Maybe it was a paper sack, crumpled and creased, taped together and shoved unceremoniously in a backpack every morning. Maybe it was a metal lunch box stuffed with the obligatory peanut butter and jelly sandwich and, if you were lucky, a Little Debbie cookie. Maybe you didn’t bring anything at all, preferring to eat in the cafeteria instead.
Regardless of what you ate or where you ate it, chances are you have strong memories of school lunch, where secrets were traded, sandwiches were swapped and books and pencils were set aside, ever so briefly.
Around 10 percent of students in the county and five percent in the city bring their lunch to school each day, but for the remainder, home-packed meals have given way to cafeteria fare.
Betty Clinton, child nutrition director for the Lowndes County School District, has seen a lot of changes over the 18 years she has spent filling bellies and nourishing bodies. Every year, she and her staff must work harder, get smarter, trying to stay abreast of federal requirements and taste trends.
You won’t find a peanut butter sandwich on any of the county’s campuses. The district’s schools are now peanut-free zones due to the growing percentage of children with allergies.
You won’t find whole milk or chocolate milk, either. Both have been cast aside in favor of low-fat and soy milk. Though deep fryers are still used in the county on a limited basis, they were eliminated five years ago from Columbus Municipal School District cafeterias.
Starches and white flour are being replaced with whole grains and wheat. Cookies and cakes are giving way to fruits and vegetables. Each grade level has its own nutritional requirements, and each meal is meticulously examined to make certain it contains the correct ratio of nutrients.
Recipe for success
The nationwide push toward healthier meals marks the first significant changes in the government-subsidized school lunch program in 15 years. The new guidelines are part of the continued roll-out of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which President Barack Obama signed in 2010. It’s slated to be fully implemented by 2013-2014.
Surprisingly, the children seem to like the changes, Clinton said, although it takes a bit of trial, error, and old-fashioned ingenuity.
To improve the palatability of bland vegetables, she and her staff are using more herbs and spices. To meet the required 1/2 cup of vegetables per day, she folds broccoli and other items into pasta and rice. Every food is cooked three different ways and tested. Whichever version sells best is the recipe she keeps.
For a while, she couldn’t figure out how to coerce elementary school children to eat cabbage. When she added tomatoes, onions and butter, and served it with cornbread, they polished their plates. Whereas they once rejected okra, she’s found ways to prepare it so they’ll pay 50 cents for an extra serving.
She said at $2.25 for a full-price lunch, it’s sometimes cheaper for parents to rely on the school cafeteria than the grocery store. That’s especially true in the city schools, where 80 percent of the district’s children receive free or reduced-price lunch.
Thomas Collins, food services director for CMSD, said whereas in the past they might have served ready-made pizza, now they bake it from scratch, using a whole wheat crust.
And whereas many schools have vending machines laden with sodas and chips, CMSD students won’t find a Coca-Cola or Snickers bar on campus. Their snack machines offer energy drinks and energy bars.
Happy Trails
As more students trickle through the cafeteria serving lines, other changes have emerged.
Gone are the days when choosing a new lunch box was an annual excursion, necessitating thoughtful rumination by the young owners.
While there were many ways to bring lunch to school each day, it became a more festive occasion in 1950, when Nashville’s Aladdin Industries introduced a metal lunch box based upon the Hopalong Cassidy TV show and inspired by an early prototype, the 1935 Mickey Mouse lunch box. Jealous over Cassidy’s newfound stardom, cowboy hero Roy Rogers demanded he and his horse, Trigger, be allowed to trot their way into the tin-top arena, too.
Today, many of those vintage lunch boxes fetch attractive prices on the collectors’ circuit.
“Toys and Prices,” a price guide to collectibles, keeps a running tabulation of the top 10 highest sellers.
If you have $13,500 lying around, you may be able to purchase a 1954 Superman lunch box. If that’s a little out of your price range, you can find lunch boxes featuring The Jetsons, The Beatles or Bullwinkle & Rocky for around $1,600.
For Collins, it was all about Batman and Spiderman, but when his children were young, his boys wanted lunch boxes emblazoned with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and his daughter had to have either Winnie the Pooh or the Powerpuff Girls.
Most of the lunch boxes he sees in his cafeterias now are made of nylon, which are insulated better and come in a multitude of colors, even if they lack some of the artistry of the metal bas-relief designs.
In the end, what mattered most was the contents inside and the company you kept while you ate.
Amber Brislin, executive director of Main Street Columbus, brought her lunch to Demonstration School every day, and every day, her mother included a special note saying she loved her or hoped she had a nice day.
Joe Higgins, executive director of the Columbus-Lowndes Development Link, showed early signs of a future in sales and showmanship.
Ham and cheese sandwiches? Instantly tradable for homemade cookies or potato chips. Milk? Infinitely better with a private stash of Nestle Quik.
Friday was pizza day, food wars were common and the playground was the path to pleasure.
“It was always a social time,” he recalls. “I liked being a kid. I’m not sure kids now enjoy being kids as much as we did. You just couldn’t wait until recess. I mean, yeah, there were broken arms and stuff … but recess and lunch time was when you got to hang out with your buddies.”
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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