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True Stories from the School Cafeteria


September 23, 2019 | Jody Gatewood

school lunch tray

The past couple of weeks our blogs have focused on breakfast. Today, I’m going to change it up and talk about lunch. School lunch to be more specific. A couple of weeks ago I ate school lunch with my daughter who is in kindergarten. It was the week of her birthday and she was so excited to have me come.

At the school my kids attend, they get to choose between three entrée options, one option is always a simple sandwich. The day I visited, the other two options were a yogurt parfait or chicken tenders. As you can see in the picture, I chose the chicken tenders. Along with those I had baked beans, a roll, apple slices, broccoli salad, and milk. Another option was applesauce. Overall, I thought the food was good. It just so happens that on the day I planned to visit, my daughter begged me to take lunch from home. I don’t think it was that she didn’t like the chicken tenders as much as it seems that taking your lunch is a ‘cool’ thing to do in kindergarten as there were a number of kids who had brought their lunch.

I generally have my kids eat school lunch because:

  1. I think the school lunch provides them with a balanced meal. They don’t often choose the vegetable option but do they get the fruit, grain, protein, and dairy groups. 
  2. It allows them to try new things. They might not take new things every day but I do think they try things at school that they might not try for me at home. 
  3. The cost of the meal is reasonable for what they get, including fruits and vegetables. And for families who have limited budgets, free and reduced price meals are available.  For more information on reduced price meals, contact your child’s school.

If you have the opportunity to eat school lunch with a child, I encourage you to do so. They will enjoy having you come!


Jody Gatewood

Jody Gatewood is a Registered Dietitian who enjoys spending time in the kitchen baking and preparing meals for her family. She does lots of meal planning to stay organized and feed her family nutritious meals.

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