First-grade lunch: Honey, there’s no food in your food.

Feb 4, 2011 11 Comments CATEGORIES: Uncategorized

Ate lunch with my first-grader today … which is always a stressful experience.

I always find myself adopting all the kids at the table and trying to get them to eat something nutritious. Today, I watched the little girl sitting across from me eat (in this order):

Red Jell-O.
Chocolate milk.
Red Kool-Aid.
And a full-size Kit-Kat bar.

Then she told me that she was saving her chocolate chip cookies, fruit snacks (organic!) and Laffy Taffy for later.

I think she could tell that I was about to cry because she finally agreed to eat a slice of ham from her Lunchable.

Which prompted my son and his friend to talk about how great Lunchables are.

“I love Lunchables,” the friend said. “I mean I LOVE them. But my mom says we can never buy them. She says NEVER. She says … I mean, there are … Those contain things that you can die from.”

Word.

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11 Comments »

  • Amy said:

    I used to like Lunchables when I was little. Now, they frighten me. It’s just scary to think about eating them…*shudder*

    # 4 February 2011 at 5:06 pm
  • Rainbow Rowell (author) said:

    I don’t suppose they’re that bad once in a while. But kids eat the worst things in their lunch first — and this girl’s lunch was supplemented with tons more junk. The Lunchable came with two desserts plus Kool-Aid, and she had three more desserts and chocolate milk. CRAZY.

    I was also freaked out by how much packaging there was in the Lunchable. Everything was individually wrapped in plastic — and most of her food was thrown away before she unwrapped it. I notice that with almost all the kids. They throw SO MUCH food away.

    When I was in elementary school, we had a monitor who checked our trays …

    # 4 February 2011 at 5:15 pm
  • janelle said:

    whoa.

    What parent sticks all that candy and dessert in their kid’s lunch? How is a kid supposed to even get through the day on all that sugar? We were guilty of having “fruit” snacks in our house, but they are a treat or snack and I try to remind my kids that they are basically the same as candy even though they are called “fruit” snacks. In fact…I’ve stopped buying them, because they get plenty of other sweets and candy from holidays, birthdays, etc.

    Lunchables make me nervous. Even the “real” parts, the meat and cheese, looks scary.

    # 6 February 2011 at 11:01 am
  • Mike said:

    My last two girlfriends fed their children garbage- I could not stand to watch. The kids seem to demand sugary goo fuel these days, and the parents just cave in and supply it without backbone. Besides cavities and hyperactivity, the worst part is the lack of brain development that occurs due to missing nutrients kids need. This is a sad story and you have every right to cry.

    # 6 February 2011 at 1:26 pm
  • A said:

    my kids love lunchables but they rarely get them… they are a thing we get if say we r heading to the zoo or the park in the summer… just not a regular thing

    # 7 February 2011 at 11:32 am
  • Torsten Adair said:

    Yeah, a lot of food gets thrown away in school cafeterias. As a fifth grader, we were allowed to help the cafeteria ladies during lunch. One of us was the “bread” person on the cafeteria line… “peanut butter or butter” we asked, since regulations required bread. Kids didn’t want either, but we always had to give it to them.

    I mostly ate from my lunch box. Mom was pretty good at packing the lunches (and she is still a master sandwich maker!) I got a pretty good lunch, fairly balanced. It was cheaper.

    I would not be surprised, even if you bought the pre-sliced meat from Oscar Meyer, that a hand-crafted “lunchables” would be cheaper than the boxed version. And healthier.

    So… what did you and your son have for lunch?

    # 7 February 2011 at 1:45 pm
  • Mary Connealy said:

    Sadly, I usually eat the worst things in my lunch first, too.

    # 8 February 2011 at 8:03 pm
  • Rainbow Rowell (author) said:

    I didn’t eat (I hate school lunch; they don’t have all the good stuff I remember, like hot turkey and mashed potatoes with yellow gravy.) But my husband packs my son pretty awesome lunches. He had a chicken tamale, Mexican rice with lima beans (kid loves lima beans), broccoli and a juice spritzer.

    # 8 February 2011 at 10:10 pm
  • Rainbow Rowell (author) said:

    Oh, and Torsten, I remember those sandwiches. Do you remember the white bread/wheat bread combo?

    # 8 February 2011 at 10:11 pm
  • Torsten Adair said:

    Nope. But I still remember how to fold the silverware (before they got phased out for sporks). Once we finished our station (bread, milk, sink, racking, drying) we joined whomever was folding silverware. Once we ran out of silverware, we were done.

    That sink… about half the size of a bathtub… would become a sludge of desserts and other food stuffs. We always enjoyed watching the lunch ladies run the garbage disposal… a whirlpool of detritus!

    # 9 February 2011 at 6:49 pm
  • SokMok said:

    Lunchables are just processed foods that looks cute. Don’t be deceived, make your own healthy cute foods for your kid.

    # 25 May 2011 at 11:46 am