Issue date: September 15, 1999

What's for lunch? Local schools offer more food options, but the most nutritious low-fat lunches still involve bagging it What's for lunch? Local schools offer more food options, but the most nutritious low-fat lunches still involve bagging it (September 15, 1999)

By JANE KNOERLE

Whether it comes in a brown bag or a shiny lunch box, kids' lunches are a never-ending chore. While school cafeteria lunches have traditionally been scorned for their mystery meat and soggy salads, Menlo Park, Woodside, and Portola Valley schools don't even offer the option. Each district is too small to maintain food service, unlike the Palo Alto Unified School district, which has 10,000 students.
Whatever the reason, local parents are exploring different options for the lunch bunch. Traditionally, it's been Mom who packs the lunches at home. I sympathize. Moving here from Shaker Heights, where my kids ate a hot lunch in the school cafeteria, what a shock it was to find I had to pack three lunches every day.
Sandwiches were usually of the bologna or peanut butter variety. When I baked cookies or bought special treats, the kids devoured them after school. Apples or bananas were tossed out or came back bruised and smelly in the lunch box.
It didn't help when my oldest son informed me a classmate at St. Raymond's School brought hot dogs kept warm in a thermos for his lunch.
Today there are many lunch options at local schools. Busy parents have requested them and kids like the change from brown bagging. "It's a godsend to wake up on a day when you don't have to pack a lunch. And the kids love it. You can only eat so many PB (peanut butter) sandwiches," says Pat McVeigh, president of the La Entrada PTA.
In the Menlo Park School District, each elementary school -- Oak Knoll, Hillview, Encinal and Laurel -- has its own program under the direction of its PTA. At Oak Knoll you can buy lunch five days a week.
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Divine Catering sells a hot lunch with such kid-oriented favorites as pasta or chicken nuggets. On Tuesdays it's bagels and smoothies and Thursdays it's pizza, hamburgers or tacos, which are sold to raise money for the PTA programs. Lunches are served outside from a trolley and kids eat at picnic tables. They can buy tickets or pay in cash -- no need to pre-order.
At Encinal School the PTA provides a hot lunch on Tuesday and Thursday, usually pizza, hamburgers, chicken nuggets or tacos. Parent volunteers supervise the lunch service which costs $48.75 for a 15-meal ticket. Treats, such as ice cream, are also sold once a week.
Several schools, including Hillview, La Entrada, and Phillips Brooks, contract with Lutticken's Deli to provide brown bag lunches. The lunches include a sandwich, cookie, apple or banana, and snack for $3.75; a half-sandwich lunch is $3. Children may order ham, turkey, roast beef, salami, cheese, tuna, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Turkey is the favorite; cheese is the least popular. "We have a couple kids who only want mayonnaise sandwiches," says Lutticken's manager Judy Congdon.
Popular snacks are licorice ropes, Warheads (sour candies) and peanut butter crackers. Lutticken's donates a percentage of its lunch profits back to each school.
A hot lunch is available at La Entrada three times a week; students may opt for just one or two of those days. In-n-Out burgers are delivered one day and PTA volunteers assemble a hot lunch, such as tacos or pizza, another. "There's a lot of intensive labor involved," says Mrs. McVeigh. The mothers pick up the food, assemble the tacos and snacks, cut up fresh fruit and veggies, and do serving and clean-up.
Woodside Elementary School has a problem getting catering service because it is so small. Total enrollment is 480, and the 60 kindergartners don't stay for lunch. "Vendors don't want to come out for less than 100 lunches a day," says business manager Toni Imbimbo.
Right now, Woodside Elementary is trying to put together a lunch program. The Woodside Plaza Lucky deli is making up a $4 lunch including sandwich, fruit, cookie and chips. The Catering to Kids firm is also coming out to the school two days a week. Continued participation, however, depends on how many children sign up, says Ms. Imbimbo.
Ruth Ann Wrucke's Crocodile Catering supplies lunches five days a week to students at Portola Valley's Corte Madera School. Mrs. Wrucke has been doing school lunches for 11 years and at one time served six schools. "It was far too much; now I've settled down to one school and it's wonderful.
Mrs. Wrucke offers a wide assortment: on Monday there is Chinese rice with sweet and sour chicken, chicken nuggets or a bagel with cream cheese. On Tuesday it's turkey with lettuce on a sourdough roll, roast beef on a roll, chicken burrito or a bagel. All lunches include an apple, cookie, salad, and milk. The kids will drink only chocolate, but at least it's milk, says Mrs. Wrucke.
The hot food and sandwiches are prepared in the deli at John's Valley Foods in Portola Valley. Mrs. Wrucke pulls in at 11:45 a.m. in her red pickup truck, puts the food into already prepared brown bags and heads to Corte Madera. "Every day I put out a tray of apples and a big green salad with ranch dressing."
Last year Mrs. Wrucke averaged 250 lunches a day from a school population of just a little over 400 students. A portion of the profit from the lunches goes to the PTA ($3,500 last year) and to the student council ($1,000).
Gregg Shriner of Divine Catering provides lunches for seven schools, including Ormondale, Encinal, Laurel, Oak Knoll and St. Raymond's. There are several options. Individual hot lunches are delivered to each classroom at Ormondale.
At St. Raymond's a buffet lunch served from the kitchen features three hot entrees, three sandwiches, and a myriad of side orders including soup, hot vegetable, baked potato, green salad and cereal. September 7 entrees were chicken fajita, cheese enchilada and noodles with parmesan cheese. Cookies and brownies are house-made from scratch, and fresh cut-up fruit comes with every lunch.
All the programs mentioned are in addition to the federally mandated lunches that schools provide for children who cannot afford to bring or pay for their lunch.
While attempting to provide more healthful lunches, most schools take the pragmatic approach that it's better to provide food kids will actually eat. Dumping the healthful stuff in the trash or trading carrot sticks for Red Vines still happens.
The Berkeley school board recently voted for a new program of organic cafeteria fare to include sandwiches made with organic bread and milk from cows that were not raised with growth hormones. The organic school lunch will feature veggies grown in school gardens and purchased from local organic gardens. The success of the new program depends on whether the kids will actually eat what is good for them or stick to their junk food favorites.
Let's do lunch

