brown bagging it...

...or, more accurately, Mimi the Sardine-ing it. (A couple of years ago, I bought two lunch bags from Mimi the Sardine -- one bag for Pic and one for me. Love them!)

Today, Pic and I were discussing her upcoming entrance into kindergarten. I keep trying to psych her up for this (lame, I know, but for both of our sakes I need schooling to be a positive experience for Pic so I want her to go into it with a good feeling). Kind of as a side note, she told me, "You can make me a sandwich for my lunch, please." We talked about making our lunches together, the night before, just as I did when I was growing up.

I remember the cafeteria and some of the breakfast and lunch choices offered when I was in elementary school. I rarely ever ate school food. I much preferred to bring my food, but I remember feeling odd for this (and for oh-so-many other reasons). I remember the other students actually liking school lunches and I was always mystified by this.

In the transition to middle school, the choices seemed to go from pretty bland to really gross. Even then, I knew the food (ham-and-melted-cheddar sandwiches, greasy pizza, nachos with processed cheese food stuff, ecc) couldn't have been healthy. I continued to bring lunch throughout high school, though I didn't always eat lunch by then. (Early in high school, our campus was closed and we couldn't leave to go home and eat or eat out. We had a "nutrition break" instead. I think this is accurate.)

I sure didn't grow up in a super-privileged area of Vegas. My high school was sometimes lovingly and sometimes derogatorily dubbed a "ghetto" school. I'm sure many thought of both my elementary school and middle school the same way. (I'm not sure about the sixth-grade center I attended.) My parents always worked at least full-time to provide for us, but I have never, thankfully, wanted for anything necessary. Now that I'm older, I consider myself lucky to have been able to bring a lunch every day. I also had breakfast and dinner every day. And snacks.

Now, much later, I know that many, many students don't share in this kind of bounty. I didn't really know much about free and reduced lunches when I was younger. I know a bit more now and I'm definitely thankful that I didn't have to rely on one meal a day, provided by the school. I'm hoping that Pic never has to, either. I am interested in what the lunch options will be when she starts school. Will healthy food be offered? Will it be cheap (and in what ways)? I have a few months left before Pic starts school, but the issue of unhealthy school lunches has been percolating in the depths of my thoughts for some time.

In the meantime: I came across Fed Up: School Lunch Project today. So far, Mrs Q, the writer, has pretty much stuck with documenting the school lunches being served daily to students at her school. She just started and I'm not sure if she's going to do something more with this at some point -- or if someone else will take her experiment further. As she points out, she might be risking her job for what she is doing with the blog, although she is not doing much more than recording daily lunch offerings (hello, bland-looking, way-overpackaged food).

This is one of those issues I come across that almost overwhelms me (okay, I'm easily overwhelmed). I want to stick my head in the proverbial sand. I want to opt out of this kind of system. But, who does that help? My own kid? Ugh. I don't want to get into anything too philosophical here now. I just wanted to ramblingly put the topic out there. And, I wanted to point out Mrs Q's blog -- should prove interesting.

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I feel I should add that although I'm not an expert on Biggest Little City neighborhoods, I'm pretty sure that we live in one of the nicer areas of town. (Feel fee to correct me if I'm wrong.)