Interesting site. What available in grammar schools vs. what is available on a college campus should be made very clear in sites like this. Assuming we're only talking about grammar school cafeterias..:
There are a couple of programs in the usa regarding school meals for kids. The first is a program where a kid can get two square meals a day plus three snacks, all on the goverment tab. This ensures that regardless of a caregiver's financial situation, the child is going to eat 2 healthy meals and some snacks. Even if he has nothing else for the rest of the day, he's gotten enough good stuff in his system to keep him healthy. Those meals and snacks are strictly regulated. The new food pyramid is adhered to. The meals encompass all the food groups in the proper portions and eliminate all the junk. Desserts are not witheld and cake or cookies are permitted.
This same program is available on a smaller scale for kids who's situation does not require as much. They may get just the lunch and a take home snack.
This program is available in every state at every school.
Then there is the optional purchase meal plan. Most grammar schools are strictly retail. Lunch costs a certain amount of money. You opt to buy lunch or bring it from home. The best way to sell to kids is to make an all inclusive tray price. When there is a couple of hot lunch options and a couple of cold lunch options, complete with sides, beverage and dessert you'll have the greatest opportunity to ensure the kids have a healthy meal. Sell either A B C or D for the same price.
Then, you have the a la carte programs. Everything has a price, whether it's a grilled cheese sandwich, a pretzel, a granola bar, a cookies, a slice of pizza, etc. The problem with this program is there is little incentive to get a kid to purchase that plate of steamed broccoli, even if you pour fatty cheese sauce over it. The kid would much rather buy the big cookie and an order of fries. If you are going to give the kid choices you cannot expect the school to monitor what the kid purchases. It's not fair for parents or the school to decide what the cafeteria can sell either. I've seen places where boards have forbidden the sale of french fries, cookies, chicken nuggets. These same schools tell you to sell granola bars, baked potato chips, grilled chicken. Sales decline and the cafe cannot meet a budget...because the kids won't buy that stuff and the same parents that won't let the cafe sell the cookies will now send the cookies in from home.
Then there are the brown bag lunches. More often than not, these are the worst lunches in the school. If there is no refrigeration offered for the bags (and there are many schools where the bag sits in the cloakroom all day) you first run the risk of a food born intoxication due to improperly held food. Then, look at what is coming in...processed food with white flour, trans fats, sugars and sodium counts as high as the flag pole. Unless there is a rule against it, kids bring soda to school. Kids bring candy bars. Kids bring energy drinks.
More work needs to be done in the area regarding school meals and meals in general for children. If school meals were provided to all children, and all special dietary needs are met (and it's really not that tough to do that, either) then you could really begin to eliminate the obesity problem in this country.
School food programs are often the butt of jokes, from mystery meat to strange sauces. Considering how strict the regulations are that monitor what is served and what is not permitted (trans fat for instance) more people would realize that the school provided meal is the most nutrituous meal many kids get.
.. or occasionally one of the catholic sisters would go around telling us to clean our tray, because of the starving kids in Africa.
