Throwing The Good Stuff Away?

I was so saddened after reading an article in yesterday’s NY Times, entitled  No Appetite for New Good-f0r-You School Lunches.

As per the corresponding photo from the piece printed on the 6th, the students are literally throwing away items such as bags of baby carrots, fresh pears and apples… anything that they find to have “no taste, no flavor and it’s healthy which makes it even worse”, according to one student who is a senior in high school.

The article referenced schools in several cities across the US, so it’s not just in one small area.   Even one employee of a cafeteria here in LA was quoted as saying she herself would prefer to to eat the junk: “Why would I eat chicken and an apple when I could get a Gatorade, a cookie and some gummie candies?” (all of which that particular school offers in vending machines and in their student store.

Rife with references to students finding vegetables to be gross, and wanting to be able to eat cheesy nachos rather than a fruit cup, one has to wonder where this all stems from.

What are these kids eating at home?

What are their parents teaching them?

If their only experience eating veggies has been so awful that they’ve deemed all of them to be ‘gross’, where does the responsibility lie?

What can we do to show the next generation that veggies are not actually gross and how fortunate they are to have them on their plates?