring their own salt shakers from home to bring some taste in to the otherwise bland meals. You know there is a problem if high schoolers are getting that creative in trying to help lunches. Our time is already limited and our creativity could be much better used somewhere else, rather than having to worry about our hunger all day. I diagrammed today's (9/7) lunch for you guys to get a glimpse of what we are eating on a regular basis:
  • 1 Sloppy Jo on whole wheat bread
  • Sweet Potato Fries (unsalted)
  • 1 cup Applesauce
  • 1/2 cup Baked Beans
  • 1 Pear
  • 1 bag sunchips
Big thanks to Travis for letting me do this write up and HUGE shout out to what he's doing. He is putting a huge amount of work in to show that this really is a problem. I hope to be on here more often now to help show everybody how schools in other states and sizes are faring with school lunches. Travis has some big plans for this blog and I hope he keeps it up.This has been Shane posting on behalf of School Lunches Suck!


Thanks, Shane!!

-----A big thanks to the readers, too!! Today, The School Lunches Suck! Blog marked the pass of the 5,000th page view!! -----
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Thanks for reading, and until next time, stay full!

6 comments:

  1. I wonder who the BA was that started the BYOS trend haha

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  2. We have BA in our school that BYOS and I dont care. We cant provide it for them but if they want to bring it Im not stopping them

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  3. That looks exactly like our meals but we had Sun Chips and the extra fruit. Where is his milk?

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  4. This is exactly what my kids had today. And to top off the crappy meals they serve. We got a letter the other day with prices for second helpings of anything they want. You can buy a ticket for them to use up and they have to sign up for what they want extra of. If they sign up and don't take it, they get charged anyway. My kids come home starving every day (even if they get picked up early) and if I try to plan dinner at 5 they can't wait that long to eat, so they ruin their appetite. I think this whole lunch thing is ridiculous!!

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  5. I actually thought my kids were lying about the no salt thing in Millard schools in Omaha ne. I Told my son i would get the little packets of salt for him. Both of them are complaining about the food having no flavor. Maybe we need to get the people in charge of setting these new standard to actually go into a school and eat the lunch for a week. Maybe changes would be made then.

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  6. We have a food service supplying our school lunch and they are upset because there are so many kids bringing their lunch! Of course they are--it is less profit for them. They are hoping that with cold weather it will reduce the number of kids bringing their lunch! The seniors are leaving school to go eat at home as they have senior privileges. Most of the parents I have talked to will be sending soup, etc., when it gets cold! Last Friday the lunch count was down by 111--may not seem like a lot to some schools but in a small school it is! They are looking at adding more ala cart items--the kids still have to buy the meal before they buy anything additional which translates into more cost for the parents! School here has been in session for 3 weeks and the number of kids bringing their lunches is growing. Last night at the school board meeting, the head cook said that when they have chicken nuggets, the gradeschool kids and high school kids get the same amount -- 5 chicken nuggets! Give me a break! Don't get me wrong, I'm all for fruits and vegetables, but make it something the kids will eat and make it edible!

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