School lunch

“ The National School Lunch Program demonstrates our commitment to the promotion of the health and well-being of our youth. Under its auspices, more than 23 million lunches are served daily in nearly 90,000 schools throughout our country. ”

“ Recipes for suitable beverages for such occasions will be found in the chapter on Beverages.
SCHOOL LUNCHES.
Mothers whose children are obliged to go long distances to school, are often greatly perplexed to know what to put up for the noonday lunch which shall be both appetizing and wholesome. The conventional school lunch of white bread and butter, sandwiches, pickles, mince or other rich pie, with a variety of cake and cookies, is scarcely better than none at all; since on the one hand there is a deficiency of food material which can be used for the upbuilding of brains, muscles, and nerves ”

“ The National School Lunch Program-now in its 36th year-operates to provide nutritious and well-balanced meals for needy young people of our country. School lunch is an outstanding example of a close partnership of the Federal government with State governments and local communities to provide food, funds, and technical assistance for our efforts to provide nutrition assistance to these students. ”

“ The age, sex, nationality, economic condition and occupation of the patrons must be kept in mind. The adult demands a freedom of choice which may be denied children. For this reason the content of the grade school lunch may be fixed in an arbitrary way, while this will not do when one is dealing with adults of any class. For instance, grade school children are satisfied with the morning bowl of bread and milk and the noon lunch of bread and soup. Adults, even in a charitable home, would undoubtedly complain of the simplicity of such meals. ”

“ Promoters of the school lunch often have as competitors the candy vender, the ice cream man and sellers of adulterated and low dietary wares of various kinds who stand even at the school gates to wean the children away from less exciting but more nutritious food. School lunches cannot be compulsory, or are not compulsory, and the child must be led to realize that good nutrition is fundamental and desirable. Then he can be led on to an interest in pure food laws and their enforcement, and kindred civic matters. ”

“ During National School Lunch Week, we recognize dedicated parents, school officials, community leaders, and food service professionals for their efforts to ensure that our children are provided with nutritious meals each day. ”

“ During National School Lunch Week, we thank the food program administrators, educators, parents, and communities who provide for our Nation's sons and daughters, and we recommit to ensuring all our children have the healthy food they need to grow and succeed. ”

“ Furthermore, many children of poor parentage come to school underfed. Opportunity to obtain a light lunch of nourishing food and a warm drink at about 10:30 or 11 o'clock is an appreciated necessity. Hence most buildings have lunch rooms arranged and equipped according to local demands. Here, in the secondary schools, the family of the janitor furnishes rolls, buns, cakes, cocoa, coffee, milk, etc., at a reasonable rate. As stated before, the teachers have lunches served in their own rooms. ”

“ Auburn school was started by the Mothers’ Club because they wished to give their children better food than they could get at the candy store at recess time. The mothers report that since they have opened the lunch room and the children get good food at recess time they have better appetites and eat more than they did before.
Many times children do not eat because they are too hungry and tired after the walk home and really have lost their appetites on account of that. Children often eat a very light breakfast and need a lunch at recess. ”

“ School lunches also teach children good dietary habits. Cafeterias become learning laboratories, putting into practice the classroom lessons learned by the students on the importance of nutrition to health and well-being. ”

“ Yet we can not blame children for [Pg 200] disliking the usual school luncheon, which is seldom dainty-looking or inviting to the taste; sandwiches roughly and thickly cut, the bread clumsily buttered, and the meat in chunks instead of slices, cake crumbling and soggy, pickles, and pie that has been wedged into a dinner box for hours, are none of them the proper food for exhausted brains. ”

“ In Philadelphia the Starr Center Association undertook school feeding in some schools over fifteen years ago, but it is now managed by the Home and School League. Several of the schools provide a meal, some at 10.30 a.m., others a fuller meal at midday. The cost is one cent for lunch and three to five cents for dinner. There is one hot dish of soup or rice pudding, etc., and the children may spend another cent on the "extra" dainty. The meals are self-supporting. The teachers co-operate enthusiastically, and sometimes eat with the children. ”

“ In case the pupils of a school cook for the lunch room, the greatest care needs to be exercised by the teacher to place the responsibility of preparing a salable product upon the pupil. Too much assistance on the part of the teacher in directing the pupils' work and in deciding when a food is sufficiently cooked or baked, may interfere in developing initiative in pupils,—one of the aims to be accomplished in education. ”

“ In the cloak-rooms there is not always room for a table, and the children sometimes have to sit along the walls, holding their mugs of cocoa or their basins of soup on their knees. When the class-rooms are utilised the food has to be placed on the desks; nothing in the nature of table-cloths is provided, and the state of the desks after the children, the infants especially, have eaten soup or bread and syrup, can be well imagined. Often the breakfasts arrive late, and the children have consequently to be hurried over the meal so that the class-rooms may be got ready for school. ”

“ Occasionally a regular dinner is provided. We have already mentioned the experiment made at Rousdon 124by Sir Henry Peek in 1876. This has been continued to the present day. A hot dinner is provided daily, consisting of one course, soup with bread and vegetables two days a week, and some form of suet pudding the other three days. About half the children stay for the dinner and pay one penny each, these payments just about covering the cost of the food. The meal is served in a dining-room in the school and the ex-headmaster and the present headmaster voluntarily undertake the supervision. ”

“ The long walk necessitates an early start from home; this makes the interval between breakfast and dinner long and the exercise sharpens the appetite. Hence it is of the greatest importance that the midday meal should be adequate. In most cases, however, as the reports of School Medical Officers abundantly testify, the dinner which these children bring with them consists of bread and jam, cake or pastry, with perhaps a bottle of cold tea. [359] In a few schools the 123teachers have organised cocoa clubs, the children paying 1d. ”