Does a Packet of Ketchup Count as a Vegetable? In Some Schools, it Does!

In the very near future, federal government regulations regarding the limiting of fat and requiring higher levels of vitamins and proteins in school lunches nationwide will be going into effect - and not a minute too soon. As parents, we continue to be worried about the increasing number of studies and research which shows the average American school child is already battling obesity and poor eating habits at a very young age.

In retrospect, the federal goverent rulings were themselves, to a large degree, responsible for the results of those findings. From my own personal experience, I can tell you this much. When we first moved to the state of New Jersey, my children were of elementary school age.

Their school had an annual Bring Your Parent to Lunch day; one day, as an adult friend and I were picking over some pretty poor salad pickings at this event, she noticed what our children, sitting next to us, were eating: cheeseburgers, milk and French fries.

My friend, who is a registered nurse, told me that she had always, always been frustrated by government standards that counted the small white plastic ketchup package, which her son was dousing his fries, were considered (by the State, at least) to constitute one serving of a vegetable!

I honestly thought she was kidding, so I checked with the ladies who worked in the school cafeteria the next day. Sadly, my friend was right: the cafeteria ladies showed me the 'official' nutritional chart that broke down protein and vegetable servings which were allowed in the school.

A package of (salty, processed) ketchup was listed as "one serving of a vegetable". No wonder that after the second grade, none of my children would eat cafeteria lunches. For years, I packed their lunches for them (peanut butter and honey/banana/preserves on whole wheat bread, bags of carrot and celery sticks, boxes of raisins, etc.) for them, until they were old enough to do it for themselves.

My youngest daughter has been a vegetarian for several years; now in her final year of high school, she does her own grocery shopping and prepares not only her school lunches each day, but usually her breakfasts and dinners as well. She is also planning to obtain both a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in college in the field of Nutrition.

I'm pretty sure that each and every one who might be reading this article is a very busy person with a very full life. It might be of interest to you, though, if you can ever spare the time, to visit your child's school cafeteria to see exactly what is being served on any given day. A lot of schools also send home monthly school lunch 'calendars'. While we're all bogged down with paperwork, take a second to look it over before tossing it.

There are really some healthy choices there, but there's also a lot of stuff (hot dogs, prepackaged and re-heated burgers and cheeseburgers, pre-made chili loaded with tons of salt and preservatives, to name just a few) that are also kind of disturbing. America is supposed to be a nutritionally enlightened country.

We know about fats and transfats, we know which are healthy foods and which aren't, we know the long-term effects of obesity - and yet we continue to offer the next generation some very poor choices when it comes to their midday meals.

But help is, apparently, on its way. Government rulings regarding the limitation of fats and requirements for higher levels of protein and vitamins are scheduled to be upgraded by the end of 2007 by way of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. (The Department of Agriculture is in charge of overseeing the nation-wide school breakfast and lunch programs.)

This being the land of the free, home of the brave, and the hotbed of enterprising food vendors, American school children can expect to see some new and pretty interesting changes next calendar year within their own school cafeterias. At the annual School Nutrition Association's meeting in July, a number of vendors presented some new alternatives to fried, breaded chicken nuggets, fat and calorie rich cheeseburgers, and greasy nachos with cheese.

At the Chicago meeting, food vendor Mark Smith touted the benefits of not only his garbanzo bean based dips, pita chips, and what Smith termed the 'new salsa of the decade' - single serving portions of hummus. "It tastes really good", said Smith, who is the vice-president of sales for Ziyad Brothers Importers of Cicero, Illinois. "The name hummus scares them (students) a little bit at first, but it really is a dynamo treat." East Coast based Perdue Farms, Inc. has been working on developing a number of tasty but also nutritionally sound food choices as well.

Chicken nuggets with a wholegrain breading was a flop, according to Doylene Jones, who is the company's national sales manager for school food services. "It came out looking like baked bugs." A promising alternative, and one of the company's best sellers so far since its development is chicken drumsticks and chicken 'bites' breaded with a partial wholegrain breading.

Both of these are provided by Purdue to schools with the intent of the school's cafeteria selling the prepackaged items. Food vendors such as Purdue and Ziyad are taking steps to taste-test their new products not only within their own company kitchens, but taking them 'on the road' as well.

Schools are being asked to host 'tasting events' for the students who will be the ultimate consumer of these products. Based on these 'tastings', vendors have received a thumbs-up on whole wheat pizzas - but bombed out on breaded baked fish.

Chicken breast pieces and drumsticks dusted with partially wholegrain breading, whole wheat pizzas, a single-sized serving of hummus with baked, not fried, pita chips - all are great steps in the right direction of educating the current generation of schoolchildren to the lifelong benefits of healthy eating.

Once the Department of Agriculture's new standards have been announced and put into effect, a whole new world of opportunity for food vendors and food service organizations will exist to come up with ideas for the next phase of tasty, nutritious offerings in cafeterias nationwide. It's time to put those white packets of ketchup back into the 'condiments' category!