What's in Friday's Lunch - 5/28

It's Chicken Nuggets Day -

WG Chicken Nuggets
Bagel w/ butter or cream cheese
Veggie Cheese Plate / Wrap
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

Sides:
Warm Carrot Coins
Chilled Applesauce
Chilled Pears

It's time to talk about the chicken nuggets. The USDA gives us some commodity chicken which we send to a food processor. We then pay the food processor to turn it into frozen chicken nuggets. These are made by Tyson. The breading does contain whole grains. However, for most of the year, the menu indicated these were baked. In fact, while we do heat them in the oven before serving, Tyson does fry them. The nuggets contain 42 different ingredients. Please read them yourself at http://www.northshore.k12.ny.us/Foodserviceinfo/nutritionlabels.htm if you are considering buying them. They also have 490 mg of sodium.

The nutrition committee asked for an alternative and you can now also get the Veggie Cheese Wrap. It's a tortilla (not whole wheat but maybe next year) with part-skim mozzarella, lettuce, carrots, peppers and cucumbers.

The good news: next year the district is planning on making this dish in house. They will buy chicken and central prepare it in the high school kitchen, bread it and bake it to make a significantly healthier version than what we have now.

On to the sides -- the carrots are a commodity. They are boiled in the can at a processor and contain salt and calcium chloride - 370 mg of salt. With the nuggets, the salt is really adding up. The applesauce is canned with both corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup and erythorbic acid. Now we have 18g of sugar. The pears have 14g of sugar and high fructose corn syrup. These fruits are also courtesy of the USDA.

It will be hard to avoid added salt and sugar today.

What do your kids think about the chicken nuggets? Let us know. Excited about next year's version? Please post a comment.

Sara