One Teacher's Quest to Grade the School Lunch System

Striking a balance between affordable and nutritional is the dilemma faced by many school districts when it comes to serving students their daily lunches. No matter what class system children are coming from, all children should have access to food that will not have a negative impact on their health. At least that’s what Mrs. Q believes.

Who is Mrs. Q? She’s a teacher at an urban school somewhere in the Midwest, and she has recently completed a two year mission to investigate just what options are available in her school’s cafeteria, as well as what kind of an impact those option might be having on the children who eat there each school day throughout the year.

Mrs. Q, who remained anonymous for fear of losing her job, has been documenting the process on her blog, Fed Up With Lunch, and also intends to release a book about the investigation later this year. CNN recently reported on what Mrs. Q has been doing to collect her information and painted a picture of the ups and downs she had dealt with during the experiment.

In short, there were some days in which she suffered stomach aches from the food, and others in which she enjoyed what was served. For the most part, it seems as though Mrs. Q feels as though there is still plenty of room for improvement, but, toward the end of the experiment, she began to see progress.

"They started offering an apple, pear or orange -- not every day. They started adding grapes in a little bag, which was a step in the right direction. There were changes that I saw. People are starting to think about choices, and I'm encouraged,” she reported.

Mrs. Q intends to come forth and reveal her identity once her book is published. What do you think about this experiment? Will you read MRs. Q’s book? Do you believe that children are forming unhealthy eating habits because of the lack of healthy options at school? Is it a class-system discrepancy of does the system need an overhaul in general? Let us know what you think.

Around the Web:

She ate 162 school lunches -- and blogged it [CNN]

162 School Lunches: Would You Eat Them? One Teacher Did, And Blogged About It [Huffington Post]

Fed Up With Lunch: The School Lunch Project [Mrs. Q’s Blog]