What's in Thursday's Lunch - 5/27

On Thursday, we're having:

Meat or Veggie Taco
Bagel w/ butter or cream cheese
Ham and Cheese Plate / Sandwich
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

Sides:
Lettuce, Tomato and Cheese
Black Beans
Chilled Peaches

The meat tacos are made with various things but I believe right now they are made with USDA government turkey ground and processed by a large manufacturer. Call the food services office if you need to be sure it is turkey. The ingredients include turkey, onion, salt, spices, chili pepper, garlic powder, potato flour, cocoa, citric acid, autolyzed yeast extract, glucono delta lactone (a new one for me and the spell check!), torula yeast, soybeans, maltodextrin, wheat, natural flavor, water, food starch, salt. The salt adds up to 420 mg. So, not just ground turkey.

There's an alternative. We now have a veggie taco. It's made with our USDA canned corn you've heard about, canned black beans (beans, salt ferrous gluconate - 430mg of sodium) and salsa. The veggie choice is a new idea that came from the district nutrition committee. I think it's a better choice but it does taste a little sweet if you're not used to a lot of sugar. The taste test made me look at the canned corn label and this is where we found out the manufacturer had actually added sugar to corn of all things. This is permissable for USDA supplied foods.

About the sides- by all means have some lettuce and tomato. Cheese is a commodity. Black beans we have described above. Peaches -- canned USDA commodity food -- with added corn syrup and sugar - 16g total sugar. Processed in California but the label we have does not say the origin of peaches.

Lunch reviews, please! And we still need healthy and easy lunch ideas when you're packing your own.

Sara