The people in charge of school lunches should be ashamed

 We went to Ana's open  house last night and met with her teachers and her principle.  I think she's going to have a great year.  One of the papers sent home was the calendar for school lunches.  While I applaud Mrs. Obama's pet project, details of which can be seen here,Healthy hunger-free kids, they missed the boat.

A sample of the daily meals:

Children are required to take "at least 1 fruit or vegetable and at least 3 items, total of the 5 groups."

Now, I'm all for  more fruits and veggies in lunches, but let's be realistic.  Every day in the meats/grains category, the offerings are deep fried, breaded garbage.  All to be washed down with a carton of chocolate milk or watered down 1%.

But... you might say... they have the choice to take only fruits or veggies and a milk.  The meat/grain is optional.

This is true.  I will agree with you on that one.  But how many kids do you know are going to pass up pizza, chicken nuggets, cheeseburger sliders or burritos in favor of carrots and leafy green salad?  (My kids might, and I emphasize might, but they are far from the norm)

The country is so worried about obesity and fighting disease that we spend billions of dollars a year to stay healthy and thin.  Why isn't anyone looking at the foods that we are giving our kids from first grade on?  And then we expect them, at six years old to make healthy decisions and skip the fried foods.

Seriously?

There is hope.  Jamie Oliver started the School Lunch Revolution.  However,  America doesn't seem to be as ready for a change, or as open minded or open pocketed enough to implement the plan.