eating good in this neighborhood

I know that I said that I wouldn't be talking about Lily on here much anymore, but I bet you're all wondering how school is going. Well, I can tell you it's been going pretty well so far. She is enjoying herself and loves her teacher, which I suppose are two of the main goals of kindergarten.

Now, I'm not going to talk about Lily, but I am going to talk about her meals.

I try not to be too obsessed with my children's diet. I try to be mindful and careful with what they eat, but not obsessive. A few weeks before school started I started researching different healthy, protein filled breakfasts to start our days. Why protein? Studies show that protein increases focus, which is a pretty important thing at school! Logically, when you think protein in the morning, you think eggs or peanut butter. However, Lily h.a.t.e.s. eggs. Like, if I gave her an egg to eat, it would make her physically gag to put it in her mouth. So, eggs were out of the question; and, since she has become tired of peanut butter, it was off limits too. I felt like just a bowl of cereal and some juice would not be enough to help her through the morning. Don't you remember being famished by lunch time at school!? I do! I couldn't focus past 10 o'clock! So during my search, I found a great website www.eatingwell.com (I actually found this site on a blog I read) that has been a huge help in not only planning breakfasts, but also lunches and dinners, too.

So far we've had lots of fruit smoothies, oatmeal, yogurt with granola, whole wheat toast or bagels and the one day we did have a bowl of cereal she had a banana to go with it. It's not perfect, but it's a good base for starting our days. After all of my research and making sure she was filled to the brim before leaving for school I find out that lunch is at 10:40! That's so early! I feel like if I'm working so hard to fill her up with breakfast, that she isn't hungry by her early lunch. I can't win!

As far as lunch goes, we decided that school lunch was not the way to go when planning healthy eating. For example today's menu for school lunch: corn dog, potato rounds, cookie, broccoli and cheese, mandarin oranges and milk. They do give the child a choice between chocolate milk and plain - but come on! Given the choice, what child is really going to pick white milk!?

 So, to break down today's school lunch:

Corn dog: The corn dog is something that my children get as a rare treat. We eat them during fair time and rarely when we go out to eat. You cannot call a corn dog healthy! I went to the nutrition information on one of these things. It wasn't pretty. In a corn dog there are 15 grams of fat and 4 grams of saturated fat! Plus, 80 milligrams of sodium. That's a lot - for even an adult!

Potato rounds: Okay, so after that fat intake you'd think that we'd be careful with the side dishes. Wrong. The potato rounds, according to Schwan's- Quick Taters Potato Rounds, have 11 grams of fat and 3 grams of saturated fat and 180 mg of sodium. Yikes!

Cookie: Chocolate Chip, Commercially Prepared, Soft-type: 6.9 grams of fat, 2.1 grams of saturated fat and 10.7 grams of sugar. Obviously Lily would be eating this first. Packed full of good stuff!

Broccoli and cheese: This would be okay if I knew that Lily's liked cooked broccoli, which she doesn't. So, wouldn't it be better for her if I pack some fresh broccoli in her lunch pail for her to eat? I think so! Plus, if you add up all the fat and sodium that she's getting in the rest of this meal with the broccoli and cheese, things do not even out.

Mandarin Oranges: Good, but packed with sugar. 39 grams, to be exact! She actually had mandarin oranges in her lunch yesterday. I packed the ones that are packed in water instead of syrup and have no sugar added. That made for a 33 gram reduction in the sugar content. She ate them right up and it was only 6 grams of sugar!

Milk: Lily's thing with milk is, she doesn't like plain milk if it's not cold enough. I know for a fact that if given the choice it would be chocolate milk every time. Not a huge deal if you didn't know that one of those chocolate milks have as much sugar as a can of pop! Also, not a terrible thing if she wasn't also getting another chocolate milk at snack time.

So, if you're wondering, this is how it all breaks down: 917 calories (she should be getting about 1,800 for the whole day!); 36.9 grams of fat; 10.6 grams of saturated fat; 900 milligrams of sodium (she's supposed to get 1,200 in her whole day); and 85 grams of sugar (she is supposed to be getting TWELVE GRAMS PER DAY!)

I also would assume that you'd like to know what Lily had packed in her lunch box today. Well, it was: fresh sliced strawberries and reduced-fat cream cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread; all natural applesauce with no sugar added; mild cheddar cheese cubes; pretzel goldfish crackers; and V-8 Fusion Lite, juice. Now, most likely she will have not eaten a portion of this lunch when I pick her up from school. However, by the time we arrive home, she has finished off what she didn't eat at lunch (her choice, I do not even suggest it).


Now, I started this by saying that I wasn't obsessive; however, I would agree with you if you said that the research I did for this post IS obsessive. I just can't get over it! I can't believe that they try to sell the school lunches as healthy. After doing this post I am even more convinced that I'm doing the right thing by packing Lily's lunch. I'd be crazy not to!