Posted on 11/08/2014 3:05:27 AM PST by Bettyprob
Many parents prefer to send their children off to school with a packed lunch, believing that the food they have given them is far healthier than school lunches. But a new study, published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, claims this may not be the case.
The research team, led by Alisha R. Farris of the Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Exercise at Virginia Tech, found that school lunches had better average nutritional quality than packed lunches.
"We found that both packed and school lunches almost entirely met nutrition standards, except school lunches were below energy and iron recommendations, whereas packed lunches exceeded fat and saturated fat recommendations," says Farris.
The quality of school lunches has been a major focus in recent years. In 2012, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) updated the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) guidelines, setting out a number of recommendations with the aim of offering healthier food choices to children at school.
As part of the guidelines, the USDA recommend that schools should ensure students are offered fruits and vegetables every day, are offered fat-free or low-fat milk varieties, given a choice of whole-grain rich foods and are served the correct food portion size, based on their age.
It seems these recommendations have proved successful so far. In March, Medical News Today reported on a study from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, MA, claiming that the guidelines have increased consumption of fruits and vegetables among low-income students.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalnewstoday.com ...
They have to eat the food first for it to be nutritious!
That battle has been going on for decades.
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From the pix of some of the school lunches resulting from the Michelle Obama mandate, the paper bags home lunches come in look more edible.
The lunch eaten is more “nutritional” than the one NOT eaten.
My sandwich, chips, & apple, was better than what I’d ever eat off of the tray.
And most of it went south.
I don’t feed my children a low-fat diet, due to the fact that I don’t follow trends. Things are slowly coming back to full-fat diets, and none too soon.
My children are at their ideal weights, heights, and sizes.
I do not need the government telling me what to buy, make, or feed to my children.
Period.
Utter BS.
What’s your opinion, bettyprob?
This is actually funny. They set artificially low, Michelle Obama starvation standards of bad food, then “adjust” the comparison using it as the standard, and anything better as “too much”.
Yeah, offer the kids lawn clippings to eat, even though they refuse, and base your standards for “healthy” on lawn clippings.
These people can’t even run their own lives, so what makes them think they can run children’s lives? I wouldn’t let them grow weeds in a vacant lot.
What a sick situation we have when it’s YOUR kid if you want to abort it- but not when it comes to feeding it.
“Hey, teachers leave those kids alone!” —Pink Floyd
“packed lunches exceeded fat and saturated fat recommendations”
Outstanding! I gave up trying to worry about low-fat this and low-fat that, and started eating butter on my veggies and cheese and bacon and sausage...and I’ve gone from 34” jeans to 31” jeans in about 2 months.
Sounds like the packed lunches are healthier than the government ones. What a shock, huh?
Nope. Nope. Nope.
School lunches are crap. It’s all a bunch of crap.
I have an 11 year old 6th grader and I have packed her lunch every day for the past 7 years, since Kindergarten and will continue to do so.
Yes, when will the govt. morons realize their food pyramid is upside down and get rid of the “low fat, whole grain” mantra. Abolishing the USDA would be great start.
“We found that both packed and school lunches almost entirely met nutrition standards, except school lunches were below energy and iron recommendations, whereas packed lunches exceeded fat and saturated fat recommendations,” says Farris.
This isn’t what the headline says!!!! Propaganda. Nothing but.
How can anyone still be studying nutrition and how can there be any need for a nutritionist or dietitian every year, year after year, for schools. I have not seen one change in either children or food in the last 60 years and I’m pretty sure the previous centuries were much the same.
50 years ago we ate well at school. Some kids were fat most were not. We played outside and ran it off. We had no nutrititionist. We had cooks at school who had some common sense.
Personally, I’ve been alive long enough to see them change the nutritional requirements and cultural food standards enough times to say any division of the government that tells Americans what to eat is full of hogwash.
“Ironically, (or by design,) the President’s children attend a school, Sidwell Friends, that refuses to follow Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move School Lunch nutrition guidelines.”
RIGHT! Because that screwl operates as a business and if they fed the kids the MOooochie chit the parents who make and lobby for the laws they make us live under would pull their kiddies out of the screwl and send them to one that feeds fillet mignon and kobe beef like they eat at home.
It is going to take more than a pubbie win to change things. Baseball bats come to mind.
Actually it is, look what they said about the energy kids get out of school lunches. That is a HUGE manipulation of our kids!
Ask yourself how well you learn new things when you are tired? How likely were you when you were a kid who was tired to just say...yeah, whatever man?
Glucose is a form of sugar that your body creates from the carbohydrates you eat. Once the glucose is made it gets into the bloodstream so that your muscles and organs can use it for energy. In fact, your brain needs at least 125 to 150 grams of glucose per day to function. It's usually the only source of energy for the brain. The brain's neurons must have this supply of energy from the bloodstream since they aren't capable of storing energy, like fat, for later use. Sugar and Brain Function
Huh? Look at that, do you think the Obama school lunch program cuts carbohydrates?
Now what about that low iron meal from the school too. Well, huh, this just might pop a few eyeballs too...Iron Deficiency Alters Brain Development and Functioning. How about this little clip, The growing body of evidence suggests that brain iron deficiency in early life has multiple consequences in neurochemistry and neurobiology. Wow...and did you know this, Iron deficiency is reported to be the most prevalent nutritional problem in the world today,
so, really, why would school lunches be low in TWO key components of brain development and learning?
No thanks, I'll send my kid to school with a home packed lunch everyday.
My credo is that a mother inherently knows what is best for her child - above anyone else. God made it that way. If liberals don’t like it they can go suck an egg.
How did we survive as a species without liberals?
Moocheele Obama, let’s starve...your kids.
In conjunction with a book I read a couple of years ago, I read an NY Times article from the late 19th/early 20th Century where the societal do-gooders wanted to ban or curb pickle sales and consumption because they made children excitable (specifically low income immigrant children). he he.
That fat you are eating is fairly natural, non overheated fat. The fats that can cause problems are the frying oils. I ate a spinach dish last week that could probably be served to any non-picky eater and enjoyed. Because of the cheese, butter and evaporated milk, it would never fly as “healthy.”
According to the photos kids are circulating, a thermos of leftovers is well above what I am seeing on trays.
Follow the money. They don’t like kids bringing their own lunch to school because it cuts into their budget. They would prefer to have a monopoly.
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