Lunch Revolution Blog Party {Keeping It Real}

There’s been a lot of media attention lately given to the quality of the lunches offered in our schools here. Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution television series this past spring seemed to have kicked things off here in the U.S. I wanted to join the Lunch Revolution party because there are several good sites out there addressing the challenge to improve our children’s lunches too!

Mrs. Q over at Fed Up with Lunch is a teacher who takes a hard look at the food served in many of our schools and chronicles her experiences eating the food served at the school where she teaches and helps raise our awareness (by th way, if you go to her site, she’s having a contest this weekend for some great lunch item giveaways and lots of other bloggers have linked with their lunch ideas too!) Notes from The Cookie Jar hosts Food Revolution Fridays and even went on a Food Revolution Road Trip this summer (very inspiring–and I’m encouraged to see that our road trips are pretty close to what theirs was–at least much of the time!)

I must say I’m encouraged in my own city with the changes in the largest school district in our state, HISD and several surrounding districts as well. This news report highlights the district including fresh fruit and salad bars at some school. Certainly the changes will not come overnight but at least they are thinking about it! The school district where my kids go to school still has a ways to go but they, too, are thinking about it as they base their menus on the Square Meals program.

I hope my Back-To-School series has gotten you thinking about how you can change the foods your children (or even yourself) eat for lunch each day. I have to say, we’re not an all whole-grain, homemade-everything-eating family…at least not every day. But I would say we’re pretty darn close compared to a lot of people we know. Sure, it helps that I like to cook, but I think that the more I learn about the foods that my children are offered, the more I want to try and prepare foods that are good for them and taste good too (generally the two go hand in hand!)

Melissa over at Another Lunch offers up some great ideas as did my recent guest posters like Fix Me A Snack, What’s For Lunch at Our House and Raise Healthy Eaters. Michelle of Muffin Tin Mondays provides another fun way to make a healthy lunch for your kids and the neat presentation may actually get them to eat more too! There are so many ideas out there (check my Resource Guide page too for more) I hope you’ll find something that inspires you to make a change too!