Did she have to wolf it down in under 10 minutes? I pack my daughter's lunch every day (except pizza day, unless she's over pizza that week). But that doesn't mean she gets to EAT it. The logistics of lining up, taking turns to get milk, deal with the unruly ones, etc., means she barely gets to her meal. I hate hate hate the school lunch system. It's not just bad FOOD, it's the entire set up that is unhealthy.

I arrived from another country. I have free lunch in middle school. I thought American food is this kind of bad food. I only liked the milk, cookies and fruits. I didn't even like the pizza but other students were crazy over it. I ate my apples and oranges but other students threw them out. It was not a happy food experience but I had to eat them otherwise I'd go hungry.

I just walked home for lunch everyday and my mom would make the best soups.
My schools lunch program was super sad, they only sold milk, and once a month they would do hot dog day. And worst of all, if you stayed at the school for lunch, you hgad to pay 75 cents a day to be "supervised" by old ladies who played bridge in the corner, and after the 20 minutes that was given to eat, all the kids were kicked out, even if it was minus 45 weather(sometimes it was colder)
It was awful!

I came home from first grade telling my mom I had a "hair sandwich that smelled bad"--of course it was a sloppy joe that in my mind looked like it had hairs sticking out of it. I never ate school lunch again even though it meant I had to pack my own lunch every morning. Over 50% of my public school growing up ate free or reduced lunch and it made me sad that the only meal available to them was a really nasty one. The situation was compounded by the fact that you could pay extra to get a whole entire plate of french fries (nothing else), which I saw many kids do every day. No fruit. If there was veg on the salad bar, it was typically rotting iceburg and dried out old carrot shreds. Not only was the food demoralizing but so was the environment. The smell alone--of old grease, bleach, and ground meat covered in "brown sauce"--was enough to make me ill. I don't mean to sound like a snob, but it was awful. One of my worst memories of school period.

I don't think anyone is, but don't blame the lunch ladies. My mom was a lunch lady and bemoaned that she couldn't get or serve healthy foods. But, man, she took pride in creating beautiful fruit medleys when, once in a blue moon, they did get fresh produce.

I don't think anyone blames the lunch ladies. Blame the administrators making $100K.

I eat lunch with my Kindergartener every now and then. They offer salads, fruits and vegetables, good lean proteins in small potions, etc. Big kudos to Michelle Obama for pushing through legislation on state and local levels for healthier lunches. I've noticed that kids do eat the cantaloupe, grapes, salads, green beans, etc. every.single.day. My son eats some veggies there that he won't touch at home (steamed broccoli). I've noticed that some kids whose parents pack their lunch are eating junk, junk, junk that's not allowed in the school lunch. Times have changed, ya'll!
Also, my son's lunch is close to 25 minutes sitting down, I've timed it. I think it just depends on the school system your kid is in. We're lucky!

I've been reading this blog for close to a year and it's terrific. She's fair to the school and especially kind to the lunch ladies. She's anonymous but it's probably an accurate picture of lunches that are served all over the USA.

I'm curious: I won't speak to the sad issues that many kids face of having a free lunch be their only meal. That's a whole 'nother concern for me.

For the average middle class kid who parents can afford to buy food, why DO so many kids buy lunch? Can anyone speak to why packing a lunch is less than the norm according to commentors?

Just wondering! (I'm not a parent- I just corrupt my nieces and nephews and teach them things like how to peel their own fruit and how to make tuna burgers. I send them back to mom and dad knowing how a banana works.)

@Bee T.
I can speak from my (early) high school experience about 8 years ago. It was not "cool" to pack a lunch. I remember just picking at lunch or skipping it because I was made fun of for having a spinach salad in my lunch box. Eventually I developed the sense to stop caring and I took what I wanted.

@Bee T: I teach elementary school, and in my district, the lunches are so reasonably priced that many parents opt for them because they're cheaper & easier than packing a lunch. Full price = breakfast: $1.00, lunch: $1.75

If you make below a certain amount, you qualify for reduced price lunch (and below an even smaller amount, free lunch). Reduced price = breakfast: $0.30, lunch: $0.40

And, for scope, here's what was served at my school today. We serve a variety of meals (literally the only place in the public school system that makes $$, so they try to entice kids to eat at school with choices).

Breakfast:
Pancake & Scrambled Egg or
Cereal & Crackers

Lunch:
Mixed Vegetables & Fruit, plus one of the following -
Steak Patty & Gravy (beef)
Teriyaki Chicken w/Rice
Bean & Cheese Burrito*
Cheese Pizza*
Chicken Patty on a Bun
Hot Dog on a Bun (chicken)
Corn Dog (chicken)

@Bee T:
Having left high school only a year ago, even with motivation to bring lunch (vegan pickings = slim pickings when it comes to school lunch food), I can see why a lot of people didn't.

