Do you pack lunch for your kids or let them eat the sloppy joe from the cafeteria?

posted on: Wednesday, September 8, 2010


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Have I mentioned that Enzo will be starting preschool in a couple of weeks?
An every day preschool?
Only a million times?!

I have back to school on my brains because really it's not back to school for us it's first time school. We're sending Enzo off to school. He's going to a wonderful preschool, one that he's been on the wait list for 3 1/2 years. He's 41/2, you do the math.

When we found out he got in the first thing I asked the director was about the food. The second was the curriculum. They have a chef who makes lunch for the kids. All ingredients are local and organic which means that I am not planning on packing him lunch. Snack maybe, but not lunch. We feel very lucky that he got in and luckier that they're conscious about what they feed the kids. All this may change if a) Enzo decides that he hates the food and b) if Christian threatens to throw away all the cute bento boxes I've accumulated for Enzo's school days that will not be put to any use.

I grew up eating school lunch. I was a total free lunch kind-of-student. Breakfast too. I have a love hate relationship with school lunch. I loved the super sweet banana bread wrapped in foil and hated the milk only option. Do they still do that? Is there soy or rice milk now?

When I was in 6th grade I wrote a letter to the mayor of Chicago telling him that I did not like the school lunch. He wrote back! No joke. He not only wrote back but he notified my school that I was to be on the planning committee each month and help schedule the meals for the month. It was a great experience. It made me realize that the cafeteria ladies have little to work with, therefore they are NOT to blame and it's not nice to blame them. 

My parents worked a lot, all the time. They couldn't even think about packing a lunch. Luckily I wasn't alone and seriously have no recollection of any of my peers bringing sack lunches. 

What about you, did you grow up eating school lunch?
and now do you pack lunches for your kids?
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