I had mentioned my not-so-nutritious high school lunches in a meme a few weeks ago: Snickers bar and fries. It’s true, it was my primary lunch in high school. Truthfully, I learned how to work the system with school lunches from an early age.
In elementary school, we didn’t have variety when it came to lunch. You had one meal, no a la carte options, and the only choice you had was white or chocolate milk. And half the time the chocolate milk was gone before you got to the cashier. As a picky eater, I generally scoffed at most of the food I was given. Vegetables? Never. Fruit? Only if it was the mixed fruit swimming in syrup. No soupy noodles, no meatloaf, and chicken patty sandwiches only if I could drown it in ketchup. If my mom knew how much money was wasted on food I didn’t eat, she’d probably make me start paying it back with interest.
The only days I was guaranteed to eat were the days when french fries or pizza (or both) were served. Oh, how I loved those little institutional rectangular pizzas! The little chunks of highly processed pepperoni, the greasy cheese that came off in one piece…even the slightly cardboard crust was heaven to me. No other food, at home or anywhere else, could compare to the school pizza.
In middle school, those pizzas were still on the menu, but now we had an a la carte line, and desserts! Fries were always on the a la carte line, so I’d always have a serving of fried spuds, but I’d save extra lunch money for pizza days, when I could get not one, but TWO pizzas! Each lunch was always finished with an ice cream sandwich, also.
I wonder if they still serve those little rectangle pizzas in school? I remember going to college and being slightly disappointed that the dining halls didn’t have these little greasy treasures. Do they sell these pizzas to the public?
Looking back over my school lunches, I know I made a lot of bad choices. Nutrition wasn’t exactly a concern for me – it had to taste good. And while the school did their job of providing balanced meals, they couldn’t make me eat the parts that were healthier than others. Of course, the addition of the a la carte line in middle and high school, plus the further addition of a soda machine and student-run snack store filled with candy bars and chips in high school didn’t exactly further the cause of healthy eating.
I know I won’t be able to make my daughters eat healthy in school, however I hope I can encourage them to do better than I did. My eating habits led to worse eating habits which led to weight gain and poor self-esteem. And I hope the schools will continue to look for new ways to encourage healthy eating as well, such as removing the soda and snack machines or forbidding their use during lunch.
But you can bet I’ll still encourage them to try the pizza.
This post is part of the Blog Blast hosted by Parent Bloggers Network. Check out School Menu and its parental counterpart Family Everyday, two sites that work together with School Food Services Directors to provide and promote healthy eating and physical fitness for kids and their parents.
I could have written this post! I think alot of it has to do with parental influence (or Good Lord I hope so!).. because I was never really asked NOT to eat like that at lunch and I was never really taught that it was bad..other than the fact that my mother was a yo-yo dieter and I knew when we did eat “healthy” it was also “without good taste”. I think we know a lot more about tasty healthy cooking (you know, besides the boiled green beans and broiled chicken breast, no skin and bake potato, no butter) to hopefully influence our kids to make better choices when they go to school. Fortunately, alot of these things like soda and snacks machines you do not find in elementary schools but if you check your local school districts website they may post a menu of the schools and it shows that even when they try (and call it a healthy alternatives menu..serving things like whole wheat buns and pasta instead of white) they haven’t changed much of the staples. Wow..long comment. sorry!
I miss the chocolate chip cookies – there would always be a rush to get them when they were fresh out of the oven, still soaking the napkin with trans fat. Yum.
Rectangle pizzas… yummmy….
What a nice post. The lunch room is a dangerous place for kids — so many choices. But you’re so right, we have to talk to our kids.
I remember those pizzas now! A faded memory now, but your description of the cheese coming off in one piece brought those greasy memories rushing back!
Ahhh… school pizzas! But we didn’t JUST have the rectangular pizzas here, we had STOP SIGN PIZZA! Oh, it was glorious! An octagon-shaped masterpiece with a ground meat topping covered in the most fantastically neon-orange colored cheese.
For a time, there was a store here in my hometown where you could find the “old school” school pizzas. Sadly, the store went out of business some time ago.
so i loved the pizza too, however my favorite day was when we got the turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy….BUT then came high school. We had Pizza hut delivered and I didn’t like that so I always went with the very healthy french fries with a side of cheese sauce mixed with a container of cream cheese, a candy bar, a soda and usually a bagel!!! And I wonder why I got fat as an adult???? HMMMMM
You’re not the only one who loved those pizzas. We had the sausage ones, and I loved them. That was probably about all!
Funny you wrote this post. I have been craving those pizzas for years now. There is something special about the school pizzas that I will always remember. I can’t wait for my kid to be old enough for school and mabye I can meet him for lunch!
They must just sell them institutionally or something b.c they had them at my sorority in college, too. The house mom would put on the menu “School pizza day” and we would all get so excited.
The little things in life…
I had peanut butter and jelly every single day, through the end of high school.
I don’t know anyone who didn’t love that pizza … matter of fact one of my friends recently invited me to go with her to school lunch to see her step daughter for pizza day … I went! And yes it is still good, not as great as I remember but very good! haha
Your going to curse me with some diabolical karma for this one but here’s a story for you.
With 2 kids in school I try and go to their school once a month and eat lunch with them, they love it, and I get to see the “who’s who” of their class. They still have those pizza’s. And I got one for myself on lunch day when with my oldest Meathead. And I was excited, until I ate it. I about died trying to finish that mess wondering how the hell I didn’t have a heart attack at 16 when I would eat them (and the lasanga, loved the lasanga)daily.
Funny how things were so much better when you were younger. Hold on to the memory hun, and whatever you do, don’t try to relive it. It’ll gross you out.
I loved the school pizzas and I really loved the grilled cheese and tater tots! The rest? Not so much 🙂
Ahhh the pizzas. My son loves the pizza, my daughter not so much. But our school serves them. Funny, my hubby and I were talking about the desserts our cafeterias served…I loved the peanut butter with chocolate on top, like a Reeses but waaaaaaaaaay better.
A lot of the schools now have no coke machines, only juice or bottled water.