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1. Regarding school lunches… Oh my goodness, yes! At my kids’ school here in Portugal, parents are up in arms because there is fried food on the school menu once or twice a month. Every lunch starts with a bowl of vegetable soup, which must be (at least partially) consumed before the lunch ladies will give out the rest of the meal. Kids here still moan about how nasty school food is, but that’s just because they don’t know how good they’ve got it!

2. The article on school lunches was appalling and sad. My children’s favorite lunch was the one I sent with them on the morning after we had hamburgers cooked on the grill. Since I knew what my children ate for breakfast and dinner and snacks after school and before bed, I never focused on vegetables in their lunch. I did put fruit in their lunches.

   My goal was to get them to EAT lunch. I did not pack food I knew would be thrown away. I did not require them to eat at school if I knew they would only eat the cookies. Neither did I just pack junk to get them to eat.

   The first day of school after Thanksgiving, I packed my kindergartner a healthy lunch consisting of a turkey sandwich. She sat in the back seat and forlornly asked me why I just gave her cookies for lunch. She showed me the bag of cookies she ate from. I immediately drove back to school. Neither the teacher nor the aide noticed she just ate cookies. My daughter’s lunch was still in the cubbyhole. Teachers talk amongst themselves and monitor the troublemakers, but I am still sad about her lunch experience 40 years ago. Someone should have noticed a child started eating cookies first thing!

   She did learn to eat raw vegetables, especially yellow squash, because the kindergarten taught them food facts and provided new experiences. I just cooked squash with onions, which she also like.

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