Some families prefer making school lunches at home because they can provide their kids with less fat-laden food, and more fresh fruits and vegetables. It is also cheaper. If you're packing lunches at home, a weekly plan is helpful in avoiding 7:30 a.m. panic and ensures having basic ingredients on hand. Let your kids help with the menu, so your careful preparations don't end up tossed in the school trash can.

Here are some other lunch box tips from an article, "It's in the Bag," in Vegetarian Times by Nava Atlas:

**Keep lunch supplies together in one place. Store lunch bags and boxes, sandwich bags, thermoses, plastic spoons and forks in the same area.

**Vary types of bread for sandwiches. Bagels, rolls, pita pockets, raisin bread and tortillas add interest to sandwich fare.

**Place flat dry-ice containers in the lunch box in warm weather or any time there are perishable foods, such as dairy products.

**Put small chunks of fruit, such as strawberries, grapes or melon, on wooden skewers or add a small container of peanut butter for dipping sliced apples.

**Carrot sticks or celery will be eaten if there is a small container of ranch or thousand island dressing for dipping.

**Muffins are a good change of pace when paired with a container of yogurt or a wedge of cheese and fresh fruit.

**On warm days pack a container of yogurt, another of fruit salad, and a roll with peanut butter or cream cheese.

**Pasta salad with veggies is a nice change. Kids like interesting shapes such as multi-colored twists, shells or wagon wheels.

**Try cereal for a change. Send along chilled milk and a banana for a nutritious meal.

Some other suggestions for lunches on the go:

**Make a week's supply of sandwiches at once. Wrap individually, placing all of one kind in a box. Take wrapped sandwiches from freezer in the morning. They'll be just right for eating at lunch. One mother keeps peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the freezer, just for emergencies.

**Send along lettuce and tomato slices in plastic baggies to add to the previously frozen sandwiches.

**Pack salad dressing in a container to pour over salad just before eating. Try stuffing pita bread with salad greens and veggies.

**Freeze a can of vegetable or fruit juice overnight. It will be thawed by lunch and keep the rest of the food cool.

**Keep poultry, eggs and mayonnaise mixtures cool at all times.

**Read the contents on juice boxes. While some are 100 percent fruit, on many the list of ingredients begins with water, fructose, and corn syrup.

**Avoid candy as snacks. Pack trail mix, dried fruit, sesame breaksticks, bagel crisps, pretzels, cups of applesauce or fruit yogurt instead.

Most families compromise, letting kids buy lunch once or twice, and carry their lunch the rest of the week. The important thing is making sure children are getting healthful food they will actually eat.