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School Nutrition: Buy It or Brown Bag?

Tribune photo by JAY NOLAN

Our new database allows you to compare the nutritional value in your children's lunch choices.

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By MICHELE SAGER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 3, 2009

TAMPA - Parents wanting to make sure their kids eat healthy at school have lots of information to guide them, whether their kids brown bag it or buy breakfast or lunch in the cafeteria.

An array of prepackaged snack items -- everything from cookies and crackers to fruit and nuts -- makes it easier than ever to load school lunches.

But some of the most popular prepackaged foods aren't as healthy as most parents would like. Many are loaded with sodium and saturated fat or are high in calories. No surprise that snacks such as Cheetos are high in salt, but so are Oscar Mayer Lunchables. A ham and Swiss Lunchables, for example, packs 930 milligrams of sodium in a single package.

Some foods aren't as healthy as they would appear to be. Low-calorie items such as sliced chicken and turkey can have high amounts of salt, while trail mix can be high in calories and fat.

Experts advise reading nutrition labels carefully and including lots of fruits and vegetables.

Hillsborough County school officials have made changes to encourage healthy eating among students who buy food in the cafeteria, such as switching to baked chips, raising the prices on cookies and moving popular a la carte options to the regular lunch lines.

But just because you encourage healthy eating doesn't mean students will.

Older students have the option of buying items such as pizza, cookies and chips a la carte. Mary Kate Harrison, general manager for the Hillsborough County school district's nutrition services department, said she wishes students didn't have as many a la carte options.

"Perhaps some day we'll be able to eliminate some of those items, but right now we can't do that because it's a revenue generator," she said.

While the school district's menu offers plenty of healthy eating options, it's also fraught with pitfalls. A grilled cheese sandwich, for example, weighs in at 471 calories, 38 percent of which come from fat. A sausage biscuit comes in at 300 calories, and 57 percent of those are fat. And pizza? A slice of Big Daddy pepperoni is 410 calories.

For now, the ultimate key to healthy lunches may be in what the students choose to eat.

"They can give you all kinds of healthy stuff, but you still are only going to eat what you like," said Riverhills Elementary fifth-grader Dineysha Cruz.

Reporter Michele Sager can be reached at (813) 865-1523.

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