“When you are serving 400 kids how ya gonna make em’ all like it?” You don’t. They eat or they don’t eat. I didn’t like meatloaf growing up, but I ate it, or I didn’t eat. My mother was not a short order cook. She cooked, you ate, or you didn’t eat.
Don’t worry about what the kids will like or won’t like.

Parents have the option to make there children’s lunch if the kids won’t eat or don’t want to eat what’s on the schools menu. I like the idea of exposing kids to different vegetables they may or may not get at home – some will try it and some won’t – I’m just concerned about the amount of waste this may create and how much money will be wasted.

I think it’s great! I send my kids a healthy lunch and then they sit there and watch the other kids eat crap. Then I get to hear about how much they want hot lunch. Maybe if hot lunch was just as healthy as my kids’ lunch, then I wouldn’t have to hear about it so much )
Plus there are so many kids that are overweight. There’s nothing anyone can do if parents are feeding them junk all the time. At least this is one way to get something healthy into them.

Les what’s pathetic at this point is the fact that they have multiple choices of nothing but crap to eat. I agree with Jamie and Sporty either they eat it or they can bring their own lunch. If the parents want them to eat junk food all the time they can supply it to them.

Love it! I have been making my childs iunch on and off for years. The school lunches are so large and not very healthy. My child would love to be able to take hot lunch more and I would love to be able to let him with our the worry of it being so unhealthy. Love the idea of whole foods and no sodium.

So my tax dollars are going to go to pay for reduced lunches that are going to be thrown in the trash can. If these kids had money they could bring bag lunches. I personally would not eat black bean salad, spinach or roasted beets.
I’m sure my grandkids would not eat the above either.

I agree!!!! Waste of food and money.

Well said. I’m all for healthier food in schools, but this is insane, and they’ll play dumb when the lunches cost $1 more next year.

Does a tray of vegetables fill you up? No! There should be a protein, starch, vegetable, and fruit. This is all because of Michelle Obama. Kids are going to be throwing this food in the trash. What a waste of money.

This sounds kinda gross because I can picture big industrial size vats of black beans and spinach slopped on some plastic tray. I hope if they’re doing this, the stuff does come from vats because if it’s all farm-fresh restaurant quality produce it’s a big waste of tax dollars. Don’t have kids if you can’t afford to feed them a healthy lunch on your own.

Apparently WCCO decided to delete the comment I initially responded to, hmm, strange since I agreed with the comment and don’t remember anything offensive about it. Oh well, in summary, this idea is horrible! “Healthy” does not have to mean “crazy vegan dishes”.

I am always amazed when a group of adults who are interested in school lunches (you are since you read this article) are posting ignorant comments in regard to it. The point of the article was not to popularize beets or that every child will automatically love spinach-it is that the school systems are recognizing that there are issues with the healthfulness of the lunches and are trying to improve. It specifically says increasing the amounts of fruits, vegetable and whole grains, which I’m fairly certain doesn’t automatically mean vegan. If you all are so opinionated, perhaps you should direct your energy toward making better suggestions and support the positive changes the school systems are trying to make.