L.A. Schools' Healthy Lunch Menus Rejected By Students, Black Market in Flamin' Hot Cheetos Thriving
Posted on January 21, 2012
The Los Angeles Unified School District has spent tens of millions of dollars with its new healthy food initiative, after turning down Jamie Oliver's help in changing the menu for school lunches.
Instead of pizza and chicken nuggets, the menu features vegetarian tamales, Caribbean meatballs, black bean burgers, lentil and brown rice cutlets, and quinoa and black-eyed pea salads (those have been unbelievably unpopular, especially since they have been served ten days after the expiration date on the package). The plan has been an unmitigated disaster, according to the L.A. Times. The food is so bizarre and poorly prepared that students are complaining of stomach cramps, nausea and anemia. There is now a thriving black market in soda pop and Flamin' Hot Cheetos (the hottest junk food of the moment). Thousands of pounds of food is thrown away by students each day -- overcooked noodles, undercooked rice and unappetizing meat lands in the trash bin. Even teachers are complaining that the food is now more revolting than it's ever been.
So what happened? For one thing, the menus are too out of the mainstream for children who eat mostly fast food, pizza and chicken nuggets. The change to "healthy eating" really meant a change to what amounts to exotic foods they've never seen before, some of it overly spicy. Instead of changing from greasy burgers and fries to a turkey burger on a whole wheat bun with baked sweet potato fries on the side (a reasonable first step), the menu went from hamburgers to lentil and black bean cutlets. It was a bridge too far and now there's a full on revolt in the cafeteria. The entire menu is going to be scrapped and revamped. One official mentioned bringing back pizza, but with a whole wheat crust, vegetables and low fat toppings. That makes sense and will no doubt be a popular choice.
The menu was tested last summer and fairly positive reviews. But the test meals were made by chefs who knew how to whip up a tasty Caribbean meatball. The unusual nature of the foods make kitchen prep and execution hit and miss in the lunchroom. Clearly more training is needed for the cooks that have to execute the meals.