I had to carry around my lunch all day (not enough lockers), even if I did have a locker, I'd have to spend half of my lunch going to get it (large building), it's kinda weird (even though people thought my food looked good, it was still attention that I didn't necessarily want). And I had to remember to get up 20 minutes early to pack it (and I was already going to school at 6:50), etc. The whole thing was just a bigger pain than not eating.

So yeah, I learned to eat lunch after school at 4, and then a very late dinner.

I often took lunch in school, but buying lunch was one of those marks of "maturity"- you were responsible for your own money, got to pick what you wanted to eat. I've pretty much blocked out the choices other than pizza, but I remember lunch being more of a socially valuable, rather than nutrionally valuable, period of the day.

Now that I have young children in my own life, I'm learning some school systems also restrict what a child can bring. No more homemade cupcakes for birthdays, if outside food is allowed at all. Due to peanut allergies, a good PB&J is now discouraged- if allowed at all. The same probably goes for tuna (which i LOVED!) due to seafood allergies. So even when you send the kid with a decent lunch and an icepack to keep it cool, you have any number of other obstacles to consider.

@ beccamb

I just graduated high school last summer, and Io must agree, packing a lunch could be very uncool (well at least in was in certain groups of student)

In middle school the food was so unbearable disgusting that I had the same thing every day - a big glass of ice water (free) and a giant cookie (only 25 cents!)

Never understood how anyone could like school pizza. But then I also came from a very poor school, so perhaps we were getting much worse pizza than average.

My kids go to a private elementary school with a long tradition of serving lunch "family style" - a teacher or mom at each table helps to pass the food around. We don't pay extra for lunch, it's included in the tuition. The food is healthy and moderately appealing but lots of kids (my own included) are so picky that often all they eat is bread and butter.

Brown bagging is strongly discouraged, partly because there are restrictions on what can be brought (absolutely no nuts), partly because it would be too distracting to the other children if someone brought in an unhealthy treat, and mostly because they see lunch as a teaching opportunity. The children are required to demonstrate good table manners and be part of the group, and bringing in your own lunch would interfere with this.

In the earliest grades, when school let out at noon, we signed up for "lunch bunch" which allowed my child to stay another couple of hours if she brought a lunch. I bought a Planetbox lunch box, which has divided compartments, and packed it every day. No refrigeration was provided so I was somewhat limited in what I could pack, but it was very easy to use and I could see exactly how much she ate when she brought home the leftovers. It took no more than five minutes to prepare and pack the lunch (typically, something like a hummus sandwich with the crust cut off, carrot sticks, grapes, wheat thins and for desert, a cookie or half a dozen M&Ms).

I wish I could send my kids to school with lunchboxes so I can provide the foods I know they like. As it is, I give them a full meal when I pick them up at 3 p.m. and count that as lunch.

Did anyone else notice the kid in the picture has not only pudding, but chocolate milk and juice? WTF Sugartown USA. I remember the rare days my parents would give me and my brothers money for school lunch (usually because we were out of lunch bags, or they didnt have time to make our lunch beforehand), we would get a choice of milk or juice and desert was usually a piece of crappy cake or ice milk. Though the rest of the tray was full of either a fruit or salad, a starch/bread item and a main entree

Having been a very weight-conscious high schooler, I usually had diet soda and either baked chips, a granola bar or pop tarts for lunch and that was it. Basically, I ate sugar for lunch but not enough actual food to gain any weight.

My high school in the midwest had the free and reduced lunch program, and the kids that qualified were some of the only kids who ate the school lunch at all. So it was almost a mark of being low-income to eat the school lunch.

When I was in high school, I was also weight conscious and tended to bring a protein shake for my noon time meal. For that I'd just run to my locker, grab the shake and find an isolated corner to down my lunch quickly. I didn't feel like attracting the attention in the lunch room.

When I was 16 I was allowed to leave campus for lunch. Thankfully my house was a quick drive from the high school so I usually ate leftovers from dinner the night before.

When I was in high school, my parents didn't think to stock me up on lunch food (we HAD some, but I wasn't allowed to eat any of it) so I always went to school with no breakfast or lunch.

There was a lunch program sort of... it involved leaving the school, picking up a $3 voucher, walking back to the school to join a huge lineup at the caf.

Our school was only designed for 1100 kids but held 1700. By the time we got in there, there was nothing left but fries and pizza and muffins.

But thanks to the "lets eat healthy" stuff that's going around,we were not allowed to use our vouchers for unhealthy food like fries and pizza and muffins.

It meant well, but it meant we would all starve. I lost so much weight during high school that I had some minor health problems in the end.

Now my little sister doesn't even get a lunch program. Mum sends her to school with half a hotdog bun. Not because they're poor, but because my parents simply don't care.

@melle, that sounds like child abuse!

Seriously @melle... I work for the agency that oversees child protection investigations in my state and that type of behavior would result in some form of intervention (usually some sort of alternate response/family assessment)