Which Are Better? Prison Meals or School Cafeteria Meals?

Food is a subject near and dear to my heart, and I know a bit about prison meals as well as school cafeteria meals.  My son Phil was (maybe still is) trying to produce a burrito for mass school lunch programs, but trying to do so within budget while maintaining the proper number of calories, fat, carbs and protein is quite a challenge.  He has produced his healthy burritos for several school districts in Colorado, but those small districts have different standards than the big districts.  They are unfortunately more interested in price than a healthy product.  Prisons, too, are all about the price.  Their budget of $2.62 a day per inmate does not allow for much in the way of fresh produce and meat.  Many canned  and fresh products that they serve are past the expiration date.  And the new nutrition pyramid that emphasizes fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains?  Forget about it.

A typical prison lunch will include the following:  2 slices of white bread with one slice of processed cheese or bologna, canned fruit cup, canned corn  or beans, fruit drink watered down.  A school lunch will consist of a slice of pizza, canned corn, canned fruit and a cookie, served with 1% milk, usually flavored (chocolate or strawberry).  Which would you rather have?  Neither!  They are both high carborate, high sugar, low fiber and very little protein. 

For many children who participate in the school breakfast and lunch program, these are the only real meals they have each day.  We can do better than to serve them meals that are below standards for good health and nutrition.  People like Jamie Oliver (celebrity chef) have done much to improve the lunches in large districts like Los Angeles, but have met with such resistance from the administration that very little has changed.  I do think that Los Angeles has gotten rid of flavored milk.  That's a start.  Small districts in socially conscious regions of the country have taken it upon themselves to improve the quality of food they serve to their children.  We've got such a long way to go, as I showed you last week, where I blogged about a typical French school lunch in a typical French village.

Prisons are supposed to provide a healthy diet for the inmates, but as you can see from the lunch I described above, they don't.  Budget restrictions make it necessary for them to purchase out of date food as the norm.  Very little in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables exist.  Lunches revolve around rice and beans, white bread and watered down fruit drinks.

Which lunch would you prefer?  I'd rather skip lunch and wait for dinner and hope it would be better.  (unfortunately in prison the dinner won't be any better).  It's not too hard to figure out why our kids are so fat.  Look at the fat, sugar and calories they are consuming, and the lack of exercise they get.  The results are predictable, and until we turn this around we are going to continue to be the fattest nation on earth.  (other than American Samoa).  Sad, but true.

For purposes of this blog I have given you a typical lunch meal in prison, and a typical lunch meal in many lunch school cafeterias.   You be the judge of who eats better, the prisoners or the kids.  More importantly, why can't we improve the quality of school lunch programs?  Individual districts and schools have made enormous strides, but overall the children are still eating a high calorie, high carbohydrate diet, loaded with sugar or corn syrup.